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The Rumours Thread

RedVee_8

Juniors
Messages
1,172
What a load of unbelievable shit. The Bulldogs have confirmed the signings of Kurt Mann, Drew Hutchison, Jake Turpin and Poasa Faamausili. Bastards.

How much have they got in their kitty. They have virtually signed a team in the off season.

Something is amiss here boys. How in hell have they been able to attract these guys? Well I'm not concerned with Poasa's signing but the others are goodies as back-ups.

Their image under Gould and Laundy must be paying dividends. What is wrong with us? We are lucky to sign one player let alone 8-9 players like the Bulldogs have so far done. Again, bastards!!!!
Dirty dogs
 

jak

Bench
Messages
3,478
What a load of unbelievable shit. The Bulldogs have confirmed the signings of Kurt Mann, Drew Hutchison, Jake Turpin and Poasa Faamausili. Bastards.

How much have they got in their kitty. They have virtually signed a team in the off season.

Something is amiss here boys. How in hell have they been able to attract these guys? Well I'm not concerned with Poasa's signing but the others are goodies as back-ups.

Their image under Gould and Laundy must be paying dividends. What is wrong with us? We are lucky to sign one player let alone 8-9 players like the Bulldogs have so far done. Again, bastards!!!!
come on dave, gus spent a lot of years learning all the tricks from uncle nick, you should no better.
 

Slippery Morris

First Grade
Messages
7,888
Are you really concerned with the guys the 4 Dogs have brought in, 3 of which are ex-Saints players? I would rather a junior shine in our ranks than any of these guys tbh. Dogs actually went well in their juniors last season so these guys are just blocking their pathways. They are filling their salary cap so the more of these buys they get the better? These type of signings remind me of the Hook days. Squad fillers.

I feel that we have seen the best of Hutchinson/Mann as for Kyle Flanno we may not have seen the best of him and he may stand out more than those 2 under Flanno. Same type of player. Flanno is a smart guy so for Flanno not to show any interest in any of those 4 he must have a reason. If 3 of these guys (Hutch/Poasa/Turpin) were any good, Robbo would have moved heaven and earth to keep them and they would have stayed for peanuts to be in the Roosters system.

Saints need a player signing that is better than what we have not more guys with the same ability or worse.

Surely Saints would not have offered Eisenhuth much?
 

The Word

Juniors
Messages
319
Are you really concerned with the guys the 4 Dogs have brought in, 3 of which are ex-Saints players? I would rather a junior shine in our ranks than any of these guys tbh. Dogs actually went well in their juniors last season so these guys are just blocking their pathways. They are filling their salary cap so the more of these buys they get the better? These type of signings remind me of the Hook days. Squad fillers.

I feel that we have seen the best of Hutchinson/Mann as for Kyle Flanno we may not have seen the best of him and he may stand out more than those 2 under Flanno. Same type of player. Flanno is a smart guy so for Flanno not to show any interest in any of those 4 he must have a reason. If 3 of these guys (Hutch/Poasa/Turpin) were any good, Robbo would have moved heaven and earth to keep them and they would have stayed for peanuts to be in the Roosters system.

Saints need a player signing that is better than what we have not more guys with the same ability or worse.

Surely Saints would not have offered Eisenhuth much?
100% agree. We've all got 30 spots to fill, if they want to fill theirs with players that are no better than ordinary at NRL level surely that's a good thing? It tells us they don't have a great deal of confidence in their youngsters.
 

mickeylane

Bench
Messages
4,991
What a load of unbelievable shit. The Bulldogs have confirmed the signings of Kurt Mann, Drew Hutchison, Jake Turpin and Poasa Faamausili. Bastards.

How much have they got in their kitty. They have virtually signed a team in the off season.

Something is amiss here boys. How in hell have they been able to attract these guys? Well I'm not concerned with Poasa's signing but the others are goodies as back-ups.

Their image under Gould and Laundy must be paying dividends. What is wrong with us? We are lucky to sign one player let alone 8-9 players like the Bulldogs have so far done. Again, bastards!!!!
It’s like filling up the shopping basket w a pile of 2nd rate veges.. pile of bog average signings.
 

BLM01

First Grade
Messages
9,946
It's probably the best result for him. He comes from the Blue Mountains originally, still has family there, he's almost guaranteed some first grade games when the Penrith stars are playing Origin. For us he's 31 years old, nearing the end of his career, probably a few injury concerns. I doubt we were all that interested in him. Probably offered minimum salary same as Penrith.
Does not his brother Matt play there too?
And Melb are in need of forwards
Why did they let him go?
Matt is a superior brother and he is fringe last year for the Pennies
No loss IMO, we do need depth but some younger up and comers would be more palatable
Aaron Woods is so desperate to play again they reckon he is playing under the min wage next year for Manly and Manly are also taking Brown.
 
Messages
2,501
Does not his brother Matt play there too?
And Melb are in need of forwards
Why did they let him go?
Matt is a superior brother and he is fringe last year for the Pennies
No loss IMO, we do need depth but some younger up and comers would be more palatable
Aaron Woods is so desperate to play again they reckon he is playing under the min wage next year for Manly and Manly are also taking Brown.
Matt is his cousin I believe. But yes, I'd prefer Matt to Tom.
 
Messages
737
Hardly earth shattering signings by Gus. Maybe Drew out of the lot, the other 3 are no loss at all. Doubt the kennel is doing cart wheels over those 4
Think you are spot on RedV13.
Drew would have been a handy pick up.
Solid utility with a decent kicking game.
Poasa shows a little bit of desperation to me to fill roster spots.
Shown the door by Robinson and now Bennett.
No thank you to the big fella.
If we can land at minimum at least two quality signings prior to Christmas, I can live with that.
 

Slippery Morris

First Grade
Messages
7,888
Don't we need to wait for the 10 day cooling off so we can hear who we signed..:D.

If so, hopefully Saints make some announcements on Saturday 11th November.

I was hoping Saints go for Nathan Brown as I feel he may add some value. Runs hard. On his day can be damaging but for Flanno not to be keen he must know something.

Fatala-Mariner would also be a solid buy but has had a lot of injuries of late so I can see why Dogs let him go.
 

Parko1310

Juniors
Messages
1,459
Don't we need to wait for the 10 day cooling off so we can hear who we signed..:D.

If so, hopefully Saints make some announcements on Saturday 11th November.

I was hoping Saints go for Nathan Brown as I feel he may add some value. Runs hard. On his day can be damaging but for Flanno not to be keen he must know something.

Fatala-Mariner would also be a solid buy but has had a lot of injuries of late so I can see why Dogs let him go.
I honestly don't think we're going to have much joy at all in terms of signings for next year. There is absolutely no one of any value on the market, so unless someone wants to leave their current club now for whatever reason, we don't have much to look forward to. Even with 2025, only Dearden from our targets for big names is still plausible. Anyone else who we have competition for, I don't know how we sign them at this point.

It's telling when you look at Flanno's comments in the media over the course of the last few months. His initial comments were that he wanted to sign "four or five" players for next year alone. Then about a month after that all of a sudden he was "happy with the squad we've got"? Then it was "2 or 3 before Christmas", and now the old Hook line of "because of the Dolphins it's been hard signing players". We've had Manu all but reject us, AFB staying at the Warriors, Cronulla refusing to release Tracey early, Curran signing with the Dogs over us, etc, etc.

Flanagan isn't all of a sudden happy with the squad we've got, he knows we're in big trouble, but he can't say that publicly. We are so thin right across the park and if we can't land some quality at least for 2025 (it's almost time to give up on 2024 already), I'm afraid we're really up against it for a long while. If that's the case, that we can't land some good players for 2025 either, we are in really dire straits in the short and long term. Our juniors can be as good as we want them to be, but if they come into grade without some solid players around them, they are going to get slaughtered.
 

SaintPeter

Juniors
Messages
318
Too many teams in this competition.
This off season lack of quality (players on/in the market) again reinforces what we witnessed during the season.
Some very mediocre games and some very obviously not up to first grade players running around.
Peter Vlandys got another team in but at what cost to the rest of the competition.
Wayne took all the Storm forwards and is now doing at the Dolphins(??) what he did at Saints, building a team around a strong pack of forwards (from other clubs).
 

Jersey No 14

Juniors
Messages
817
Hardly earth shattering signings by Gus. Maybe Drew out of the lot, the other 3 are no loss at all. Doubt the kennel is doing cart wheels over those 4

Canterbury (Buy) Dushbags.
Doing stuff like this should be inconspicuous
But
unless they win the comp they are going to look very average.
better and a given…
If the fail to make the 8; Well Such ‘o’
 

possm

Coach
Messages
15,937
Certainly it looks like similar trends to previous years. Our club just isn't attractive and that is part of the continuing lack of better signings. We could have either Bennett, Bellamy, Cleary or Robbo and still not get those players we need to make us a force. The image of the club from all of the bad years and Hunt's wanting out has made us look a poor destination maybe?

Money isn't always the thing to dangle to get players even if we will have a significant amount in 2025. The image of the Dragons to players needs a massive uplift imo.
It might be that Haran is given the target to recuit but is not a good salesman. Get rid of Haran, he has failed each year.
 
Messages
2,501
Hardly earth shattering signings by Gus. Maybe Drew out of the lot, the other 3 are no loss at all. Doubt the kennel is doing cart wheels over those 4

Trouble is, there's a good chance we will be without our star fullback for the start of the season, and we could be without our star five-eight for good. In those circumstances, Hutchison or Mann would have been useful pick-ups. Oh well, guess we'll make do with Bird at 5/8 and Paul Turner at fullback.
 

Parko1310

Juniors
Messages
1,459
Trouble is, there's a good chance we will be without our star fullback for the start of the season, and we could be without our star five-eight for good. In those circumstances, Hutchison or Mann would have been useful pick-ups. Oh well, guess we'll make do with Bird at 5/8 and Paul Turner at fullback.
This is what I mean with our depth. We are genuinely one injury away in the halves as it stands from having Bird at 6 and Dan Russell in the second row. We are also genuinely one injury away at fullback from having Lomax at fullback (we can pretend all we like, but he's a centre) and either Max Feagai or Tamale in the centres. Tamale's defence has been questionable although I rate him in the long term, and Max I just don't know what happened to his development. Injuries I guess stunted him for one year, but he is absolutely clueless defensively and even when he gets a shot on goes soft.
 

Coffs dragon

Bench
Messages
4,400
I’m sensing Flanno is full of shit with his talk of recruitment. The reality is he is he is severely burdened by that GM bloke Haran, whom is an anchor!

It’s like we now have a new jockey riding the same mule under the management of a dud trainer.
2024 is going to be tough going.
 

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