Today's Tele

[keeney]

Dorn close to signing

the knights are on the verge of bolstering their ranks with the recruitment of three players, including Manly outcast Luke dorn. The knights held talks with dorn last week and are awaiting an answer from the five-eighth, who has also had interest form brisbane and sydney. It is understood that former test centre Russell Richardson is certain to play for the knights next season once he has finalised his departure from souths. His rabbitohs teamate Jamie fitzgerald is also tipped to be signed, after relocating to newcastle to run a business.

AS much as i hate to say it, the departure of doogs, may turn out to be a good thing, with the acquisition of a out of form centre, who is capable of being almost as good as him, whilst being younger, and far cheaper. Also the likely acquisiton of two halves, one of whom is capable of playing lock, to bolster our ranks during the rep season. THe more i look at it, the less i care about him leaving.
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[Alex28]

Jamie Fitzgerald will be a good buy for basically match payments - he was an up and comer at St George who was thought of highly there, never got a fair go at Souths playing anywhere from Front Row to 5/8. He comes from Mudgee and was just something else as a young fella.

Russell Richardson is another player that suffered from the ineptness that is South Sydney. A player cant find any form when you are continuously shuffled about and playing firsts one week, reserves the next. Given half a chance he will go pretty well.

If Luke Dorn signs with us, it will be an absolute gift. He will fit perfectly next to Andrew Johns, give Kidley a chance to play a few different positions (namely fullback where i think he is probably most suited), and give Witt a few years to mature.

The post-Johns age is looking pretty good already...

 

[keeney]

the problem is now, we have an abundunce of halves, and fullbacks, if dorn moves straight into the starting line up, where will kidley go? HE isnt the best centre, and with gidley, hughes and richardson, hell hardly be needed. LIkewise with the wings, tahu, quinn and hall. Fullback, O'davis, young and salkeld. If we sign dorn, it will also render the signing of Witt useless, he doesnt need time to mature, hes 21 or 22 already, and with johns dorn kidley, and possibly jamie fitzgerald ahead of him. I dont know, i guess its a better problem to have too many players than not enough.

 

[antonius]

the problem is now, we have an abundunce of halves, and fullbacks, if dorn moves straight into the starting line up, where will kidley go? HE isnt the best centre, and with gidley, hughes and richardson, hell hardly be needed. LIkewise with the wings, tahu, quinn and hall. Fullback, O'davis, young and salkeld. If we sign dorn, it will also render the signing of Witt useless, he doesnt need time to mature, hes 21 or 22 already, and with johns dorn kidley, and possibly jamie fitzgerald ahead of him. I dont know, i guess its a better problem to have too many players than not enough.

I think it needs to be kept in mind Johns contract runs out next year, these signings could be a bit of insurance, most if not all of them are 1 year jobs? Kidley will fit in the side somewhere, centre, 5/8th, half when Johns is out, or even the bench utility.

 

[roopy]

the problem is now, we have an abundunce of halves, and fullbacks, if dorn moves straight into the starting line up, where will kidley go? HE isnt the best centre, and with gidley, hughes and richardson, hell hardly be needed. LIkewise with the wings, tahu, quinn and hall. Fullback, O'davis, young and salkeld. If we sign dorn, it will also render the signing of Witt useless, he doesnt need time to mature, hes 21 or 22 already, and with johns dorn kidley, and possibly jamie fitzgerald ahead of him. I dont know, i guess its a better problem to have too many players than not enough.

I like the fact that we look like having some competition to get a spot in the backs next season.
I don't think there are many standouts amongst all we have signed, so the fact that we have heaps is good.
Hopefully we will be able to have an in form set of backs every week in firstgrade, and have several performing in Premier League to try to grab spots as well.
I'm optimistic that Firsts, Premier League and Flegg will all have good seasons next year, but I think they may still have to bring in some forwards like Daniel Quinn, Hampson and Nolan to Premier League to make up the numbers, because many of our good players from this year, lile Tilse, Tolar, Worth, White, Brown and Bartlett could all play a fair bit of Flegg next season.

 

[keeney]

the problem is now, we have an abundunce of halves, and fullbacks, if dorn moves straight into the starting line up, where will kidley go? HE isnt the best centre, and with gidley, hughes and richardson, hell hardly be needed. LIkewise with the wings, tahu, quinn and hall. Fullback, O'davis, young and salkeld. If we sign dorn, it will also render the signing of Witt useless, he doesnt need time to mature, hes 21 or 22 already, and with johns dorn kidley, and possibly jamie fitzgerald ahead of him. I dont know, i guess its a better problem to have too many players than not enough.

I think it needs to be kept in mind Johns contract runs out next year, these signings could be a bit of insurance, most if not all of them are 1 year jobs? Kidley will fit in the side somewhere, centre, 5/8th, half when Johns is out, or even the bench utility.

sure his contract does expire next year, but do you think the club wants to let him go, or he wants to leave yet? What do you think the chances of him leaving are?

 

[Alex28]

witt is far from a starting squad member yet - he hasnt played any first grade yet. whilst i agree that kidley had a good end of season, he would get plenty of time on the ground as a number 3 half for the club for injuries and a utility player. i still think he would make a great fullback in 2005...

 

[Danish Moo Cow]

Isn't it great to see the coach is addressing the problem of depth this off-season? This is the sort of buying that'll make us a top 4 team next year: a healthy squad to start with, trim the dead weight in MacDougall, sign a number of capable youngens and all for the loss of one first grade regular. After a pretty dreadful season, this news is starting to brighten the outlook for next year.

Hats off to Hagen and Co.

 

[Holla if ya hear me]

They are all good signings
Dorn has to play 5/8-no question
Richardson has to play centre-big strong and with off season training will be back to his best
Fitzgerald might add some starch to the defence
Johns needs to do a fittler and retire from rep scene and devote his time to the club and teach th younger guys all he can for when he goes in 2 years [ belive anyway-contract plus a 1 year deal before he heads to england]
Then we would a whole heap of money to attract a class 1/2
Surely stuart would haveFinch up to scratch by then

 

[Alex28]

by that stage if we have Dorn and Witt up to scratch we would barely need Finch...

i know the "Johns at Lock" idea has been discussed before but if we have two young quality halves and Kennedy retires at the end of 2004, the idea has a hell of a lot of merit - particularly if he only wants to stick around for a year or so after that.

 

[Matt23]

Finch?...the Goosters can keep him.

 

[Holla if ya hear me]

Finch?...the Goosters can keep him.

Your right-what was i thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe the ST George half?-whats his name again?-terrible when they dont play for a while but i remember thinhing this kid is good
180 days to kick off 2004 :shock:

 

[Holla if ya hear me]

Firman!!!thats it :shock:

 

[Anonymous]

I realy hope these guys work out. We had a great history of picking up second graders and turning them into internationals. Hopefully we can get that back. Richardson worries me though......to be honest with u, i would have taken MacDougall over them any day. He is the best 3/4 we ever had.

 

[antonius]

sure his contract does expire next year, but do you think the club wants to let him go, or he wants to leave yet? What do you think the chances of him leaving are?

I reckon it's 50/50 if he'll stay or not. If your honest with yourself and look back at last season, Johns has lost some of that spark, there were times last year when he really looked like he’d rather be somewhere else. If that’s how he was feeling then I think he would seriously consider a change of scenery. You would also have to consider how much it would cost to re-sign him. To command the sort of money he is used too he would have to produce a stella season next year and be injury free. Decissions made next season will have a huge bearing on the success or otherwise of the club for some years to come.

 

[Doctor]

I'd be a bit worried if we're suddenly suggesting that Kurt Gidley is no longer deserving of a starting spot. He has performed well, in the absence of Johns, and managed to reach a standard as halfback that no other Knights replacement has managed - he is our next best half behind Johns.

I must admit I've seen very little of Witt and Dorn, so I'll conceed they may be good players. But they can't be that good if Manly and Parra no longer want them - two sides out of the top-eight searching for future stars decide that these two aren't good enough.

But as you say, the Knights have a tendancy to turn ordinary players into very good first-graders.

Regarding position next year - we're really dealing with hypotheticals at the moment. The Knights never have a full-strength side so why do we continue to select our best sides? For all we know O'Davis, Tahu, M.Gidley and Hughes will be out for most of next season with injuries - then you'd have ample space for these young guys to come into the top side. Likewise the front row could be the same.

Kidley, Witt, Dorn, Quigley, Ennis - there are only two positions really, and 5 guys ready to play them. 5/8th and bench-player - at the moment Kidley and Quigley have done a decent job, but perhaps Quigley is the man with pressure on his spot, Witt and Dorn may have to fight for that bench spot in order to press for a starting spot.

 

[Danish Moo Cow]

I'd have Kidley over Witt any day. At least Kidley has first grade experience and at the rate the Eels went through 5/8s over the past few years you've got to wonder why they hadn't tried him there. I'm a little disappointed that he is the default 5/8, but Kurt should be there next year if it's only between those two.

To be honest, I'd have loved us to have chased Michael Monaghan. But we went out too quick after Rudder left. Now we're struggling to pick up Dorn who we'd be better off with as well.

I think you'll find Dorn is on the outer at Manly more to do with their continual want for just buying an option rather than developing one. Ben Walker didn't work, so they went after Andrew Walker. Then they bought Monaghan who probably is a better long term prospect there than Dorn anyway. Don't be surprised that the new administration also had a hand in his cutting since he was part of the former board's plan of a few years ago.

 

[The Colonel]

You've hit the nail on the head about Witt. He stands up in some games - he scored 5 tries against a Manly side running second last and then when it mattered most hasn't been seen since. Extremely fragile and probably a good back up halfback rather than a 5/8. Live in hope you get Dorn......