(Archived) THE RUMOUR MILL - Player Movement

CrazyMatt · Oct 27, 2014

1990 sharkie said:
Nathan green signs an extension with dragons for one year

Another guy who has so far failed to live up to his U20's hype.

djhabib · Oct 27, 2014

sharks2010 said:
thought he was a done deal to us lolz

package deal with hampton

sharks2010 · Oct 27, 2014

djhabib said:
package deal with hampton

diers mate

Thresher · Oct 27, 2014

shire1976 said:
CHOGM, I don't really understand this thought that is often mentioned. Don't spend money now so we can spend more in the future. I'm pretty sure the salary cap doesn't quite work like that. You could try and front end some players, however they'd be under no obligation to do it and I'm not certain the NRL would allow it as it is a clear manipulation of the spirit of the cap. Back ending is common but it's much easier to argue a player gets more in later years of a contact in the same way an employee of any business can expect pay increases the longer they are in a job.

If we have the money under the cap it is not a waste to spend it and we are kidding ourselves if we think we'll land a DCE quality half in 2016.

I think that you could successfully explain front-loading a contract when you're signing someone who is a bit older eg Ennis. You could argue that his first 2 years at the club will be better than his last 2.

I couldn't see it working so well with keeping a player motivated though.

slide rule · Oct 27, 2014

shire1976 said:
CHOGM, I don't really understand this thought that is often mentioned. Don't spend money now so we can spend more in the future. I'm pretty sure the salary cap doesn't quite work like that. You could try and front end some players, however they'd be under no obligation to do it and I'm not certain the NRL would allow it as it is a clear manipulation of the spirit of the cap. Back ending is common but it's much easier to argue a player gets more in later years of a contact in the same way an employee of any business can expect pay increases the longer they are in a job.

If we have the money under the cap it is not a waste to spend it and we are kidding ourselves if we think we'll land a DCE quality half in 2016.

I think the point is that any decent player is probably going to need at least a two year contract to come over. So, if we give them a two year contract it will hamper our efforts to buy someone better in 2016.

CHOGM · Oct 27, 2014

shire1976 said:
CHOGM, I don't really understand this thought that is often mentioned. Don't spend money now so we can spend more in the future. I'm pretty sure the salary cap doesn't quite work like that. You could try and front end some players, however they'd be under no obligation to do it and I'm not certain the NRL would allow it as it is a clear manipulation of the spirit of the cap. Back ending is common but it's much easier to argue a player gets more in later years of a contact in the same way an employee of any business can expect pay increases the longer they are in a job.

If we have the money under the cap it is not a waste to spend it and we are kidding ourselves if we think we'll land a DCE quality half in 2016.

If we sign an expensive half this year, like Barba, it will probably be on a 3 year deal. So we take a hit in the cap for 2016, 2017 too. Even if it's only 2 years it's still a sizeable dent out of 2016. The thing to remember with the sharks is we have limited money full stop, so money we don't spend on players goes to other things that currently have no budget at all, like equipment, support staff, consults etc and they all contribute to a teams performance.

I just don't think we should just take the highest profile guy we can find this year out of desperation. There is probably a half somewhere off contract end 2015 who is going to have a blinder next year and suddenly becomes an option.

12 months ago Hunt was playing reserves I think.

Gards · Oct 27, 2014

Remember the Sticky years around 2009-2010 when we apparently weren't spending our full cap?
We still need to gives fans a reason to come through the gates and watch us and a budget squad is unlikely to give them that

Another season of failure just makes the hole we are in deeper and would likely result in more drastically rash and desperate decisions in the recruitment department at the back end of 2015
If fronting up with money for a player that improves our winning chances and we have the cap space then you do it

It doesn't mean you spend overs on nuffies for the sake of it but you also shouldn't hold back salary cap money trying to predict the contract availability of players in the future

evertonshark · Oct 27, 2014

Gards said:
Remember the Sticky years around 2009-2010 when we apparently weren't spending our full cap?
We still need to gives fans a reason to come through the gates and watch us and a budget squad is unlikely to give them that

Another season of failure just makes the hole we are in deeper and would likely result in more drastically rash and desperate decisions in the recruitment department at the back end of 2015
If fronting up with money for a player that improves our winning chances and we have the cap space then you do it

Agreed, if we're no chance of winning games then getting crowds of 3-4000 would see us lose a lot of money too plus give the f wits with their agendas more reason to want us booted out of the comp.

Gards · Oct 27, 2014

Winning is underrated - it does more for a squad, club and it's fans than any financial maneuvering or boardroom initiatives. It also drastically reduces the negative spotlight the media would otherwise have us in regardless of any side scandals. It's hard to be labelled 'rock bottom' or 'crisis plagued' when you are getting the 2 points every other week.

Spending money on new and better recruits in key required positions does not necessarily guarantee more wins but doing nothing almost certainly does the opposite

Capital_Shark · Oct 27, 2014

Gards said:
Winning is underrated - it does more for a squad, club and it's fans than any financial maneuvering or boardroom initiatives. It also drastically reduces the negative spotlight the media would otherwise have us in regardless of any side scandals. It's hard to be labelled 'rock bottom' or 'crisis plagued' when you are getting the 2 points every other week.

Spending money on new and better recruits in key required positions does not necessarily guarantee more wins but doing nothing almost certainly does the opposite

Gotta be better than (apparently) not spending money on a controversial sports scientist and his bag of tricks.

CHOGM · Oct 27, 2014

I think fully fit we will already win plenty of games next year. Remember we won so few last year because of injuries, not a talentless squad.

deano the p · Oct 28, 2014

CHOGM said:
I think fully fit we will already win plenty of games next year. Remember we won so few last year because of injuries, not a talentless squad.

I can't say I agree with that. Last year if we had of been fully healthy things would have been a lot better but taking Carney out of that squad makes a HUGE difference.

Even if we are fully healthy as of the moment we won't make the top eight IMO.

I'm hoping I'm wrong and Brown steps up yet again and becomes a good kicking option for us in first grade but as we stand we have a squad that is built for a grinding style of play with a coach that only seems to know that method and we don't have anyone with a decent kicking game. That points very heavily to failure to me.

HITMAN · Oct 28, 2014

CHOGM:829873 said:
I think fully fit we will already win plenty of games next year. Remember we won so few last year because of injuries, not a talentless squad.

Disagree. Some of our best performances this year was without alot of our top players. Unless Flanno comes back with a completley new structure for both our lacklustre attack and stagnant defence we are in for another dissapointing year IMO.

hamsy44 · Oct 28, 2014

deano the p said:
I can't say I agree with that. Last year if we had of been fully healthy things would have been a lot better but taking Carney out of that squad makes a HUGE difference.

Even if we are fully healthy as of the moment we won't make the top eight IMO.

I'm hoping I'm wrong and Brown steps up yet again and becomes a good kicking option for us in first grade but as we stand we have a squad that is built for a grinding style of play with a coach that only seems to know that method and we don't have anyone with a decent kicking game. That points very heavily to failure to me.

Agree partly with you there Deano but I don't think it is a that squad that is built for grinding but our style. Yeah our backline is not the flashest (although its getting better) but there are enough finishers that we could score tries if we let the players who can create do just that.

We have some really creative forwards who don't see enough of the ball - Arona, Sop, Fifita (when fit) Toops all are really smart (footy wise) players who can pop an offload properly, or do a bit of ball playing at the line. A good offload cause the defence to scramble to cover creating space for Holmes,Brown,Gagan.

But we don't give them that job we tell them to make metres, Gallen takes 2 hit ups a set (even though he is slow and takes forever to play the ball) and then give it to Robson to kick it to the fullback.

All down to our style - change our style become less predictable and we will go a lot better. If we don't (and we probably won't) then we will be fighting for 12/13 spot.

deano the p · Oct 28, 2014

hamsy44 said:
Agree partly with you there Deano but I don't think it is a that squad that is built for grinding but our style. Yeah our backline is not the flashest (although its getting better) but there are enough finishers that we could score tries if we let the players who can create do just that.

We have some really creative forwards who don't see enough of the ball - Arona, Sop, Fifita (when fit) Toops all are really smart (footy wise) players who can pop an offload properly, or do a bit of ball playing at the line. A good offload cause the defence to scramble to cover creating space for Holmes,Brown,Gagan.

But we don't give them that job we tell them to make metres, Gallen takes 2 hit ups a set (even though he is slow and takes forever to play the ball) and then give it to Robson to kick it to the fullback.

All down to our style - change our style become less predictable and we will go a lot better. If we don't (and we probably won't) then we will be fighting for 12/13 spot.

That's true there is ability to do more there but the sheer determination of coaching staff to not allow more ruins that.

Wade and Lewis are both capable of playing the edge and setting up plays but always end up cramped for room on the edge. Gallen, Heighinton, Fifita, Tupou are all very capable offloaders but never have appropriate support players.

Leutele, Feki, Gagan and Holmes have all shown what they can do when they get good early ball but they rarely get it.

Brown from the limited amount we've seen of him does possess a bit of spark but has so far not had many opportunities to work with it and Robbo is just inept as a half.

Hopefully Ennis brings in a bit of organisation and turns us around a bit but I just don't see it happening (don't get me wrong I think he will help but he alone won't be enough).

There are some deep issues with the way this side plays and other than a few games where we had most of our players out injured we didn't seem to be trying to fix it last year.

CrankyShark · Oct 28, 2014

hamsy44 said:
Agree partly with you there Deano but I don't think it is a that squad that is built for grinding but our style. Yeah our backline is not the flashest (although its getting better) but there are enough finishers that we could score tries if we let the players who can create do just that.

We have some really creative forwards who don't see enough of the ball - Arona, Sop, Fifita (when fit) Toops all are really smart (footy wise) players who can pop an offload properly, or do a bit of ball playing at the line. A good offload cause the defence to scramble to cover creating space for Holmes,Brown,Gagan.

But we don't give them that job we tell them to make metres, Gallen takes 2 hit ups a set (even though he is slow and takes forever to play the ball) and then give it to Robson to kick it to the fullback.

All down to our style - change our style become less predictable and we will go a lot better. If we don't (and we probably won't) then we will be fighting for 12/13 spot.

Which players should be making the bulk of the metres also taking into account Gallen takes fewer hit ups?

hamsy44 · Oct 28, 2014

CrankyShark said:
Which players should be making the bulk of the metres also taking into account Gallen takes fewer hit ups?

Our props. Fifita will do his thing and makes metres forward and sideways. We can have another prop on the bench with Ennis playing 80. So Four props doing the hard stuff up the middle 5 back-rowers looking to get one on one and make space for the fast guys.

Obviously there will be times when it will be ball under the arm for a set or two but give the players with the skill a licence to use it.

hamsy44 · Oct 28, 2014

Vave off to Manly along with Mason and Mateo - Lyon re-signed and Watmong off to Parra.

It's all happening.

CrankyShark · Oct 28, 2014

hamsy44 said:
Vave off to Manly along with Mason and Mateo - Lyon re-signed and Watmong off to Parra.

It's all happening.

That doesn't help.

hamsy44 · Oct 28, 2014

CrankyShark said:
That doesn't help.

We signed a like for like player in Houma so Vave is no biggie.

If Gallen was a decent bloke he would move to prop and solve some of our problems. A fifita and Gallen as starting - then you chose from Taga, D fifita, Prior, maybe even push Toops to prop. All first grade capable imo. Just need 2 more props for depth so get some young big things to go with Houma.

Top 17 2nd row is good, Lewis,Wade,Heighington,Sop and Arona/Toops plenty of skill, offloads etc but we have no real first grade ready backups.

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