Official Siosifa Talakai

Bundy Shark said:
Anyone have any intel on what he got per yr to go to Bears, or even speculate what he may have got?
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Depends how the Bears intend to use him and what sort of premium they were having to pay for players at the time of signing him. I really don’t know, but I’ll get the speculation started at $600,000.
 
Capital_Shark said:
Depends how the Bears intend to use him and what sort of premium they were having to pay for players at the time of signing him. I really don’t know, but I’ll get the speculation started at $600,000.
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I was thinking around that, at a guess, I’m guessing he was on around that with us?
When we signed him to that deal he was more than likely viewed equally a centre & edge forward & was playing enough minutes to justify it within our cap.

Full declaration, he is one of my favourites & I’m sorry to see him go, he turns 30 next April so by the time he finishes his 3 yr deal with the Bears he’ll be 33.5 yrs, hardly old.

IMO, I think we missed a trick not re signing him. Obviously the coaching staff know best & Fitz & Mooney know our cap, it’s restraints etc but I reckon all 3 of Toby, Oregen & BU would be around the 500k figure, if you believe reports, BU is on more than that.

IF, & I said IF, Bears got him for 600K I reckon we could have got him to stay for $500K
Which brings me to the point, I would’ve & wished Fitz & Mooney did, make him our #2 prop, with that, I mean by minutes played, whether that be as a starter with AFB or as a AFB type replacement & get him to pick up where AFB finished off his stint

I won’t be surprised if the Bears play him @ prop & It’ll make it all the more sadder if he kills it as prop.
 
I think everyone loves Sifa mate.

Plenty of evidence to say though that in the middle he works better in short stints. Will take a million carries but just doesn’t have fhe same motor defensively as Toby, Tommy or Oggy.

Such a great player to have in the squad. Not suited to be a 40+ minute prop though.
 
Bundy Shark said:
I was thinking around that, at a guess, I’m guessing he was on around that with us?
When we signed him to that deal he was more than likely viewed equally a centre & edge forward & was playing enough minutes to justify it within our cap.

Full declaration, he is one of my favourites & I’m sorry to see him go, he turns 30 next April so by the time he finishes his 3 yr deal with the Bears he’ll be 33.5 yrs, hardly old.

IMO, I think we missed a trick not re signing him. Obviously the coaching staff know best & Fitz & Mooney know our cap, it’s restraints etc but I reckon all 3 of Toby, Oregen & BU would be around the 500k figure, if you believe reports, BU is on more than that.

IF, & I said IF, Bears got him for 600K I reckon we could have got him to stay for $500K
Which brings me to the point, I would’ve & wished Fitz & Mooney did, make him our #2 prop, with that, I mean by minutes played, whether that be as a starter with AFB or as a AFB type replacement & get him to pick up where AFB finished off his stint

I won’t be surprised if the Bears play him @ prop & It’ll make it all the more sadder if he kills it as prop.
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He'll be a weapon if they put him on the edge as an edge back rower
 
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Sharkfox said:
He'll be a weapon if they put him on the edge as an edge back rower
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He’s a weapon full stop.
I can understand not wanting to pay a guy 500k that plays a limited minutes bench role most weeks.
Whether I agree with it or not, Brit, Teig & now Billy are all viewed as our go to edge forwards before him.
Other than AFB, I’d take him as my prop over our other guys but Sharks NRL Prospects doesn’t think he has the motor (& I’m guessing Fitz & the coaching staff don’t as well)
I just think come next season we are all going to be watching him & thinking, man, why didn’t we keep him or use him how the Bears are.
 
Bundy Shark said:
He’s a weapon full stop.
I can understand not wanting to pay a guy 500k that plays a limited minutes bench role most weeks.
Whether I agree with it or not, Brit, Teig & now Billy are all viewed as our go to edge forwards before him.
Other than AFB, I’d take him as my prop over our other guys but Sharks NRL Prospects doesn’t think he has the motor (& I’m guessing Fitz & the coaching staff don’t as well)
I just think come next season we are all going to be watching him & thinking, man, why didn’t we keep him or use him how the Bears are.
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Mate Mal is their coach, you have a lot more faith in him than me.
 
Bundy Shark said:
He’s a weapon full stop.
I can understand not wanting to pay a guy 500k that plays a limited minutes bench role most weeks.
Whether I agree with it or not, Brit, Teig & now Billy are all viewed as our go to edge forwards before him.
Other than AFB, I’d take him as my prop over our other guys but Sharks NRL Prospects doesn’t think he has the motor (& I’m guessing Fitz & the coaching staff don’t as well)
I just think come next season we are all going to be watching him & thinking, man, why didn’t we keep him or use him how the Bears are.
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It's not that I think he doesn't have a motor. The data says that:

- Of all Sharks middles he is the most likely to miss a high amount of tackles if he is on the field for a large period of possession against, and
- His highest output (in minutes) is in games where he is on for 60% possession or more, or when he plays 3 stints.

Sifa is not being held back. He is being used relative to how the possession swings go in a game, whether they have a spare interchange late in the game to give him a third stint, and whether they are chasing points or defending a lead. Fans love the way Sifa plays because of how Fitz uses him. Not in spite of it.

When the conditions are right Sifa gets more minutes, looks great and the fans argue he should play more. When the conditions are not right and Sifa gets less minutes the fans argue "he was great last week so why isn't he playing more?".

If you wanted to maximise the amount of time you can have him on the field as a middle I would say the best strategy is to have him play 3 stints of 15 rather than 2x20. Prelim last year a good template. 3 stints of 12-ish minutes.
 
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Sharks NRL Prospects said:
It's not that I think he doesn't have a motor. The data says that:

- Of all Sharks middles he is the most likely to miss a high amount of tackles if he is on the field for a large period of possession against, and
- His highest output (in minutes) is in games where he is on for 60% possession or more, or when he plays 3 stints.

Sifa is not being held back. He is being used relative to how the possession swings go in a game, and whether they have a spare interchange late in the game to give him a third stint, and whether they are chasing points or defending a lead. Fans love the way Sifa plays because of how Fitz uses him. Not in spite of it.

When the conditions are right Sifa gets more minutes, looks great and the fans argue he should play more. When the conditions are not right and Sifa gets less minutes the fans argue "he was great last week so why isn't he playing more?".

If you wanted to maximise the amount of time you can have him on the field as a middle I would say the best strategy is to have him play 3 stints of 15 rather than 2x20.
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Cheers mate, I’m not privy to all the data & am from the dark ages when it comes to sourcing stats etc
 
Bundy Shark said:
Cheers mate, I’m not privy to all the data & am from the dark ages when it comes to sourcing stats etc
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Nobody else is mate,

I spent 6 years re-watching games and recording **** like this in great detail. Very specific and with great attention to only capturing what can be measured objectively. I can't tell you who is "better" but I can tell you how and when players have been used. where they are taking their runs, who is more likely to get a quick ptb with 2 or 3 defenders in the tackle and a bunch of other things. I dropped off the forum for about 18 months because some people abused me personally over this, and don't share the data with anyone anymore unless a specific conversation comes up where it is relevant.

Only for 2020-2025 though. I 've got nothing on 2026 PVL-ball. I stopped that to concentrate on tracking the prospects. That wasn't possible before without BarTV & KommunityTV.
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
It's not that I think he doesn't have a motor. The data says that:

- Of all Sharks middles he is the most likely to miss a high amount of tackles if he is on the field for a large period of possession against, and
- His highest output (in minutes) is in games where he is on for 60% possession or more, or when he plays 3 stints.

Sifa is not being held back. He is being used relative to how the possession swings go in a game, whether they have a spare interchange late in the game to give him a third stint, and whether they are chasing points or defending a lead. Fans love the way Sifa plays because of how Fitz uses him. Not in spite of it.

When the conditions are right Sifa gets more minutes, looks great and the fans argue he should play more. When the conditions are not right and Sifa gets less minutes the fans argue "he was great last week so why isn't he playing more?".

If you wanted to maximise the amount of time you can have him on the field as a middle I would say the best strategy is to have him play 3 stints of 15 rather than 2x20. Prelim last year a good template. 3 stints of 12-ish minutes.
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Not exactly in the mold of what you'd think of as a Fitz player
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
Nobody else is mate,

I spent 6 years re-watching games and recording **** like this in great detail. Very specific and with great attention to only capturing what can be measured objectively. I can't tell you who is "better" but I can tell you how and when players have been used. where they are taking their runs, who is more likely to get a quick ptb with 2 or 3 defenders in the tackle and a bunch of other things. I dropped off the forum for about 18 months because some people abused me personally over this, and don't share the data with anyone anymore unless a specific conversation comes up where it is relevant.

Only for 2020-2025 though. I 've got nothing on 2026 PVL-ball. I stopped that to concentrate on tracking the prospects. That wasn't possible before without BarTV & KommunityTV.
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Are you still doing your website? Personally I'd still love to see the stuff you track, but I can appreciate the once bitten twice shy aspect given the **** you copped.
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
Nobody else is mate,

I spent 6 years re-watching games and recording **** like this in great detail. Very specific and with great attention to only capturing what can be measured objectively. I can't tell you who is "better" but I can tell you how and when players have been used. where they are taking their runs, who is more likely to get a quick ptb with 2 or 3 defenders in the tackle and a bunch of other things. I dropped off the forum for about 18 months because some people abused me personally over this, and don't share the data with anyone anymore unless a specific conversation comes up where it is relevant.

Only for 2020-2025 though. I 've got nothing on 2026 PVL-ball. I stopped that to concentrate on tracking the prospects. That wasn't possible before without BarTV & KommunityTV.
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Cheers mate, can I get your opinion of the below & how you think they’ll track from touted lower grade player to potentially the NRL & who you think is the current NRL player they remind you of most with their style & skillset.

Nikora Williams
Preston (played Jnr SOO for QLD & marked up on Nikora)
Liam Ison
Jaxon Lavender
Riley Pollard
Sam McCullouch
Felix (big unit, can’t remember the surname)
Cruiz Devine
Tom Dellow
Jontay Junior Bethan Misa


​

 
Proud Shark said:
Are you still doing your website? Personally I'd still love to see the stuff you track, but I can appreciate the once bitten twice shy aspect given the **** you copped.
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Thanks mate.

Nah - it wasn't a great format for presenting that stuff, and was a bit pricey. Also very few views on most posts. Figured there wasn't much of an appetite for that sort of thing outside of yourself and 1-2 others on here. Spoke back and forth to Sam about going on SharkCast and talking about some of the analysis stuff, but we never got around to making that happen. If I was able to find a better content management tool that let me just put the data in and have the graphs etc. generated dynamically that would have been nice, but it would also have bumped up the cost a bit.

The idea was to move to capturing snippets of video from prospects and getting that stuff out to the wider community. I've had a few personal things taking up my time lately (am learning Vietnamese and also trying to improve at guitar) though, so that is on the backburner for now. I might do that for 2027 now that I've compiled a whole bunch of background on the prospects. I'd want to do it legitimately though, so I might actually approach BarTV about using footage with permission if I put an ad in each video or something.

Back to Sifa...
 
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Bundy Shark said:
Cheers mate, can I get your opinion of the below & how you think they’ll track from touted lower grade player to potentially the NRL & who you think is the current NRL player they remind you of most with their style & skillset.

Nikora Williams
Preston (played Jnr SOO for QLD & marked up on Nikora)
Liam Ison
Jaxon Lavender
Riley Pollard
Sam McCullouch
Felix (big unit, can’t remember the surname)
Cruiz Devine
Tom Dellow
Jontay Junior Bethan Misa
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I will quote this one in the pathways thread mate.
 
Sharks NRL Prospects said:
Thanks mate.

Nah - it wasn't a great format for presenting that stuff, and was a bit pricey. Also very few views on most posts. Figured there wasn't much of an appetite for that sort of it. If I was able to find a better content management tool that let me just put the data in and have the graphs etc. generated dynamically that would have been nice, but it would also have bumped up the cost a bit.

The idea was to move to capturing snippets of video from prospects and getting that stuff out to the wider community. I've had a few personal things taking up my time lately (am learning Vietnamese and also trying to improve at guitar) though, so that is on the backburner for now. I might do that for 2027 now that I've compiled a whole bunch of background on the prospects. I'd want to do it legitimately though, so I might actually approach BarTV about using footage with permission if I put an ad in each video or something.

Back to Sifa...
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Do The Roar still take submissions? Could be a good way to dip the toe in whenever you get the itch.
That and a $20 ChatGPT subscription for the graph creation could be enough to tide you over.

I always thought your content was interesting. Keep us updated.
 
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