(Archived) THE RUMOUR MILL - Player Movement

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BurgoShark

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Actual article on Jack A. Williams.


They see him as a depth option at hooker.

The Dragons have signed the grandson of Immortal Reg Gasnier.

St George Illawarra have given ex-Sharks player Jack A Williams a shot at making his NRL debut after the utility agreed to a train and trial contract with the club last week.

The Dragons see Williams, the son of Gasnier’s daughter Kellie, as a potential hooking option and an impressive pre-season could land him a spot in the top squad as Andrew McCullough’s understudy.

Coach Anthony Griffin was impressed by Williams, 24, long before he knew of the family bloodlines.

“When we were on the Zoom meeting, someone from our end mentioned it,” Griffin said. “We’re giving him an opportunity in the off-season to train him as a hooker. He has played in the halves at Cronulla but he did a lot of work with them last year in the off-season as a hooker.

“He didn’t get to play much last year but we have watched a fair bit of tape on him. He is really quick and really skilful.”

Williams has long been earmarked as a potential NRL star. He came through the ranks of Cronulla’s junior system and has featured for the Newtown Jets in recent years.

Williams was on the cusp of a top 30 deal with the Sharks this year before he was struck in the throat in a pre-season match against the Dragons by ex-St George Illawarra prop Eddie Blacker. The injury left him in an induced coma but Williams returned about six weeks later for the Jets.
 

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I wish Jack Williams all of the best.

Have heard a load of good things about this guy. A deadset champ.
 

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I didn’t say the faster players get more ball.

The data actually says the opposite to what you are saying here. The last two seasons have produced more middle play, more one out plays, less red zone play, and less passing than we have had in the last 15 years - but we get periods within individual games where one team is rooted so the other team can do more damage in a shorter period of time.

This creates the illusion that the game is “faster”, but it’s not. Players aren’t running faster, hitting harder, or covering more ground than they were in 2005. The data shows this too. The only thing that is going faster is scoreboards.

Back to the reason why I objected to this statement: for someone to say that a player is not suited to the “faster game” is complete and utter bullshit.

What you can say is that certain forwards aren’t suited to playing the same minutes that they could before, since there are now situations that exist in the game that didn’t 3 years ago (having to defend for 20 minutes straight) but that doesn’t mean those players aren’t still every bit as effective as they always were when there is an even share of possession.

For Cotric (and probably a lot of outside backs) what you can say is that he has never been great defensively, and that playing on a bad team made this more obvious because he was defending more often against players who were given more time and space. Swap him on to a team where he gets to move up rather than backpedal and you have a different player.

Saying the game "seems" faster is fine, and anyone is fine to believe it. Using that as a foundation to justify other statements is just wrong, because someone thinking it is faster is not the same as it actually being faster. There is not a single way to demonstrate that the 2020 and 2021 seasons were any faster or more expansive than previous seasons in any way, and there is a shitload of data that says that they were not.
 

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Luke Thompson refusing to get the jab.
May request a release back to England.

If this happens the dogs are also going to chase brooks
 

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Gallen and the Flanagans with a camera crew at Captain Cook oval yesterday... did anyone see a story on the news from it? Just curious what it was...
 
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Gallen and the Flanagans with a camera crew at Captain Cook oval yesterday... did anyone see a story on the news from it? Just curious what it was...

Macedonian's league teams first training session with Flanno as coach and think Gal is helping out.
 
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bort

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Looks like Coen Hess not going anywhere - such a shame

Rumours Cheese might be back on the menu and allowed to go to market (rather than Storm ensuring they have him tied up) - suggestion it may be because he won't cop a jab
 

BurgoShark

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Looks like Coen Hess not going anywhere - such a shame

Rumours Cheese might be back on the menu and allowed to go to market (rather than Storm ensuring they have him tied up) - suggestion it may be because he won't cop a jab
Burgo will be disappointed, he's wanted him here for a while now.
Loves his effort on effort in D.
Are you guys talking about the Cowboys player of the Year?
I've been leaving him alone the last couple of years now that we have our own overhyped-when-young-and-picked-for-rep-duty-way-too-early-but-is-not-actually-very-good-and-costs-his-team-a-lot-with-garbage-defending-right-edge-back-rower

Well, except when he played in the the centres against the Sharks, but it's not his fault the coach picked him there. Oh - and Origin 1 2020 when I was screaming at him on my TV. Bennett must have heard me because he hooked him about 25-in and he didn't play again.
 
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Are you guys talking about the Cowboys player of the Year?
I've been leaving him alone the last couple of years now that we have our own overhyped-when-young-and-picked-for-rep-duty-way-too-early-but-is-not-actually-very-good-and-costs-his-team-a-lot-with-garbage-defending-right-edge-back-rower

Well, except when he played in the the centres against the Sharks, but it's not his fault the coach picked him there. Oh - and Origin 1 2020 when I was screaming at him on my TV. Bennett must have heard me because he hooked him about 25-in and he didn't play again.
Who on earth could you be talking about????? 😂😆
 
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