Caleb Navale

[Rafferty]

Everyone wants the flashy, fast players AND the defensive resolve… Croker and Jake are the unsung heroes of this side… just look at our record when Jake is not in the side…

Can only respect Jake and Froggy, but we’re not winning a comp with them and to be serious that’s the sole reason to play the game. If they are our unsung hero’s (and they probably are) we just don’t have the cattle.

While on Froggy we have four DH’s, him, Simpkins, Cum Tong, Jazz, and not one premiership possible amongst them.

I’m another that doesn’t understand JH being let go or letting him choose to be else where, he’d be a better option as a young fit option at 9 - 14 to play as a utility come second DH and cover for our halves, if we are to stick with Frog (I think JH will end up in South’s starting 13) Froggy’s days of playing a competitive 80 are behind him, (my opinion anyway as are Jakes) probably why we signed Jazz, utility, 14, extra middle, DH replacement for when Frog gasses, his playing future could even be a question mark, re his body holding up.

I’d rather we took the combined cap space of the 4 possibles DH’s above and bought a quality 9, yes I know, who? that’s another conversation, then elevated some young possibles to fill the roster.

Sadly similar with Jake and the cap his using, you could sign a premiership winning prospect, you’d get a quality middle, Tino, Yeo, Carrigan, Hass, May, Lenu, Thompson etc for those Dollars, possibly with change, that bring premiership potential.

I see our pack really struggling this year, DH and Lock are huge question marks for me and our prop rotation and second edge is equally questionable, anyway just my thoughts, guess time will tell, lot of people have us in the 8 and some even thinking top 4, which would be great, however my head says we’ll struggle to make the 8.

 

[manlyfan76]

I watched all of Fiji games. I thought Caleb read the games very well and was busy off the ball.
Not a world beater but showed good instinct. Ran hard.

Would not surprise me if he was looking to be a follower in his trial as he's not a first grader yet. Kind of being respectful to the bigger names.

Won't surprise me if he gets called up a few times this year.

 

[frank stokes]

Sadly similar with Jake and the cap his using, you could sign a premiership winning prospect, you’d get a quality middle, Tino, Yeo, Carrigan, Hass, May, Lenu, Thompson etc for those Dollars, possibly with change, that bring premiership potential.

I am a bit sick of the Jake salary cap argument… when we retained the turbos the dogs would have been more than happy to pay Tom $1.3M but he took $1.1M and Jake copped a pay rise… Jake has been and still is a $750K prop all day every day… he is on $950K because we kept the package…

People can argue “well let Tom go too, we have Koula and Hoppa” but we did not have them then at that time (Harper and Suli) and they still are barely worthy of tying Tom’s shoelaces…

You can’t win games if you do not stop momentum and make tackles and Frog and Jake do a sh*tload more of that than Guac or Bully or whatever other “fast” forward is the latest flavour of the month in our squad…

I am as sick of losing as much as anyone, agree that DH has been an issue offensively for some time, but Simpkins tackling is ordinary, GCKT is no better at passing, Tevaga will not improve offence and I have not seen enough from JH to think he is a better option than frog who is awesome defensively, decent (without being great) passer and is under-utilised with his kicking game… just not quick out of dummy half…

I have no problem having a discussion about Jake’s best position but personally I think the “we are better off without him” argument is embarrassing… as I said, look how we play when he is off the ground…

But until we get a premiership people will keep finding fault with players as we need people to blame and none of them are perfect… personally I think we let these 2 go and we won’t need to worry about scoring points as we will be spending 80% of the game standing behind our goal line…

 

[Waz13]

I am a bit sick of the Jake salary cap argument… when we retained the turbos the dogs would have been more than happy to pay Tom $1.3M but he took $1.1M and Jake copped a pay rise… Jake has been and still is a $750K prop all day every day… he is on $950K because we kept the package…

People can argue “well let Tom go too, we have Koula and Hoppa” but we did not have them then at that time (Harper and Suli) and they still are barely worthy of tying Tom’s shoelaces…

You can’t win games if you do not stop momentum and make tackles and Frog and Jake do a sh*tload more of that than Guac or Bully or whatever other “fast” forward is the latest flavour of the month in our squad…

I am as sick of losing as much as anyone, agree that DH has been an issue offensively for some time, but Simpkins tackling is ordinary, GCKT is no better at passing, Tevaga will not improve offence and I have not seen enough from JH to think he is a better option than frog who is awesome defensively, decent (without being great) passer and is under-utilised with his kicking game… just not quick out of dummy half…

I have no problem having a discussion about Jake’s best position but personally I think the “we are better off without him” argument is embarrassing… as I said, look how we play when he is off the ground…

But until we get a premiership people will keep finding fault with players as we need people to blame and none of them are perfect… personally I think we let these 2 go and we won’t need to worry about scoring points as we will be spending 80% of the game standing behind our goal line…

Totally agree Money in the Bank Frank!

I was also stuck on who JH was, then figured Humphries?? And…. well, no longer with us, so moving on.

Re Tom, he plays 17 games, we play finals. For mine it’s that simple. You wouldn’t say that about Lehi, Koula or any other outside back in our list.

Thought Simpkins tackling has looked a little better in the bits n pieces of the trials I’ve watched. I’d like him to start at 9 and Siebs give him a decent go. If he does well, he should be the primary 9.

 

[Dion Johnson]

but Simpkins tackling is ordinary,

Watching the two trials I thought Simpkin was good with his defensive game, put a decent shot on Dias in the second trial.

 

[frank stokes]

Watching the two trials I thought Simpkin was good with his defensive game, put a decent shot on Dias in the second trial.

I am only comparing with frog… I have just noticed that Jake’s tackling can be ineffective occasionally and he certainly does not plug the middle like frog does…

I do not dislike Simpkins and thought he looked quite good in his early games for us - definitely presents a 14 option to play in that Manase-type role…

 

[Phobia]

I am only comparing with frog… I have just noticed that Jake’s tackling can be ineffective occasionally and he certainly does not plug the middle like frog does…

I do not dislike Simpkins and thought he looked quite good in his early games for us - definitely presents a 14 option to play in that Manase-type role…

Something that hasn't been noted is that Croker absolutely carries our line speed, something which Simpkin doesn't do often. It's a team-wide deficiency.