Harper's been so bad he needs to go

[Cameron]

the way Morgz was targeted and shown up in the finals reminds me of the job the storm did on Watmough in 2007 GF.
The blokes young and has plenty of upside in his game. I'm sure Des and his team will work hard on fixing the defensive weaknesses with him in the pre season.

the kid must of done something right he kept walker on the bench most of the season.

 

[silvereagle]

the way Morgz was targeted and shown up in the finals reminds me of the job the storm did on Watmough in 2007 GF.
The blokes young and has plenty of upside in his game. I'm sure Des and his team will work hard on fixing the defensive weaknesses with him in the pre season.

the kid must of done something right he kept walker on the bench most of the season.

I think he is a real keeper. We were only watching him play reserves at Blacktown earlier this year before the place locked down so a big move for him into NRL and then into semi finals....same year. I thought he did extremely well given the meteoric rise. Actually reminds very much of Steve Matai when he first came on the scene. Great defender but I remember at the time everyone was concerned about his speed. He turned out ok....as will this kid.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Actually reminds very much of Steve Matai when he first came on the scene. Great defender but I remember at the time everyone was concerned about his speed. He turned out ok....as will this kid.

In his first few seasons Matai was also heavily criticised for his defence.
Luckily Des saw some talent worth persevering with, and we all know how that worked out.

 

[Snake]

I’m firmly in the ‘persist’ camp on Harper...

Rarely is a young centre the complete package in their first year in FG. He is no world beater but with our salary cap, we can’t afford world beaters so serviceable centres will have to do. It’s the price you have to pay for having DCE and Turbo, etc.

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

I’m firmly in the ‘persist’ camp on Harper...

Rarely is a young centre the complete package in their first year in FG. He is no world beater but with our salary cap, we can’t afford world beaters so serviceable centres will have to do. It’s the price you have to pay for having DCE and Turbo, etc.

This year will have done him wonders , I see him very much like an early Steve Matai ( who was much maligned in his early stages ).

 

[manly al]

May have been just a combination of losing a bit of confidence and a slight injury concern for Morgan , Certainly does not lack dedication , not too sure if the comparisons with Skivvy Matai is all that relevant , he did develop into a truly block busting centre type , be surprised if Harper can emulate that trait , Good positional centre and reasonably elusive when he is on his game , usually vigorous defence [ well at least against the less rated sides ] good combination occasionally with Saab . Still think that Manly need at least one strike centre to go to the next level and really challenge for a title . Koula seems the real hope assuming Suli is definitely leaving . Just have to wait and see , an area that does really need some improvement to match the big gun sides '

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Centre is quite a tough position to shine in. Historically your match winners are in other positions.

In fact very few centres have won the major awards over the years:
43 Dally M Medals - no centre has ever won it
67 Clive Churchill Medals - Fulton is the only one
18 Wally Lewis Medals - only 2 centres have ever won it, Inglis and Turbo

 

[Mataiforever]

whether you want to persist with him or not surely no one here thinks a centre combo of harper and parker is nearly scary enough in attack? look at the rest of the top 8s centre
storm - olam, smith
panthers - burton, mom
souths - gaigai, graham
eels - penisini, blake (weaker, penisini is a gun but)
chooks - manu, keighran
knights - best, ? mann?
titans - kelly, herbet

i don't think there is a single centre pairing that is worse than ours there^

 

[The better Robbo]

whether you want to persist with him or not surely no one here thinks a centre combo of harper and parker is nearly scary enough in attack? look at the rest of the top 8s centre
storm - olam, smith
panthers - burton, mom
souths - gaigai, graham
eels - penisini, blake (weaker, penisini is a gun but)
chooks - manu, keighran
knights - best, ? mann?
titans - kelly, herbet

i don't think there is a single centre pairing that is worse than ours there^

I dont think we win a comp with our current centre pairing.

 

[StuBoot]

whether you want to persist with him or not surely no one here thinks a centre combo of harper and parker is nearly scary enough in attack? look at the rest of the top 8s centre
storm - olam, smith
panthers - burton, mom
souths - gaigai, graham
eels - penisini, blake (weaker, penisini is a gun but)
chooks - manu, keighran
knights - best, ? mann?
titans - kelly, herbet

i don't think there is a single centre pairing that is worse than ours there^

Yet our wingers are in the top 5 tryscorers so they must be doing something right.
How many times have Garrick and Saab gone over untouched because of what their centre has done?

Everyone seems to bang on about “strike” centres yet there are only three specialist centres in the top 25 try scorers - one of those is Burton and the other two are Reimis Smith and Brian Kelly, hardly what you’d call strike centres.
Suli is supposed to be a strike centre but has defensive and output deficiencies.
Would be interesting to see the defensive stats of each team’s centres to compare where ours rate.
In SOO specialist centres don’t get a look in either, why?

 

[40 years an eagle]

i don't think there is a single centre pairing that is worse than ours there^

How many tries do the wingers of all those "better than ours" centres score and how many tries do they concede?
Last time I looked RL was a team game with game-plans of the best way to win. Maybe there is something wrong with my eyes.

So many here want to blame this or that for the reason why we are not premiers this year, but I promise all of them that our error rate and our inability to win the middle are the only reasons.

 

[Mataiforever]

Yet our wingers are in the top 5 tryscorers so they must be doing something right.
How many times have Garrick and Saab gone over untouched because of what their centre has done?

Everyone seems to bang on about “strike” centres yet there are only three specialist centres in the top 25 try scorers - one of those is Burton and the other two are Reimis Smith and Brian Kelly, hardly what you’d call strike centres.
Suli is supposed to be a strike centre but has defensive and output deficiencies.
Would be interesting to see the defensive stats of each team’s centres to compare where ours rate.
In SOO specialist centres don’t get a look in either, why?

Strike centres dint need to be top try scorers. Your telling me Jamie Lyon and Steve Matai didn’t add immense value to the old Manly team, just because they didn’t make the top handful of try scorers each year?

Our wingers have scored a heap of tries due to our good shape and Tommy, the former is a team structure set up by the halves. If we had Justin Olam running off DCE, I’m sure we would have had a much different finals series as we would have had an added point of attack in our back 5, other than just 1: Tom.

Until one of our centres become a decent attacking weapon the top sides will continue to shut us down, as when you boil it down we have one threat out the back: Tommy.

 

[Mataiforever]

Yet our wingers are in the top 5 tryscorers so they must be doing something right.
How many times have Garrick and Saab gone over untouched because of what their centre has done?

Everyone seems to bang on about “strike” centres yet there are only three specialist centres in the top 25 try scorers - one of those is Burton and the other two are Reimis Smith and Brian Kelly, hardly what you’d call strike centres.
Suli is supposed to be a strike centre but has defensive and output deficiencies.
Would be interesting to see the defensive stats of each team’s centres to compare where ours rate.
In SOO specialist centres don’t get a look in either, why?

Also the SOO centres don’t get a look in because we have a handful of top fullbacks, maybe the largest crop of gun fullbacks we’ve seen. Both Tommy and Trell are versatile and star players.

This doesn’t mean the best centres at the top sides don’t add value to their team: Campbell Graham was miles better than any of our backs in our loss to Souths.

Joey Manu, Justin Olam not eligible for NSW.

 

[Mataiforever]

How many tries do the wingers of all those "better than ours" centres score and how many tries do they concede?
Last time I looked RL was a team game with game-plans of the best way to win. Maybe there is something wrong with my eyes.

So many here want to blame this or that for the reason why we are not premiers this year, but I promise all of them that our error rate and our inability to win the middle are the only reasons.

Exactly, Rugby League is a team game. What does “how many tries do they concede” actually mean???? Serious??? Rabbitohs, Penrith and Melbournes defence is miles better... you have seen first hand they concede few tries

 

[StuBoot]

Strike centres dint need to be top try scorers. Your telling me Jamie Lyon and Steve Matai didn’t add immense value to the old Manly team, just because they didn’t make the top handful of try scorers each year?

Our wingers have scored a heap of tries due to our good shape and Tommy, the former is a team structure set up by the halves. If we had Justin Olam running off DCE, I’m sure we would have had a much different finals series as we would have had an added point of attack in our back 5, other than just 1: Tom.

Until one of our centres become a decent attacking weapon the top sides will continue to shut us down, as when you boil it down we have one threat out the back: Tommy.

Of course Killer and Matai added immense value to our team, that’s not in dispute.
The point l was trying to make was that strike centres aren’t what they used to be, they aren’t as crucial to pointscoring as to an all round game.
What they lack in attack, they make up for in defence.
Yes, it would be nice to have a strike centre or two but I don’t see ours as a major problem like others do.
It seems these days that when there is a gun centre, they want to play fullback or 5/8 and the paypacket that goes with it so their days in the centres are shortlived.

Yes, we came up short this year, Souffs have for the last three years, I don’t think finding two gun centres means we take the next step.

 

[Jerry1]

To be fair we’re a top eight team. Very lucky to have made the four. I’d have liked us to go further but I suppose it is what it is. Can’t blame one man even though I was critical after the Melbourne game.
If we were going forward there would have been a lot less defending to be done.

 

[nightster]

If Suli could defend he would be a gun centre like Olam ... I like both our centres but I'd be happy to see Walker back in at the expense of one of the others and Lawton maybe to lock with with Jake, like Walker has been doing & Davey going into the second row

 

[The better Robbo]

I get w

Of course Killer and Matai added immense value to our team, that’s not in dispute.
The point l was trying to make was that strike centres aren’t what they used to be, they aren’t as crucial to pointscoring as to an all round game.
What they lack in attack, they make up for in defence.
Yes, it would be nice to have a strike centre or two but I don’t see ours as a major problem like others do.
It seems these days that when there is a gun centre, they want to play fullback or 5/8 and the paypacket that goes with it so their days in the centres are shortlived.

Yes, we came up short this year, Souffs have for the last three years, I don’t think finding two gun centres means we take the next step.

I get what you're saying but if you look back through the premiership winning teams of the past decade you won't find many/any ptemiers that had 2 defensive centres. The game has changed and the posithas changed but having that X factor is still important.
If someone has time, id love to see the premiership centre pairings over the past decade

 

[Kaufusi's Elbow]

Harper's good. What's this post about?

 

[Kaufusi's Elbow]

I think Crockett & Tubbs are a good centre pairing