Firstly, I am guilty of not tracking the players that made the Grand Final of Holden Cup last year, apart from Tom Trbojevic. All I know is that since making the GF last year, we have sacked the Coach (results based business and all) and we are on the bottom of the Holden Cup ladder... 3 wins away from the next lowest ranked team. By comparison we are only 13th on the NRL ladder. What I want to know is: 1. What happened to most of the players in that team? 2. Have our current NRL recruits been that much of an improvement on these players? Given that they would surely not cost as much, as well as have age on their side? 3. In the past two years, do we actually have another junior team with this calibre of players? And if we do, are we just not realising or utilising them? EDIT: I forgot to mention that long-time recruitment manager Dave Warwick was also sacked last year.
I think Parcell is one of the buys of the year as is Fonua-Blake. Koroisau, Wright are solid buys also. Walker and Taupau have been badly used by TB but have not played bad individually. Walker was playing 5/8 for 10 weeks so judge him in his last 2 games. They have been pretty good. Taupau has been used as an 80 minute backrower. He is an impact player and was not brought into the game by any of our halves this year not his fault. Myles was recruited to keep DCE as was Lussick. Myles IMO has been below his best but is another player out of position IMO. He is a tackler and offloaded, I'd rather chuck him at lock and have Jake at prop but Jake belongs at lock from what I've seen this year though. He is similar to Myles, a tackling machine but has the ability to ball play and kick which makes him a great lock. And also makes many more meters than Myles. Brown has struggled and as all the others has been played out of position. He is a utility a mr fix it, makes a solid dummy half and centre. Recruitment has been excellent IMO, TB has just used our recruits incorrectly. Trust me you will thank bozo for recruiting walker and Taupau in the future they are amazing players and will eventually find their best footy. As for last years NYC team. We basically only won games with Tom in them. He was the only star we had along with knight. All the other players where just solid. You take jt out of the Cowboys they are nothing. Similar to last years NYC team. They haven't got a go to player in the side. I think this year what has hurt us is not recruitment it is how the side is being made to play and how they are all having to adapt to new positions that aren't their best. We keep doing deep forward block plays which stifles the attack. It's so predictable. What does 2 front rowers standing in front of the play do, nothing. Next years recruits have to be utilised correctly so we can the best out of them. Start with a 5/8 and a centre, we could also use a good prop and second rower and also a solid winger and then IMO we would be sorted, but we have to get the 5/8 recruit right not another make shift half.
