Ryan link said:
[quote author=clontaago link=topic=184862.msg287560#msg287560 date=1282813271]
Like Farrar was ever going to get a gig next year Ryan. Our recruitment dept should be praised for doing the swap in the first place. Look at our backs next year, he's not required.
Stewart
Williams
Matai
Lyon
Robbo
Williams
Whare
Oldfield
Try our biggest area of need though Doug - forwards.
And Kiwi, Choc, Stewart & Lyon were all already re-signed, but the announcements were held over to make Graham Lowe look good.
Also, we have NOT signed Foran / Matai. They could just as easily accept a rugby union contract on $500k. I heard that Tasi, JWH and Mitch Pearce are still trying to coax Foran over to The Roosters. It was from a nuffy on the piss, but I heard it none the less.
We've signed nobody, have told Beaver we can't sign him, and Lowe / Crusher / whoever has not signed anyone in his tenure except Harrison.
Add that to the fact we have lost our major sponsor, and a few silver sponsors.
If anyone thinks our forward packs looks unfit, old & injury prone now, imagine what they'll look like with an additional year under their belts. I have to agree with Darren in this respect.
Gone are the days where if we wanted to keep a player, they stay. Over 12 months ago, their appeared a loyalty pact amongst the group. This Lowe era has completely changed that in my opinion.
Sorry if that puts anyone off - I'm still not a fan, and are still yet to see ANY value add from Lowe (I'm excited to see what our membership numbers look like next year with him on board).
Again - he has done great things in NZ (I guess???), but in Australia - he's done nothing...except attend "events", and tell people what he CAN'T do. It's Chalk and cheese between him, and a young, innovative guy like Greenberg (who everyone is now saying may be rorting the cap due to his ability over the past 24 monsth to lure big name players like Pritchard, Morris, Ennis, Stagg, Eastwood & co. to his shores.
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You are playing the man again Ryan, something I am not interested in doing
You made the point about our retention being poor, I couldn't care less who it was running things when they agreed to sign, all I give a stuff about it that they are still in our colours, which they are, so retention is a moot point to me.
Foran and Matai's word is good enough for me. It was good enough for Peter O'Sullivan when he ripped into him for not signing with the Roosters too
For everyone that is saying " I want to see new signings". Well, if you want them, which of Stewart, Matai, Foran, Lyon or Watmough were you wanting to punt, and who are the signings people were wanting instead ?
You say loyalty and the days of players wanting to stay are gone, can you show me the evidence of this ? There are some in our squad turning down bigger money to stay. and the mail that Watmough took a slight pay cut to allow the club to retain Matai should show some sort of loyalty I would have thought ?
It is quite understandable that other clubs are making bigger signings than us, not many of them have the big names in their squad already like we have built over the years. I said at the start of the year if we could get away with only losing 1 of Perry or Matai we would have done very well, and it looking that way at the moment, although I am a bit sad about Farrar being a casualty as well
B Stewart, Matai, Lyon, Foran, Ballin, Kite, Stewart and Watmough is a very good core to base a team around