News: Bulldogs and Dragons both target Hopoate

[chris_niko]

cant believe the dogs are reportedly on the verge of announcing james graham signing and throwing money at hoppa too. i mean, they lose ben hannant and luke patten last year and have managed to buy a whole new team. what were they paying them? :s

 

[Masked Eagle]

I will be absolutely gutted if we lose Hoppa and we'd have no one to blame but ourselves (or more accurately management if we do). The one thing I hope it doesn't come down to is if young Hoppa wants to play fullback on a permanant basis and we can't do that for him.

I've said it before but we needed to make a tough decision last year and IMO that was not to keep Matai. I love him as much as the next Manly supporter but to me that centre spot should have been Hoppa's. Our best hope at keeping him is that he'll be happy playing on the wing in first grade for a year or two and Robbo leaves but if he (or his management/advisors) think he is better than that and wants the money to go with it, which is undeniably true, then I hold grave fears.

 

[torana355]

I've said it before but we needed to make a tough decision last year and IMO that was not to keep Matai. I love him as much as the next Manly supporter but to me that centre spot should have been Hoppa's. Our best hope at keeping him is that he'll be happy playing on the wing in first grade for a year or two and Robbo leaves but if he (or his management/advisors) think he is better than that and wants the money to go with it, which is undeniably true, then I hold grave fears.

Hoppa is as good as gone unless the club is prepared to let go of either Robbo or Wolfman aswell as Trex. The thing is we seem to have alot of loyalty and will not let go of anyone unless their asking price is too high or they want to go to England ect. I think keeping Matai was still a good decision, hindsight makes it easy for us to say Hoppa should have taken Matai's spot.

 

[Masked Eagle]

I've said it before but we needed to make a tough decision last year and IMO that was not to keep Matai. I love him as much as the next Manly supporter but to me that centre spot should have been Hoppa's. Our best hope at keeping him is that he'll be happy playing on the wing in first grade for a year or two and Robbo leaves but if he (or his management/advisors) think he is better than that and wants the money to go with it, which is undeniably true, then I hold grave fears.

Hoppa is as good as gone unless the club is prepared to let go of either Robbo or Wolfman aswell as Trex. The thing is we seem to have alot of loyalty and will not let go of anyone unless their asking price is too high or they want to go to England ect. I think keeping Matai was still a good decision, hindsight makes it easy for us to say Hoppa should have taken Matai's spot.

Hindsight? Well yes and no. Maybe hoppa has developed quicker than they hoped and really hadn't figured him in their first grade plans for another year or two but I'd be amazed that in their long term planning they haven't got teams mapped out for the next few years and figuring out who is going to play where. Thats how you should be doing your planning and knowing what positions you need to target to be competitive in the future.

Fact is though now he is ready for first grade and I can't imagine where he would be happy to sign a contract with us knowing he doesn't have a start each week in the top team. Especially when those suitors will be promising him the world. As I said, I hope he's happy to play on the wing because the way we are set up know with everyone available thats our best setup.

 

[torana355]

I've said it before but we needed to make a tough decision last year and IMO that was not to keep Matai. I love him as much as the next Manly supporter but to me that centre spot should have been Hoppa's. Our best hope at keeping him is that he'll be happy playing on the wing in first grade for a year or two and Robbo leaves but if he (or his management/advisors) think he is better than that and wants the money to go with it, which is undeniably true, then I hold grave fears.

Hoppa is as good as gone unless the club is prepared to let go of either Robbo or Wolfman aswell as Trex. The thing is we seem to have alot of loyalty and will not let go of anyone unless their asking price is too high or they want to go to England ect. I think keeping Matai was still a good decision, hindsight makes it easy for us to say Hoppa should have taken Matai's spot.

Hindsight? Well yes and no. Maybe hoppa has developed quicker than they hoped and really hadn't figured him in their first grade plans for another year or two but I'd be amazed that in their long term planning they haven't got teams mapped out for the next few years and figuring out who is going to play where. Thats how you should be doing your planning and knowing what positions you need to target to be competitive in the future.

Fact is though now he is ready for first grade and I can't imagine where he would be happy to sign a contract with us knowing he doesn't have a start each week in the top team. Especially when those suitors will be promising him the world. As I said, I hope he's happy to play on the wing because the way we are set up know with everyone available thats our best setup.

Ok i will put it this way, lets say Manly did not resign Matai, these forums would be full of anger asking why we didn't keep an international rep player. Then lets say Hoppa did not develop to first grade material yet, we would be down a quality center with ALOT of angry Manly fans including yourself. Like i said its easy to say stuff in hindsight

 

[conanu]

I reckon the reason we didn't sign anyone this year and we let Perry go was so that we would have extra cash for these guys. I don't think we lost hodgkinson to the dogs because we couldn't match the money I actually think Des wanted dce all along but didn't make that choice last year because he wanted to give dce a year in q cup and break him in. Hoppa won't go he has been a manly boy since he was born I don't think wolfman is gettin another contract unless it's dropped significantly and trex is gooorn otherwise Des would have picked him over oldfield yesterday. We don't have a really expensive team compared to some,I reckon we will be ok

 

[Masked Eagle]

I've said it before but we needed to make a tough decision last year and IMO that was not to keep Matai. I love him as much as the next Manly supporter but to me that centre spot should have been Hoppa's. Our best hope at keeping him is that he'll be happy playing on the wing in first grade for a year or two and Robbo leaves but if he (or his management/advisors) think he is better than that and wants the money to go with it, which is undeniably true, then I hold grave fears.

Hoppa is as good as gone unless the club is prepared to let go of either Robbo or Wolfman aswell as Trex. The thing is we seem to have alot of loyalty and will not let go of anyone unless their asking price is too high or they want to go to England ect. I think keeping Matai was still a good decision, hindsight makes it easy for us to say Hoppa should have taken Matai's spot.

Hindsight? Well yes and no. Maybe hoppa has developed quicker than they hoped and really hadn't figured him in their first grade plans for another year or two but I'd be amazed that in their long term planning they haven't got teams mapped out for the next few years and figuring out who is going to play where. Thats how you should be doing your planning and knowing what positions you need to target to be competitive in the future.

Fact is though now he is ready for first grade and I can't imagine where he would be happy to sign a contract with us knowing he doesn't have a start each week in the top team. Especially when those suitors will be promising him the world. As I said, I hope he's happy to play on the wing because the way we are set up know with everyone available thats our best setup.

Ok i will put it this way, lets say Manly did not resign Matai, these forums would be full of anger asking why we didn't keep an international rep player. Then lets say Hoppa did not develop to first grade material yet, we would be down a quality center with ALOT of angry Manly fans including yourself. Like i said its easy to say stuff in hindsight

Maybe. Although another reason why I thought we could have let Matai go is we could have had some money left to give Beaver another year so he could have filled in the centres pretty well!

I've seen some highlights of the great mans last few games. He's a deadset freak. You talk about role models. I couldn't think about anyone better to help shape the careers of some of our younger blokes about how to look after yourself so you are able to play your best each and every week.

 

[the mauler]

Apparently Hoppas already on big coin 4 an 18yr old(150g),and has been for a couple of years.Id let wolfman and robbo go, freeing up money 4 hoppa and oldfield.I rekon dessie has had a plan in place for retaining the young guns 4 a while.If Boyd stays with saints and Graham signs with dogs,wel keep Hoppa 4 sure.

 

[torana355]

Anyway all we can do is hope that the lack of big name signings over the last few years was to keep these young guys when the time come. Hopefully the Dogs throw most of their money at James Graham so they don't have enough left to get Hoppa aswell.

 

[Masked Eagle]

Anyway all we can do is hope that the lack of big name signings over the last few years was to keep these young guys when the time come. Hopefully the Dogs throw most of their money at James Graham so they don't have enough left to get Hoppa aswell.

Fingers crossed. Although I'm just as worried about the Dragons. They can pretty much offer him Darius Boyds fullback spot. I'd love for it to be done tied up sooner rather than later because with each passing game he is only saying to other clubs he's worth it. I think Hoppa senior is his manager. Hopefully that will mean something positive for us.

 

[swoop]

I think Watmough should realise now that if he' ****s up again we have the backup and the club will use that money to tie up some of our young guns.

And Cambo, before you start calling me a Watmough basher this post is not that I hope Watmough gets cut but puts pressure on him to perform to his potential on and off the field.

His last few games have been good.

We haven't made any major signings recently and it's hopefully because the club was saving the dollars to frontload the recent contracts so we can now compete with other clubs in retaining the personell we want to keep.

 

[Sheikheagle]

Haven't Illawarra Stgeorge earmarked stanley to replace Boyd at fullback. I hope the fact that we have been rumored to be chasing junior sau is not becaue we have already lost hoppa

 

[Masked Eagle]

Haven't Illawarra Stgeorge earmarked stanley to replace Boyd at fullback. I hope the fact that we have been rumored to be chasing junior sau is not becaue we have already lost hoppa

Junior sau makes no sense to me. The only reason that would make any sense would be if we were losing either Killer or Matai and not necessarily if we lost hoppa.

 

[lloydy]

I wonder if they can back end his contract so he can get Killers chunk of the cap when he heads back to pomgolia in a couple of years, because lets face it if the dogs throw 100k more a year than us he is gone

 

[bones]

I wouldn't care who was let go if it meant keeping Buhrer, Foran, Hoppa and Oldfield. These four are the guys we can build our team around for the next decade.

 

[Darren]

Hey, everyone loves my juniors policy now !!!

 

[Jatz Crackers]

Hey, everyone loves my juniors policy now !!!

Ha Ha. Very good.

 

[sydsider66]

Wont be good if we lose him.Might lose a lot of members too.Better sign him boys before he gets away.Hes already been talking with the mongrels.

 

[joeboy]

its a two fold effect isnt it.. if snake, matai and wolfman hadnt have been injured, hoppa wouldnt have been on show this early to get all the cheque books flapping, we all know the reality.. he came in, has shone every week and now we could lose him. cruel, cruel irony.

 

[torana355]

its a two fold effect isnt it.. if snake, matai and wolfman hadnt have been injured, hoppa wouldnt have been on show this early to get all the cheque books flapping, we all know the reality.. he came in, has shone every week and now we could lose him. cruel, cruel irony.

Very true.