Recruitment, good , bad and downright ugly.

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We’ve certainly let some great players go over the last 5 years or more.

Obviously JWH was poached on a very big contract ( typical Rorters ) but players like Gutherson / Ramien should never have been left go.

And Shaun Lane , whilst no superstar is a very very handy back rower.

I get why we let Api go , it didn’t work but that’s not our recruitment teams fault.

It hasn’t all been bad , Koula will be a superstar, and there’s a few others coming through ( as long as they get a run ).

But overall our recruitment could only get a pass mark at best.
 
I thought Blacktown was meant to be a breading ground for stars, its worked for Penrith but seems to be a disaster for us.
We seem to struggle to get players that are future stars unlike the roosters.
I don't know if its the fault of the recruitment team or something is wrong at the joint and players managers are saying see what else comes up before committing to Manly.

We should have built on from the winning 2007-2014 era like the roosters have done, every player wants to go there with there recent success.
 
Pretty simplistic view if you do not consider the squad at the time

As an example Ramien was a good lower grade player but we had Lyon and Matai still in the team ...and was let go in 2016 when we signed Walker (yes signed as a 6 but we still had Matai and Lyon in 3 & 4)

Imagine moving on Lyon or Matai before their time?
 
Rothfield loves to put in the boot into us, especially his $hit of a side is heading towards 2nd spot, and he has both hands on it.
Was it our fault that Nicho Hynes lost his way years ago and a career in league was not a priority for him?, granted, he did mature later on, and Bellamy saw something in him that we knew he had, but just wasn't applying himself when with us.
As for Gutho, played a handful of games between 2013-15, before doing an ACL in his first game in 2015 and out for the year,he was quickly overtaken by Turbo as the successor to Snake, yes it hurts to see Gutho going so well, especially when it's Parramatta, let's not forget that Gutho did his knee again a couple of years later.
As for Api, yes that one hurts also, but if you had to make a choics then as to who to keep, hands down the choice would have been Fainu, we weren't to know that his preference was to be a gangster rather than a footballer.
Fck I hate Rothfield, and his opinions, they all ridicule him for them on the show
 
I thought Blacktown was meant to be a breading ground for stars, its worked for Penrith but seems to be a disaster for us.
We seem to struggle to get players that are future stars unlike the roosters.
I don't know if its the fault of the recruitment team or something is wrong at the joint and players managers are saying see what else comes up before committing to Manly.

We should have built on from the winning 2007-2014 era like the roosters have done, every player wants to go there with there recent success.
Obviously being from the area, I can tell you the area well and truly is the Rugby League heartland. Every club in the Penrith system has a minimum of 4 teams per age group, sometimes more. You only have to go to the local supermarket and you will see kids, parents etc wearing local team apparel anywhere u go practically. Any Given day of the week. There is plenty of talent out here to choose from, the only issue is the panthers will always get first crack at them. I also know they sign players with an ounce of talent in the local comps, just so they don't go elsewhere, whether or not they are truly serious about them. It is panthers territory, and every kid loves the panthers here. Hard to compete with, when they can throw cash at any kid they want. The penrith/blacktown city juniors is the biggest and best nursery by far. Unfortunately, blacktown workers will mostly get the kids unwanted, or already spat out
 
I saw an interview on fox on Victor Radley

And Victor Exposed our Brutal truths

Victor Radley's interview on fox
Did you like being the guy that physically dominates the opposition ?

Victor .....
Yeh , for sure . You need people like that in your side , I think Jarrod had done it for the roosters for the last decade and more .

You need some one with presence . You need some one that is Intimidating . You dont need one actually you need a few

You need hardness , You need Brutality , If you are going to win the comp you need all these things

Brutality and Intimidation what ever you want to call it that has to be a part of it

I am happy to be that guy , I am Happy to put my head on the line . I am happy to be one of the guys that do that
End of Interview

The Brutal question is how intimidating are we across the park ?
How intimidating is our NRL squad ?

Intimidation starts with the Leaders in the playing group
We have Gentleman Jake who hits hard but then apologises to players as they slowly get up to play the ball . .... I ask , Where is the Intimidation in that ???

The Brutal truth and the moral of the story is
We have passive players that try hard in our NRL playing group but they do not Intimidate the top teams
 
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In hindsight we are all fuking genius's. In hindsight Rothtool's mother should have shat him out in the toilet.
I know you Sparty . You are a good fellow . What you posted does not define you

I know our passion and dissapointments can get the better of us some times

But we all must be more graceful and think All mothers deserve respect just like our mothers

Every one deserves respect wether we like them or not

What ever comes out of our mouth defines us and not any one else

I hope you take this in a constructive way and have a happy and positive day feathered friend x
 
I know you Sparty . You are a good fellow . What you posted does not define you

I know our passionate and dissapointments can get the better of us some times

But we all must be more graceful and think All mothers deserve respect just like our mothers

Every one deserves respect wether we like them or not

What ever comes out of our mouth defines us and not any one else

I hope you take this in a constructive way and have a happy and positive day feathered friend x
Bozo you are right my friend. I take that back..
 
Pretty simplistic view if you do not consider the squad at the time

As an example Ramien was a good lower grade player but we had Lyon and Matai still in the team ...and was let go in 2016 when we signed Walker (yes signed as a 6 but we still had Matai and Lyon in 3 & 4)

Imagine moving on Lyon or Matai before their time?
I agree that circumstances need to be considered with stuff like this but I think in Ramien's case he is one we probably should've kept. 2016 was both Lyon and Matai's last years so there was a starting centre opportunity there for someone like Ramien. Walker/Kelly was great in 2017 but Walker never really played there again for us (after winning Dally M centre of the year!) and Kelly was gone after 2 years. Until Koula this year we haven't had any quality centres since then.

Nicho would've been nice to hold onto but you could argue he wouldn't be the player he is today without leaving us and then ending up in the Storm system. Gutho was never going to have a fullback spot with Tom around and was coming off an ACL injury. Lane has only started playing at a high level in the second half of this season and we have had better second rowers than him every year since he left. And we all know why we let Api go.

Main issue at the moment is how we have even more players leaving this year and a complete lack of signings, other than a fringe player from the wooden spooners. Surely we aren't filling our squad with players from our NSW cup and Flegg teams who both had poor years. Our cap must be in such poor shape and that's why we need to look at who is taking up most of it, and I'm not talking about Tom or Jake
 
I saw an interview on fox on Victor Radley

And Victor Exposed our Brutal truths

Victor Radley's interview on fox
Did you like being the guy that physically dominates the opposition ?

Victor .....
Yeh , for sure . You need people like that in your side , I think Jarrod had done it for the roosters for the last decade and more .

You need some one with presence . You need some one that is Intimidating . You dont need one actually you need a few

You need hardness , You need Brutality , If you are going to win the comp you need all these things

Brutality and Intimidation what ever you want to call it that has to be a part of it

I am happy to be that guy , I am Happy to put my head on the line . I am happy to be one of the guys that do that
End of Interview

The Brutal question is how intimidating are we across the park ?
How intimidating is our NRL squad ?

Intimidation starts with the Leaders in the playing group
We have Gentleman Jake who hits hard but then apologises to players as they slowly get up to play the ball . .... I ask , Where is the Intimidation in that ???

The Brutal truth and the moral of the story is
We have passive players that try hard in our NRL playing group but they do not Intimidate the top teams
Ah Bozo, if SPEED KILLS, is that not intimidating enough? 😉😳🤣
 
Des was the same at the dogs

He passed on signing Latrell Mitchell (how well did that pan out) and let Damien Cook and Mick Ennis go and kept Michael Liccha instead

Des has no fire in him now He hasn't rippled the door off a change room for years and his press conferences are bordering on Barrett's um er ah dribble

He has had too many head knocks and needs to go to Narrabeen retirement village
 
Gutherson was a bad loss but completely down to circumstances at the time

Ramien is still very unproven as a ‘star’ and hasn’t really taken yet. He is reliable enough and has the potential to secure a starting spot. Apply context of the time and it’s not too bad although as with all promising juniors it’s ideal to keep them.

Hynes was identified as a star rookie by many on here and Tbaz just fumbled him a bit, but he was still a fair few years away from coming good anyways so it’d be difficult to keep the faith both ways (ie. club confident in hynes, hynes patient and confident in manly’s vision for him)

With Lane, he chose to leave us. He was pretty inconsistent and careless at times, but also caught try-scoring form the year he decided to sign for bigger money with the eels. We had a fair few expensive forwards at the timeand with our salary cap composition we couldn’t offer him enough. At the eels he has had good seasons and bad ones. He is having a great 2022 but once again we didn’t really have a choice and we may have had to ride out his inconsistent performances for a few more years. In that time we’ve brought in more than adequate replacements (eg at the moment it’s Davey/Schuster and Olakautau). But the problem for us now is Schuster has had a shockingly bad season and wants to be at centre stage as a 5/8, Davey is a little injury prone (but we should’ve kept him imo) and Olakautau has some horrible defencive issues that will take some time to nit out. Not many people speak about his defence. Attack he can be a weapon but needs to do more for his outside backs. If
over the next two years he can’t improve his defence or attacking link-play i’d at consider moving him infield to lock.
 
Gutho was a mistake however that was under the Bob Fulton / Trent Barrett era and we signed Dylan Walker instead of Gutho.

Api was unfortunate as we bet on Fainu

Hynes was a Barrett disaster. I remember hynes being good in reserve grade for us.

We wanted to keep Lane however he wanted to leave from memory.

We wanted to keep jwh as well
But roosters offered him huge dollars and we won the comp the next year so we couldn’t fit him in.
 
We’ve certainly let some great players go over the last 5 years or more.

Obviously JWH was poached on a very big contract ( typical Rorters ) but players like Gutherson / Ramien should never have been left go.

And Shaun Lane , whilst no superstar is a very very handy back rower.

I get why we let Api go , it didn’t work but that’s not our recruitment teams fault.

It hasn’t all been bad , Koula will be a superstar, and there’s a few others coming through ( as long as they get a run ).

But overall our recruitment could only get a pass mark at best.
Didnt Lane go because of the treatment Hastings was getting from Barrett, because they were good mates
 

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