Sea Eagles sign Parra Star

[Berkeley_Eagle]

Sea Eagles sign Parra Star

27/05/2008 - By Manly Sea Eagles


http://www.manlyseaeagles.com.au/news.asp


The Manly Sea Eagles today won the race to sign boom Parramatta under 20's star Tony Williams to a three year contract.

Williams is described by Manly's recruitment manager Noel Cleal as a "Frank Pritchard" type player and a future star of the NRL.

"This kid is all power and an explosive player who can play centre but is probably going to make his mark as a back rower playing on the edge as he matures."

“We are delighted he has chosen to join us - a half a dozen clubs were chasing his signature," Cleal said.

At 193cm and 106kg, Williams is a giant of a young man and a talented goal kicker with an 80 per cent success rate. He is a Cabramatta junior and is regarded as the gun player in Parramatta's elite Toyota Cup side (under 20's).

Williams was impressed with Manly's training and coaching facilities at the Sydney Academy of Sport when given a recent tour of the complex.

Manly CEO Grant Mayer said Williams signing was a major investment in the future.

"Williams is an elite youngster with an exciting future - it's a credit to our coaching and recruitment group that they can attract a young player with his ability to the club.
"Coming on top of the signing last week of Newcastle Knights five eighth Chris Bailey it has been an excellent week off the field for the club," Mr.Mayer said.

 

[Kiwi Eagle]

Massive signing, this kid is a gun !!!

The only bloke more excited about this signing than me i reckon will be Darren

He is a big unit with plenty of pace to go with it. He single handedly won Parra the under 20s match when we played them

I have no doubt he is destined for bigger things in the future.

I was expecting a let down when i saw the headline, the only bloke from Parra's top grade i would be interested in is Inu, but this signing is just as good. I guarantee Parra fans will be spewing over this

Well done Crusher and co, i remember thinking how awesome it would be if we had this bloke, now we do

 

[Kiwi Eagle]

LOL, this is one of the 1st blowups from the Eels supporters

http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/showthread.php?t=201049

 

[Downie]

ahahah, bloody awesome.

 

[The Wheel]

Great looking forward to Darren & Scubas thoughts on this one.  Maybe he is the replacement for beaver - now for a halfback?

 

[PONTIAN SEA EAGLE]

That colonel bloke on the parra website sounded really pissed must be a real gun this player.

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

the Parra fans are goin off about this LOL
http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/showthread.php?t=201049

ditto post to Kiwi's

 

[Ryan]

Darren will be blowing snowballs at 10 feet !! Hehehehe

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

from Parras website

EELS DISAPPOINTED AT WILLIAMS DECISION
4.48pm, Tuesday 27 May 2008
http://parraeels.com.au/news/news1785.shtml

Pirtek Parramatta Eels Chief Executive Denis Fitzgerald has expressed his extreme disappointment at the loss of Toyota Cup player Tony Williams.

The Cabramatta junior, who has featured in every one of the Eels Toyota Cup matches this season, this week agreed to a three year deal with the Manly club.

“We made Tony a very competitive offer which took into account his undoubted potential,” Eels CEO Denis Fitzgerald said.

“Our coaches have recognised and nurtured Tony’s abilities over the past four years as he’s progressed through Parramatta’s development program, which is the benchmark for all NRL clubs.

“Unfortunately Manly have come up with a massive offer, which was about double our offer, and our salary cap prevented us from increasing our bid for a player who is yet to play First Grade.

“We came into 2008 with a number of signing priorities, of which Tony was one, but we were not prepared to sacrifice other players who we also needed to re-sign, including Jarryd Hayne, Krisnan Inu, Ben Smith, Brett Finch, and Matthew and Kris Keating.

“We are disappointed that Tony and his manager have arrived at this decision but we know he will be doing his best for our Toyota Cup team this year and we wish him well for the future.”

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

he also kicks goals as well
31/45 78%
has also scored 5 tries

playing centre atm

 

[Canteen Worker]

Reading the Parra forum is classic. Maybe one or two have been taking note of the sorts of things said here from time to time.

 

[The Gronk]

Any relation to our winger?

 

[Pepi]

Great signing. Makes me feel a lot better after seeing Daniel Harrison go so well for the Dogs.
Way better value then dishing out big $$ for Tupou or Gallen.
I would say the kid is in the top 5 players in the NYC.

 

[Darren]

as everyone has said, HUGE HUGE signing!!! right up there with hargreaves as well but even better!!

I have watched Tony Williams every time we have played them and he runs riot. He was the guy I watched at Cabramatta who annihilated us in a junior trial, I thought it was David Williams oops at the time!! He was like a human wrecking machine and remember very smug parra fans saying "this IS our future" ha ha not any more!!!!

How the hell did Parra not have this kid locked up  :
frigging nuts!!!

This years match against us, he looked so far ahead of us it wasn't funny!!!  He truly has everything you would want in a junior player, speed, size, agility everything, he's like a mini sonny bill but is a back at this stage!!!

The great thing is he will be 1st grade ready next year!!! absolute dynamite signing!! he would definitely rate in the top 5 juniors in the nrl full stop!!!

Well done crusher and crew!!! yes, we must have offered big bucks and rightly so, but he sees a future with us, he was a cabramatta kid who had big ties to the eels

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

Any relation to our winger?

from LU
No relation to David. David is the brother of John from the Cowboys....Tony is a young Islander, a dead ringer for Feleti Mateo and just as talented. Which is why Eels fans are beyond fury at this news

 

[Chip and Chase]

Any idea of what sort of coin we have thrown at him. He sounds like he has potential but I hope we haven't gone nuts on an untried junior. It worries me when I see things like "Unfortunately Manly have come up with a massive offer, which was about double our offer", makes me think we have left some money on the table, or else Fitzgerbil is talking sh!t again.

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

If Darrens excitement is any gauge then I think it is money well spent

 

[Berkeley_Eagle]

a LU post from philstorm

Just to let you all know, the only reason that Tony signed with Manly was for the money. You don't have to believe me, but I spoke to Ton and he mentioned that he'd been given 800k over 3 years (mid-loaded, 200k now, 500k next year and 100k for year three), compared to 700k over 4 years deal at Parra.

The kid really loved it at Parra and you can take my word for it, if he had been offered similar money then he would have stayed.

 

[CliffyIsGod]

I would take that with a grain of salt.

 

[Darren]

so he loved it so much he left!!! what a load, I'm sure tony is sitting at parra leagues telling everyone what he is getting paid!! 

I can see our vision, quality signings of top kids like foran, cherry evans, hargreaves and now williams

money is not being spent in sg ball and matts but realistically why bother??

if hoppa son at 15 wants 100 plus per season we would have paid him nearly 400 grand by age 19!!! that is madness!!!!
Don't get me wrong, hoppas kid is awesome but can we survive tying up money in younger kids who may leave like tony williams anyway??

Isn't it just better to sign the williams etc at age 19 when they are looking for 1st major contract

next year hoppas son plays sg ball, we have real ordinary kids around him, we wont go close in sg ball, pay him decent money but not stupid money, if he was nearly 18 I would say yes, not a kid 4 years away from 1st grade