Bearfax
Grizzly old fart
Jerry its like with Watmough and Glenn Stewart. Would have loved to see them finishing their career at Manly but one has to think of the future of the team.
Foran has done a fine job, but we have two young potential stars coming through in Schuster and Latu Fainu. Manly has made this mistake of holding on to a player too long in recent times, and losing potential stars not yet at star status. I keep coming back to Gutherson for one. Despite the at times disparaging remarks made by some on this site, he's a damned good player, and one we could have used and may have helped us avoid some of the damage we had in later years. Bad mistake that one.
Same applies now. If Foran stayed he may have a year or two left. But would that justify potentially losing Schuster and Fainu, either which could be our star 5/8 for the next decade. Manly keeps allowing young players with potential to slip through its fingers. I've already mentioned Tom Wright and Hastings. Canberra had two players in its side we let go believing they weren't up to it and some here suggested one was just a big head. Yet Starling and young Hopoate were in the team for the Raiders that creamed us.
Scott Fulton does an excellent job getting some of these young future stars to the club. But there's this bottleneck issue at first grade that prefers existing players even if they aren't winning, to these potential future stars. Cleary never had that problem at Penrith with youth, and look at them. Youth always must take precedence if their potential suggest star quality in my opinion
