To win a premiership, which halfbacks would you prefer instead of DCE?

[40 nil]

DCE is a very skilful player and has played some wonderful football over the years. However, he regularly has brain explosions which are detrimental to the team's performance. Cooper Cronk has said that DCE lacks composure under pressure (or words to that effect). I agree with this, even though DCE is probably the best exponent of clutch field goals in the NRL. A player with his experience should not be regularly making mistakes which let the whole team down. At this stage it appears unlikely we will win a premiership with him - especially while he remains captain.

I have listed 11 players in the poll. Please let me know if you have other suggestions.

Edit: I have changed the poll - you can now select as many halfbacks as you wish. As well, 'none' has been added as an option

 

[The '47ers]

DCE is the Qld series winning and soon to be Australian halfback, I'll stick with him thanks.

 

[Andrew..]

If Foran still had many years ahead of him he'd be my number 1 choice. Taking into account age and potential id have to go with Cleary. Also, I just have to add...I can't stand Mitchell Moses!!! He's reminds me of a bigger version of Jamie Soward.

 

[danny-boy]

I can’t go past Chad Reynolds. I don’t know if he’s related to Adam but man he is on his way to a premiership.

 

[Uk eagle]

I'm not sure we would be able to field 3 halfbacks instead of DCE. You're only usually allowed one and if there was a loophole Melbourne would have already found it. Cleary is obviously the best but I have nagging doubts about him, something to do with how he has got a lot bigger quite quickly, his permanent acne and the neanderthal like forehead. They are usually warning signs for something that I can't quite put my finger on

 

[40 nil]

I'm not sure we would be able to field 3 halfbacks instead of DCE.

Okay, maybe the wording of the question is confusing - I'll try to change it

Edit: seems can't be changed

 

[globaleagle]

Okay, maybe the wording of the question is confusing - I'll try to change it

Edit: seems can't be changed

Possibly, the title is too long.

 

[40 nil]

I can’t go past Chad Reynolds. I don’t know if he’s related to Adam but man he is on his way to a premiership.

Thank you for pointing out my typo. I'll request a mod to remove it

 

[EOL now nesting on the GC]

I think the pool should have a caveat of which 3 halfbacks would be better than DCE but also which halfbacks would actually come to Manly.

Think its pretty obvious that those that are better than DCE that have Premiership credentials probably wouldn't come to us. Some of the young guys that have potential are very light into their careers so big risk.

Look at DCE. Had you written his career story in 2013 after he won the Churchill medal in a loosing side it would have been hughly different today. Queensland Cup Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year QLD Cup.
Premiership winner. Dally M halfback of year. Churchill medal winner. QLD origin player..
selected for Australia. Clutch player. Great runner. No D issues. Etc etc.

Fast forward to today and a dip in form. The backflip and contract size. Polarised personality. Multiple poor club decisions, retentions, signings. A piss poor coach and his legacy is highly tainted.

My point is as good as any on that list none of them other than Reynolds has runs on the board and Played in poor sides. Cleary is great at the moment but so is the entire Penrith side. Nicho Hynes is in his second season. Moses has never been able to close it out for Parra. Hughes has only ever been in a very strong Storm system. The rest are all non starters IMHO.

Moral to the story is I will keep DCE. He makes some poor decisions and has his fair share of poor games but he also wins some huge games and is the best we can hope to have right now.

 

[Spartan Eagle]

Cleary wins by a country chin...I mean mile.

 

[Nordburg]

DCE is a very skilful player and has played some wonderful football over the years. However, he regularly has brain explosions which are detrimental to the team's performance. Cooper Cronk has said that DCE lacks composure under pressure (or words to that effect). I agree with this, even though DCE is probably the best exponent of clutch field goals in the NRL. A player with his experience should not be regularly making mistakes which let the whole team down. At this stage it appears unlikely we will win a premiership with him - especially while he remains captain.

I have listed 11 players in the poll. Please let me know if you have other suggestions.

I agree,re field goals,but I’ve said for many years after those games was that if he’d played a better,more controlled game,those matches probably wouldn’t have required him to kick field goals.There is a dearth of halfback quality in the game at the moment so I’m happy to back DCE,but I’d much rather someone take over the captaincy at this point.Too many “harmony” issues have arisen under his watch and results like the Cows comeback a few weeks ago,don’t happen under a stronger,smarter and inspirational captain

 

[Simonmyers11]

Cleary is the most consistent half back at club level currently surrounded by the best squad in the nrl.

We don't need a better half back, we need an overall better squad.

It still pisses me off Roosters can look to sign Matt Lodge, have Brandon Smith coming, 700k up grade to suuali, have to resign Walker on an upgrade, to go with their other super stars.

Yet we let go Marty, Walker, Foran, and cannot afford anyone to bolster our squad.

To make things worse, a lot of hope was put into getting Faniu back which IMO would of a massive plus and helped create a more dynamic spine.

But the main issue for a couple of years has been defence and a strong middle.

 

[Marto1970]

I would keep Chez

 

[Lyonstomenzies]

I think the pool should have a caveat of which 3 halfbacks would be better than DCE but also which halfbacks would actually come to Manly.

Think its pretty obvious that those that are better than DCE that have Premiership credentials probably wouldn't come to us. Some of the young guys that have potential are very light into their careers so big risk.

Look at DCE. Had you written his career story in 2013 after he won the Churchill medal in a loosing side it would have been hughly different today. Queensland Cup Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year QLD Cup.
Premiership winner. Dally M halfback of year. Churchill medal winner. QLD origin player..
selected for Australia. Clutch player. Great runner. No D issues. Etc etc.

Fast forward to today and a dip in form. The backflip and contract size. Polarised personality. Multiple poor club decisions, retentions, signings. A piss poor coach and his legacy is highly tainted.

My point is as good as any on that list none of them other than Reynolds has runs on the board and Played in poor sides. Cleary is great at the moment but so is the entire Penrith side. Nicho Hynes is in his second season. Moses has never been able to close it out for Parra. Hughes has only ever been in a very strong Storm system. The rest are all non starters IMHO.

Moral to the story is I will keep DCE. He makes some poor decisions and has his fair share of poor games but he also wins some huge games and is the best we can hope to have right now.

Barrett really changed the way DCE played didn’t he.

He was so dominant from 2011-2015. Then the slide happened and the crabbing sideways, poor choices with kicks, passing to players not in better positions etc…

He also seems to get pressure put on his kicking game more and more from the defence. Other teams have the player on the 4th tackle with leg speed. This keeps the 5th tackle defence back and time for the kicker. We seem to have a plodder, or a back that gets easily dominated giving the marks and easy run at DCE.

He’s just not the same anymore.

 

[Deleted member 26876]

Can you pick more than three?

I like dce as a leader for our playing squad, and his footy can be outstanding, but is it worth the inconsistency as a half?? I just want someone who organises and kicks well every game, and who can at least somewhat perform when the forwards don’t.

Hughes, Munster, Cleary, Hunt, Reynolds and even Chad Townsend have done better than dce at satisfying this role in recent seasons. Even Hynes has consistently done a good enough job. I don’t care if they play simple, they just need to play a role in the team every week. It’s cool to watch dce tear up in his good days, but is it worth the money and inconsistency? No. He just depends on too many factors for my liking. Still no doubt he could be in a premiership winning side, but the point is we need a lot of good players, not just a few.

Well we have dce forever now so lets just hope our forwards are better next year, our squad is more balanced (hard with the makeup of our salary cap) and that his confidence stays stable/only goes up. In dce we trust hope

Still very sad that Foz is leaving but at least Schuster has played himself out of the 6 jersey. Hopefully someone who deserves it goes into the halves.

 

[Ron E. Gibbs]

Honestly, if you'd included "All of the Above" I'd tick that. All of those guys are very good players. Given the right team and systems, they could all win a premiership. And they're all "not Cherry", which is probably the most important factor at the moment. Something has to change with our team, whether that's DCE or the team around him, because it's just not working. So rather than doing nothing, we should do… something.

I guess my point is there are plenty of options, and we don't have to get stuck on asking, "Is Player A or Player B going to be a better option?" because we simply don't (and can't) know the answer. The real question we should be asking is, "Could the results we get from Player A, B or C really be much worse?"

 

[Rafferty]

On current form, I would take any of them, thats a sad thing to admit, I honestly can’t see any up side in Chez and I’m questioning if he can genuinely add anything going forward, it’s no use bagging the guy he doesn’t deserve that, but it’s a mess and I believe we will continue to struggle while he sees out the remainder of his now extended contract.

 

[JakeyB789]

All of them and then some. We’d be better off just playing with 12 as DCE actively makes us worse every time he is involved.

The only thing he has achieved since the horrendous contract started has been winning a few Origin series, mainly riding off the coattails of Munster. Only made finals 3 of the 7 seasons and just 2 finals wins from 6 in that time. Yes he isn’t the only player but when you are the captain, halfback, and most experienced player in the team on a contract like that, which prevents us from signing other players and improving the squad, he needs to take responsibility which he never has and never will.

 

[court83]

I wouldn’t take any of them over dce…
We’ve seen how dce stands up behind a half decent pack… he has won 2 unwinnable origin series when the guys standing on the field with him put the effort in..

I don’t see a 7 out there ide take over him except Cleary… and in my opinion, without dce manly collects their first spoon In the joke that was the 2016-2022 period..

How bout we get rid of the front row, half the back row, and the plodding centres , THEN maybe look at sacking the incumbent Queensland captaining halfback/Australian halfback

FMD

 

[Damien2812]

Someone on the cheap who can do the basics like running the ball into the line.