eagles2win said:
I'm a realist and given the fact we will have a few players leaving either through retirement or for a different club what would you guys hold as acceptable.
Say from 2014 - 2016?
If we can manage to stay in the 8 or around the 8 I think the club will be wrapped.
Hit this time period and hit the open market again with a major selling point to potential players.
Don't want to get into the Parra situation of paying overs for ordinary players or having players decline to play for us.
Joke responses aside, good thread idea e2w.
I'm of the opinion that the club should still be successful (in the finals for the majority of the next decade, barring one or two down years) & I think that expectation would be held by much of the MWSE upper management. We have great facilities with a large support staff & scouting network & a top squad.
I'm actually quite happy with the current situation regarding prospects & NRL team depth. We've got two of the best (some would argue THE two best) halves in the league who in being 23 & 24 have still not yet peaked. We can expect to get almost a decade of good play out of both of them (assuming no major injuries or losing them to other clubs, neither of which you can really account for in this type of hypothetical scenario).
Regarding our outside backs, I'm quietly confident there. We've got heaps of talent there in the lower grades. Losing someone of the caliber of Lyon is going to be a massive blow no doubt, but you'd hope that the natural progression of our current stars will be sufficient enough to assist whatever young player comes into that role to develop himself.
The club's shown real intent in rejuvenating the front row stocks in the past off-season so you'd imagine that that would continue until they get a line-up they're happy with. Even if no superstars emerge out of that bunch, Craig Bellamy & Wayne Bennett have shown with their teams that it isn't a necessity to have a top tier prop anymore. Guys like Brenton Lawrence should be what we aim for in the future.
I'd also like to say that I really like the direction Tooves seems to be steering the pack in. More rangy, athletic type props, who can play big minutes & rack up huge tackle counts & are actually effective in broken play & creating gaps. Much prefer to see those types of forwards compared to the lumbering battering rams (see: Bulldogs).
The back row is what worries me the most going forward. They've carried us for a lot of seasons, Choc in particular. Whenever Gift goes we'll lose another valuable creative outlet. Remains to be seen what'll happen there, but it's really too early to be making any big moves at that position considering we've already got Choc & Gift tied up to big, long term deals.
