Entire 2021 squad gone.

[soc123_au]

Problem is your focus is only on first grade ..

You can’t continue to buy who you want & try to win a premiership … to much competition from the clubs on top, and even if you do you end up like Parra … a team full of champions but not a Champion team.

If you want premierships and sustained success, the type Gould understands and is building, that comes from real passion, players that love and bleed for the club because you’ve helped build their dream & future with them ..

Most being bought for first grade are fill ins till the junior funnels bare fruit, that’s why you don’t understand what’s going on, to busy looking at the now & small picture …

This post nails it. As much as I hate the term "5 year plan" yours started 2022. Everything before that is pretty much irrelevant. The wasted years suck, but nothing is going to change them. If you can keep the pick of your Matts and Ball squads, when they filter through to the top grade is when the good times will start to roll. Guys like Critta in the squad now will set the example for the kids on what it takes to be an elite first grader.

 

[Shnissss]

By his own admission on the podcast his form has been poor and admitted the warriors had no plans for him other than a 20 minute benchie at best. I dont mind curran but how the majority of our fan base has reached the conclusion that he is a massive signing and solution to our middle woes just defys all logic

I think you’re pumping up your own narrative as usual. The kennel aren’t saying Curran is a massive signing. We still need middles. Get back on your unicycle

 

[EXPLORER]

With RFM gone that’s the last of 2021. Pretty crazy that we’ve flipped 30
Players in 3 years. Can’t remember any other team having a turnover this big in the past.

And still a bottom 4 team

 

[MoNkEy]

Ritchie has been frequenting TK.

 

[Howie B]

It’s like having a giant turd stuck in your toilet that has finally found its way down the drain

 

[Bob dog]

With RFM gone that’s the last of 2021. Pretty crazy that we’ve flipped 30
Players in 3 years. Can’t remember any other team having a turnover this big in the past.

Half the reason they can't build reliability, keep clutching at straws every two years trying to pin the tail on the donkey with turnover.
Stick with this side for five years.

 

[steeliz]

Curran wasn't wanted by his former club. He was a bench player. They happily released him so they could sign a better player.

Sounds like the Jacob Preston story.

 

[RabiedDog]

Topine, Patolo BBO are still here. The regular first graders are gone.

Topine is gone . Not announced yet but hasn’t be sighted at training .

 

[Dogtime]

Geez what a surprise that the same two people are carrying on about letting go of chumps and ignore the good signings we've made during that time..

The point is the lack of development. We keep swapping out he deck chairs in an effort to find success. Sure, we've signed who's been available & interested to come to us. We've also let players like Graham, Ennis, Barba, Klemer, Meaney & Averillo go over the last 8 years.
As we now don't have any NRL level player who was there in 2021, other than the Dolphins for obvious reasons, is any other club in the same boat as us....no player longer than 3 years in their squad?

 

[Alan79]

View attachment 101378
Ritchie has been frequenting TK.

I was going to guess that there'd be an article in this after the thread popped up.

 

[Alan79]

The point is the lack of development. We keep swapping out he deck chairs in an effort to find success. Sure, we've signed who's been available & interested to come to us. We've also let players like Graham, Ennis, Barba, Klemer, Meaney & Averillo go over the last 8 years.
As we now don't have any NRL level player who was there in 2021, other than the Dolphins for obvious reasons, is any other club in the same boat as us....no player longer than 3 years in their squad?

We've been improving the roster by increments during these three years. At the end of the day if you went to the effort to do an ins vs out comparison and take a pick of the top 30 in 21 vs who we'll have this year. There'd be a few I'd take back. But for the most part I think I'd largely be sticking with this year's roster. I'll paste the 2021 roster and do a few comparisons where I think they might be similar quality.

Top 30
No.Name
1Adam Elliott
2Brandon Wakeham
3Chris Smith
4Christian Crichton
5Corey Allan
6Corey Waddell
7Dallin Watene-Zelezniak
8Dean Britt
9Dylan Napa .......... We picked up a new toilet brush
10Jack Hetherington ......Curren
11Jake Averillo ......... Bronson Xerri
12James Roumanos
13Jayden Okunbor
14Jeremy Marshall-King
15Joe Stimson
16Josh Jackson ...... Preston
17Kyle Flanagan
18Lachlan Lewis
19Luke Thompson
20Matt Doorey
21Nick Cotric .............. Stephen Crichton
22Nick Meaney ..... Wilson
23Ofahiki Ogden
24Raymond Faitala-Mariner
25Renouf Atoni
26Sione Katoa
27Tui Katoa
28Tyrone Harding
29Will Hopoate

So I think 5 out of those 29 might be comparable with our current top 30. The rest of them I'd send off on the wrong bus and make sure they didn't have the fare to get back to the club. So team stability is great if you have a team full of quality. I'm glad we picked up better players. That list is very underwhelming. I'm happy to stick with a stable roster once it's able to at least make our tougher games a dogfight.

As for juniors, they won't come on quicker because we want to get back to a primarily internally developed roster. But I don't know of any other club that has developed new links to widely spaced pathways clubs that are neglected than us. It began with the Anderson ticket and has continued until now. We've scalped great youngsters too.

When they start to filter through it might be a trickle. But I have a feeling that in 5-8 years we'll be about ready to assemble teams from players we just couldn't keep like we used to when we were stacked with talent from 1-17.

Transitioning these youngsters into a losing culture wouldn't be ideal. So for now getting our top grade competitive is back to being the primary goal. The pathways are looking stronger than they've been since Greenturd opted to save money on pathways. We've laid the foundations but it's going to take time to build.

 

[B-Train]

The point is the lack of development. We keep swapping out he deck chairs in an effort to find success. Sure, we've signed who's been available & interested to come to us. We've also let players like Graham, Ennis, Barba, Klemer, Meaney & Averillo go over the last 8 years.
As we now don't have any NRL level player who was there in 2021, other than the Dolphins for obvious reasons, is any other club in the same boat as us....no player longer than 3 years in their squad?

The development from within the club will come in the next few years after we won Matt's and Flegg last year. That's exactly what the club is trying to build... Within the next few years we'll have several of those players in the FG squad which will lead to the continuity and development that you're talking about.

As they said in Seinfeld..

 

[Papa Joe]

View attachment 101378
Ritchie has been frequenting TK.

Bulldog's story is wrong if the photo in the Telegraph is correct as it has Chris Patolo in it and he is still with us.

 

[DaBulldog]

This is the clear-out that was needed. The recruitment has really exceeded what we could have expected. Ciraldos relationship has no doubt influenced the players that have come and expedited rebuilding. Structure around juniors going by results has improved dramatically. Interested to see the cards unfold over our forward pack this year. We have King im holding out for an Ace to come.

Well said.

 

[Magic Burton]

Jackson Topine is still contracted with us. Chris Patolo is still with us.

Raymond Fatalia-Mariner was re-signed by Gould in 2022 as was Topine and last year Patolo all 2021 players.

The article fails to mention all the players signed since July 2021 and didn't see out their contracts including Tevita Pangai-Jnr (first signing in the Gus era), Brandon Clarke, Andrew Davey, Michael Gabreal, Zac Montgomery, Ethan Quai-Ward, Josh Reynolds, Nu Brown and Franklin Pele. I'm sure I've forgotten names from the 2022 side that left early.

Matt Dufty didn't last the season. He was signed just before Gus. Paul Vaughan actually saw out his contract.

Jack Hetherington, Kyle Flanagan, Corey Allan and Brent Naden all signed under the watchful eye of our current Chairman. Naden and Allan didn't see out their contracts.

Paul Alamoti was signed by the current Chairman. Massive headlines. He was released when his contract expired.

Sure many players needed to be moved on. There been some good players who should have been retained and continued to be invested in. You need a core investment of club people. A squad is made up of many different dynamics.

They talk about the 1984 squad in the article. The club still had the three Mortimer brothers, Chris Anderson, Geoff Robinson and Steve Folkes from the 1980 and Andrew Farrar who was in the lower grades. The club backed their pathways players coming through like Michael Potter (ended up Dally M winner), Steve O'Brien, David Gillespie and Michael Hagan.

We've always had good juniors, good pathways and strong in the lower levels. Our issues have been converting these players to NRL, investing in them at NRL level (some spat out too quick eg Alamoti) and our recruitment, development and retention at NRL has been questionable. The majority of players improve after they leave the club.

Gould said this was for an experienced coach. We signed a rookie.

We've made plenty of mistakes since the 2021 season. That's the worrying issue.

The pathways players we signed have now left Gabreal and Montgomery.

We can't just say trust the pathways when we actually don't trust them and resort to signing fringe first graders Crichton excepted.

 

[BlackDawg]

I said at the time that most of our squad weren't 1st graders and it was true. Sadly, instead of developing juniors, the coaches at the time went for terrible purchases & upgraded people like RFM who are simply bench players. The solution was always all about juniors & I am glad we have gutted the joint. The buys this year were all short term utilities until our juniors kick back in and we get back to how we used to operate. Sadly though we wasted 8 years & let some real turds play in our colors.

 

[Magic Burton]

The point is the lack of development. We keep swapping out he deck chairs in an effort to find success. Sure, we've signed who's been available & interested to come to us. We've also let players like Graham, Ennis, Barba, Klemer, Meaney & Averillo go over the last 8 years.
As we now don't have any NRL level player who was there in 2021, other than the Dolphins for obvious reasons, is any other club in the same boat as us....no player longer than 3 years in their squad?

Well said @Dogtime a club needs a balance of all types of players including you need rock solid club people and players you take a long time to invest into. We've made many signing errors post July 2021 that's a worrying concern including players from the 2021 squad re-signed since spat out and two development players no longer with us.

 

[04 Dreaming]

Jackson Topine is still contracted with us. Chris Patolo is still with us.

Raymond Fatalia-Mariner was re-signed by Gould in 2022 as was Topine and last year Patolo all 2021 players.

The article fails to mention all the players signed since July 2021 and didn't see out their contracts including Tevita Pangai-Jnr (first signing in the Gus era), Brandon Clarke, Andrew Davey, Michael Gabreal, Zac Montgomery, Ethan Quai-Ward, Josh Reynolds, Nu Brown and Franklin Pele. I'm sure I've forgotten names from the 2022 side that left early.

Matt Dufty didn't last the season. He was signed just before Gus. Paul Vaughan actually saw out his contract.

Jack Hetherington, Kyle Flanagan, Corey Allan and Brent Naden all signed under the watchful eye of our current Chairman. Naden and Allan didn't see out their contracts.

Paul Alamoti was signed by the current Chairman. Massive headlines. He was released when his contract expired.

Sure many players needed to be moved on. There been some good players who should have been retained and continued to be invested in. You need a core investment of club people. A squad is made up of many different dynamics.

They talk about the 1984 squad in the article. The club still had the three Mortimer brothers, Chris Anderson, Geoff Robinson and Steve Folkes from the 1980 and Andrew Farrar who was in the lower grades. The club backed their pathways players coming through like Michael Potter (ended up Dally M winner), Steve O'Brien, David Gillespie and Michael Hagan.

We've always had good juniors, good pathways and strong in the lower levels. Our issues have been converting these players to NRL, investing in them at NRL level (some spat out too quick eg Alamoti) and our recruitment, development and retention at NRL has been questionable. The majority of players improve after they leave the club.

Gould said this was for an experienced coach. We signed a rookie.

We've made plenty of mistakes since the 2021 season. That's the worrying issue.

The pathways players we signed have now left Gabreal and Montgomery.

We can't just say trust the pathways when we actually don't trust them and resort to signing fringe first graders Crichton excepted.

Great post @Polly Power all facts which the gus cucks like to conveniently ignore. Nice reminder

 

[B-Train]

So the moral of the story is that Gus should have re-signed the likes of Flanagan, Allan, Hetherington, Pele, Naden etc despite the fact that they're not worth keeping just so we could have continuity and keep finishing bottom 4? Great logic. You guys should run the club..

 

[Magic Burton]

Great post @Polly Power all facts which the gus cucks like to conveniently ignore. Nice reminder

They can tell us we have the better Gabreal he wasn't the one paraded around added to a development contract and now spat out for a quick fix signing. Montgomery another potential pathway lauded and spat out.

Players re-signed from the 2021 squad in 2022 now spat out.

Players signed and gone in a hurry not seeing out their deals.

We still have glaring issues. What we don't have is a backdrop of solid genuine club people. A club needs a balance of everything. Only the Roosters can have 20 superstars and megastars. Squads are a balance act of stars, juniors, solid first graders, handy buys and rock solid club people.

We can't boast about our juniors and pathways when the best junior we've had in years was spat out (Alamoti), two pathways signings recently both promoted to NRL & Development (Montgomery & Gabreal) now both gone and I can see see Oloapu ending up at a Queensland club before his contract is up.

Gould has a lot of strengths. Gould has a lot of weaknesses. Giving Gould complete control of everything in the club with no accountability was high risk.

This article buys another 5 years and allows for poor performance to be an excuse under the guise of a rebuild when it's quick fix upon quick fix hoping something works.