Facts are Robson, Brailey, Api, Turpin, Grant and even Wayde Egan (and Billy Brittain) were available and recently McCullough. At the Panthers Egan was rated above Katoa from memory and Egan signed with the Warriors after we signed Katoa. Kotoa publicly stated that he called our club seeking a start - not the other way around so if he hadn't called us we obviously wouldn't have him as a back up to JMK. So our recruitment team felt he was good enough to sign yet they failed to proactively reach out to him first ? Do you honestly think they reached out to Egan ? We were so desperate for a hooker you would think we would have given Billy Brittain a shot after he won Canterbury Cup player of the year didn't he ?
A hooker was what we desperately needed - much more than backrowers. If we had the money for Stimson, Britt and Katoa plus we managed to extend Lewis etc we definitely had the coin to sign any of the above players. With CHN and Oka sacked + the 350K for Foran's injury we definitely had more funds than the Knights to get McCullough for 1 or 2 years.
I just have concerns that maybe we play hardball a little too much and for an extra 50K we could have signed 1 or 2 of the hookers above. I'd really like to know also if our recruitment team even knew McCullough was available ? Were they proactively in contact with all the player managers actively chasing an upgrade for our number 9 ? I have my doubts sorry.
Good post Brad. When you take the emotion away it's much better.
I wouldn't put so much stock into what you read. Just because Katoa may have said 'I gave Deano a call' doesn't mean the club had no idea otherwise.
Same as when Pay said that players such as Ramien or Api would be good - just because they don't end up at the club doesn't mean it's a 'failure' by the club or they're asleep at the wheel.
The fact is there are so many things none of us see, lots of different factors as to why any club and player might/might not end up working together.
We've had very little appeal in the last couple of years - widely known and accepted. It's been repeated so many times I won't got into it again - but that pain is almost over.
Now, hooker.
Again - you don't know what you don't know. JMK was clearly seen as a reasonable interim solution whilst the cap mess was sorted out. Many disagree with that, but that was the club's decision.
Without getting into all those guys, with Hill publicly saying McCullough has never been discussed does not mean they didn't know he was available, or they missed out - they obviously have another plan. Judging by the meltdown on here earlier this week - most fans think that's a good thing he wasn't signed too.
I'll repeat again - there is NO $350k for Foran - he's missed 2 (and shortly 3) games. Assuming he's back in Round 4 or 5, there is NO compensation because he didn't miss the required number of games - so you can forget that from the equation.
Hardball maybe. That can go both ways too. We lost some players (eg: Cook over $50k) but we went hard after Foran and look at the value that's provided.
It has probably been a worthwhile exercise in revising the governance around recruitment given previous mistakes.
That and there's a deliberate effort to bring young guys through - it takes time, but there's a few coming through.
We have 18 of 30 for 2021. Some of the off contract guys end of 2020 will be retained, some will not - the same thing happens every year. That means apart from Thompson there's probably 4 other recruits to make.
Many keep saying that time is running out as a bunch of other talent is locked up - yes - if you've done nothing about it. I don't believe that's the case and that's why I keep saying - wait for the transfer window to close and wait for the developments to be announced.
If by the end of the season there are not some quality names announced to be coming in 2021 - then yes, I too will be scratching my head and wondering what the hell has been going on. Until then, benefit of the doubt.