Official 2019: Sione Katoa offfially joins for 2 years

Bulldogs09

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SIONE KATOA TO JOIN THE BULLDOGS ON A TWO-YEAR DEAL

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs have continued to add depth to their forward pack with the signing of Penrith hooker Sione Katoa on a two year deal.

The 24 year-old Tongan International made his NRL debut for Penrith in 2015 and made a total of 47 appearances for the club over four seasons.

The retirement of Peter Wallace in 2018, allowed Katoa to become the starting hooker in the Penrith side and he will complement the ever-improving Jeremy Marshall-King in the Bulldogs pack.

Bulldogs Chief Executive Andrew Hill saw the signing as another piece of the puzzle in adding depth to the Bulldogs squad:

"We are delighted to be able to add someone of the calibre of Sione to our forward pack in the knowledge that he will provide both experience and quality.

We have continued to look to add depth in all positions and the hooking role is a crucial part of that.

With the emergence of Jeremy Marshall-King as one of the most promising emerging players in the NRL, we are pleased to have been able to complement his development by signing someone who we think is the right fit for our club."
 

GrogDog

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"With the emergence of Jeremy Marshall-King as one of the most promising emerging players in the NRL", JMK has done good don't get me wrong but this is a MASSIVE statement and not quite true tbh.
 

Psycho Doggie

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Two years is fine. It won't be a big money deal, Katoa knows he comes here as 2nd choice hooker, he stays at Penriff he is about 4th choice. If he hasn't consistently shown that he brings something to the team in that two years, he doesn't get re-signed. Simples!
 

c-b-b

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"With the emergence of Jeremy Marshall-King as one of the most promising emerging players in the NRL", JMK has done good don't get me wrong but this is a MASSIVE statement and not quite true tbh.
Add this to the massive statements - We are delighted to be able to add someone of the calibre of Sione to our forward pack in the knowledge that he will provide both experience and quality.
 

Baseball Furies

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No big deal, hardly going to be on big $$ and the article says “depth” on more than one occasion...

Low risk.
 

Alan79

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"With the emergence of Jeremy Marshall-King as one of the most promising emerging players in the NRL", JMK has done good don't get me wrong but this is a MASSIVE statement and not quite true tbh.
In all honesty the amount of improvement he's managed in one season in a specialist position has been impressive. Improvement and promise are along the same lines in this statement, so it's not really too bold of a statement. Lichaa hasn't shown the level of improvement in many seasons as JMK did in his first year of playing hooker. It's not like Hill was touting JMK as an immortal.
 

Psycho Doggie

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Add this to the massive statements - We are delighted to be able to add someone of the calibre of Sione to our forward pack in the knowledge that he will provide both experience and quality.
What would you rather they say? "We are not fussed to be able to add someone of the limited ability of Sione to our forward pack in the knowledge that he doesn't add much". This might be the press release, but it is aimed squarely at the player. This is level the club want him to strive for.
 

Spoonman84

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We are scraping the bottom of the barrel here but there isn’t many alternatives. People might have preferred Brittain but he’s actually older then Katoa and had less experience. At the end of the day we needed another hooker and Katoa fills that role. Hopefully he surprises us.
 

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At least this clears up a few things.

Sione will be replacing nu brown in Canterbury cup.

We won’t be linked with any other hookers for next year.

And Jmk will be our first choice hooker for 2020.

I am alright with jmk at hooker. He can get the job done and there really isn’t anyone available on the market to poach right now. I hope the club turns their attention to signing a centre now for next year and things should be sweet.
 

CrittaMagic69

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Fuck me ffs. Awful player and a waste of space in reserves.
 

c-b-b

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What would you rather they say? "We are not fussed to be able to add someone of the limited ability of Sione to our forward pack in the knowledge that he doesn't add much". This might be the press release, but it is aimed squarely at the player. This is level the club want him to strive for.
I'd rather they probably leave that whole line out tbh.
 

Bulldogs09

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Need to go all out at grant or b Smith for 2021 .

One of them
Won’t be starting hooker for the storm once c Smith goes. They are our best future option. If we land either then jmk is a outstanding bench player for us.

If jmk improves as much this coming 12 months then we have a great option. If he doesn’t it further shows we need grant or b Smith now.

Also agree we need a centre urgently for 2020. With Raimen not interested I’d look at Curtis Scott.

If he isn’t an option then I dunno if bird is medically cleared I’d look at him. Maybe bj?

we need strike out there urgently. Montoya and holland can’t be fucking in first grade.

Dwz, Smith, scott/bj/bird, hoppa Meaney/okunbor can do until 2021 and we go hard at latrell/manu/semi/cotric etc.

Fuck I can’t wait till we get some guns
 

Alan79

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With luck Katoa will have taken his slide down the pecking order at Penrith as a strong motivation to put in his biggest off season and concentrate on improving the areas lacking in his game.

At 24 he's hardly at an age where he can't improve. Plenty of players don't realise that they're going to have to give 100% at training as well as on game day until they hit a point where Katoa seems to be now. He might surprise us and develop into a good option for us.
 

Horny Wog

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Need to go all out at grant or b Smith for 2021 .

One of them
Won’t be starting hooker for the storm once c Smith goes. They are our best future option. If we land either then jmk is a outstanding bench player for us.

If jmk improves as much this coming 12 months then we have a great option. If he doesn’t it further shows we need grant or b Smith now.

Also agree we need a centre urgently for 2020. With Raimen not interested I’d look at Curtis Scott.

If he isn’t an option then I dunno if bird is medically cleared I’d look at him. Maybe bj?

we need strike out there urgently. Montoya and holland can’t be fucking in first grade.

Dwz, Smith, scott/bj/bird, hoppa Meaney/okunbor can do until 2021 and we go hard at latrell/manu/semi/cotric etc.

Fuck I can’t wait till we get some guns

By the looks of it, Bellamy is slowly moulding Brandon Smith into a forward/lock type player.

Brandon has beefed up a bit this year and it looks it wont stop.

Dont know if he is doing this to keep the both of Grant and Smith, but it seems that he wants both of them in the team.

NRL 360 last night mentioned that Grant is happy to wait for C.Smith to retire and then take the reigns over. B.Smith said the same thing last year from memory?
 

Psycho Doggie

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I'd rather they probably leave that whole line out tbh.
Fair enough. I agree that for some players it would be a bad idea to say anything either way. Hopefully they've done an analysis of Sione and decided that they are more likely to get a good result out of him by publicly setting the bar high, relative to his status as a player.
 
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