Dogs chase Broncos teen sensation

DogsOfWar1704

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The Bulldogs are one step closer to landing the signature of one of rugby league’s most sought-after young guns in Australian schoolboy Brendan Piakura.

A towering, left edge backrower, Piakura is the teenager who had nine NRL clubs chasing him at the back end of last year but has narrowed the race down to three.

Currently in the Broncos system, Brisbane have offered the tearaway forward a $500,000 two-year deal for next year and 2023 while the Bulldogs are the other major player at the negotiating table.

The Gold Coast Titans, through the influence of Immortal Mal Meninga, remain an outside chance.

Piakura will travel to Sydney this weekend for another meeting with Bulldogs head coach Trent Barrett where the gun forward will tour the club’s Belmore facilities.

Since taking over at Canterbury-Bankstown, Barrett has landed some major recruitment coups signing Nick Cotric, Jack Hetherington, Kyle Flanagan and Corey Allan for this season and then Josh Addo-Carr for 2022.

If the Bulldogs can land Piakura’s signature, it’s a major coup.

 
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Spoonman84

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Even if we don't get this kid I think we are going about building the roster the right way targeting these type of players before they hit NRL.

Of course there is a element of risk that they don't perform in NRL but its better than paying massive overs for the likes of David Fifita.
 

Dogs Of War

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Interesting... Eventual Jacko replacement maybe?
If we do sign him and develop him, we would want to be a contender to hold onto them in that last year of the contract. Money wise. I feel we would be blown out of the water if he is doing anything half as good as David Fafita.
 

DinkumDog

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My only problem is that you know if they add a Brisbane 2 team. At the end of any contract, they will probably come in and offer a motza for them.
Wouldn’t be the first Dogs to go home to Brisneyland: Tony Currie and Darren Smith are the first two that come to mind. Gotta focus on quality cattle no matter how long they stay - and they might stay too!
 

Alan79

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If it's a $500k deal over two years Brisbane are offering I don't have issues with is being in the running to sign him. If it's $500k per season, you can get a pretty good established second rower.

I haven't seen this guy play. But if we're going to offer anything like $500k he'd better be someone that's got rep football in his short term future.
 

B-Train

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Barrett taking over as coach has obviously had a huge impact on recruitment so far and it's good to see they're prioritising identifying the best junior talent and trying to poach them while they're still relatively cheap instead of getting into bidding wars once they're established.

That's what the best teams like Melbourne, the Roosters and Souths etc have done for the past decade and it's what our club did very well for decades before Des took over.
 

albatross

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Wouldn’t be the first Dogs to go home to Brisneyland: Tony Currie and Darren Smith are the first two that come to mind. Gotta focus on quality cattle no matter how long they stay - and they might stay too!
Hannant was the worst. Cried about his kids being away from their grandparents to get a release back to Brisbane, picking up a pay rise in the process, then fucked off somewhere else after a couple of years.

Agree we shouldn’t give up on young Qld talent.
 

The__GM

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I would be surprised if he does end up leaving the Ponies - they have a tonne of cap space and he's already based there. That said, I am glad we're being linked to quality young talent instead of the Benji Marshall's of the world. A far cry from where we have been the past 3-4 seasons.
 
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