: Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:09 pm
odemwingie wrote:
I think we should get one out and out prop and then one prop/SR who can play both like a Puletua style player. We should also sign Coley for one more year as he has earned it IMO.
With Bailey, Hock, Smith and maybe Phelps out we should have enough to cover for all that.
Without a decent set of forwards our halfbacks will do nothing. We got away with it a bit more with such a world class player like Trent Barrett but at the moment we don't have that. We have potential with Sam Tomkins but he is not up to Trent's standard and wont be able to demonstrate (and in some ways develop) behind a beaten pack. Thomas Leuluai equally is only very young and behind a beaten pack will not offer us much.
I agree with your assessment of the type of second rower we need. I don't think we ever replaced Bryan Fletcher. He brought us experience and a lot of go forward. Phil Bailey is not a patch on Bryan Fletcher. Although Phil's form has improved of late I still don't think it compensates offering him a contract after three years of being more of a squad/average player and from your overseas players you expect better. I would agree with calls to offer him another contract for a year had there not been better standard players available but there are. David Kidwell and Frank Puletua are both out of contract at the end of the year and are
exactly the type of players we need to replace Gareth Hock and Phil Bailey. After all if we're going to compete with Saints and Leeds over the course of the full season we need to improve throughout our squad - just re-signing Phil Bailey and Andy Coley is not going to do so. The salary cap is no excuse because with the loss of Tim Smith, Coley, Bailey and Gareth Hock we should have a lot more space.
Right now we have an average pack. In order to improve we need to either develop from within players of a higher standard - or higher potential or bring in players who are better currently that what we have.
Andy Coley should not be offered another contract. His form has improved but has only improved from average. Compare him to the likes of Graham, Puletua, Peacock, Burgess, Ferriol (Sp) Morley, Carvell, LMS, Lynch, Vella etc and he comes up very average. We don't have a pack leader. The best two sides in the league do - Leeds with Jamie Peacock and Saints with James Graham. I don't think we have players who have that potential at the club so we will have to look abroad. Whether there are players of that standard available in the NRL I don't know but we seem to have an act of making players available - Amos Roberts and Mark Riddell. Talks of releasing Carl Webb early - would he be the answer? Would he be an improvement from Coley? I don't see enough of the NRL to know but I would guess that he is better than Andy Coley quite easily. So the signing would be an improvement and should be made if possible.
We have been inconsistent and average for a good number of the years and when players contracts are up we should be looking to promote players from within who have a greater potential or more ideally who are already better - hence loan spells at other clubs are useful - Scott Moore for Saints or if there is no-one from within who would be an improvement then we have to spend and look for players who will improve the squad because at the moment ours is average. I think we have had plenty of time to look for a prop forward and still don't have one. Time is running out for the club to be so meticulous in its approach to signing a forward because we are trailing behind.
