Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:13 pm  

jonh wrote:

I don’t follow any of them on social media but from what I have been told he is posting quite deliberately about his weight gain.

I appreciate he is on an extended break but I’m not sure the club will be condoning him living life too well and certainly not him promoting bad weight gain it being the case.

I was under the impression he and French were in training just in Australia not England at the moment.

So you think he's posting deliberately about his weight gain to say to Wigan play me at loose or hooker for example? Come on.

Nobody knows what their training plan and regime is whilst in Aus, nor do we know if they are sticking to it. The club will get an idea of their fitness levels as soon as they come back.

If you listen to his Behind The Athlete podcast he said outright he is a half back and its his favourite position. He did admit that he feels like he is still naturally growing and filling out which could mean a move to 13 or 9 in the future.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:28 pm  

His Instagram story today is pretty much a shot of him showing off his weight on the scales and with an accompanying line of "when you have 5 HB's and one needs to switch position".

FWIW, I think it's all in jest, but at the same time we'll probably see him "doing a job" at 9 during the season.

That might be his long term NRL position too. I know it's been mentioned that he's not got the pace for a NRL HB.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:29 pm  

sergeant pepper wrote:

His Instagram story today is pretty much a shot of him showing off his weight on the scales and with an accompanying line of "when you have 5 HB's and one needs to switch position".

FWIW, I think it's all in jest, but at the same time we'll probably see him "doing a job" at 9 during the season.

That might be his long term NRL position too. I know it's been mentioned that he's not got the pace for a NRL HB.

hes plenty fast enough

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:31 pm  

nathan_rugby wrote:

So you think he's posting deliberately about his weight gain to say to Wigan play me at loose or hooker for example? Come on.

Nobody knows what their training plan and regime is whilst in Aus, nor do we know if they are sticking to it. The club will get an idea of their fitness levels as soon as they come back.

If you listen to his Behind The Athlete podcast he said outright he is a half back and its his favourite position. He did admit that he feels like he is still naturally growing and filling out which could mean a move to 13 or 9 in the future.

No I don’t think he is posting to influence the club.

I am however certain the club will be in constant contact with him and giving him programs and diets with a view to deliberately bulking him up.

This isn’t amateur rugby league or the 1980’s.

These are elite athletes and the club are not going to sit on their hands whilst their biggest asset has a holiday and loses condition at the most important time of the year from a conditioning point of view.

The world is a much smaller place than we like to make out. I’d expect at the very least regular sessions with the conditioning team over “Zoom” etc and they may have engaged a local conditioning resource to support the 2 players whilst they are in Australia.

This was common place when I was involved in conditioning 10 years ago
and I don’t think things will have regressed since then.

We all hopefully see him as a 6 but I think the club not him will be instructing him to deliberately gain some muscle with a view to him playing other positions for us in 2021 without it having a detrimental effect on his performance as a half.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:49 pm  

nathan_rugby wrote:

lol

??

Powell played at loose at lot last year when Hastings, French, Smith and Tommy were all on the pitch at the same time

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:52 pm  

Hastings won’t just play halfback this season, I think that’s pretty clear from how last year went. If anybody is to have spells at 13, I would imagine it will be Sam Powell with Hastings doing what became the norm at the end of last year by jumping in to hooker. I think Lam wants to be pretty flexible with how he uses guys like Hastings, Field, Powell, Leuluai and then even guys in the pack like Bateman and Farrell. He spoke the other day about how our ball movement was the best in the comp at the end of the season and he may just want a handler in the middle to help keep that going. I’d think that rules out guys like Isa or Havard jumping in to loose forward as we then might become a bit sluggish.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:59 pm  

So now the news that GB has left who are we lining up as replacement prop?

Who's off contract and available this late in the off season?

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:18 pm  

MattyB wrote:

So now the news that GB has left who are we lining up as replacement prop?

Who's off contract and available this late in the off season?

A bunch of Aussies that nobody knows anything about unless the player in question can get a release from his contract.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:22 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

One down one to go

Brian - do you know if we will be recruiting?

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:24 pm  

Pieman wrote:

im hoping Isa plays 13 or Havard, if I see Bateman there I wont be happy as hes probably the worlds best right second rower so to not use him there is crazy, sorry to derail

Batty also played in the middle for Canberra. I expect that you will see him operating there from time to time this season.