2026 pre-season

Dragon David

SGI Jersey Flegg
It's not so simple. Lets say we pay him 1.2 mil for 5 years but in one year LPT is as good or better. He will want at least 1 mil a year as well. 2 props on 1 mil a year or more is probably too much. Lets say KK on 1 mil and LPT on 800k is reasonable. Then there are the Couchman's who I think are going to have breakout seasons next season if they can stay uninjured. I'm all for signing him at any cost if it didn't mean we would have to lose a very promising young forward or 2.
I guess that if we had that scenario all the good for us in a way which will be a boon for our future. Yes the "improved" youngsters in a few years would demand more but that is similar at all clubs and we have to face it and work on it when that happens. In the meantime, we just need one really good signing and if it costs just that bit extra it will pay dividends in the long run in my opinion Chris.
 

Frank Facer

SGI Jersey Flegg
It's not so simple. Lets say we pay him 1.2 mil for 5 years but in one year LPT is as good or better. He will want at least 1 mil a year as well. 2 props on 1 mil a year or more is probably too much. Lets say KK on 1 mil and LPT on 800k is reasonable. Then there are the Couchman's who I think are going to have breakout seasons next season if they can stay uninjured. I'm all for signing him at any cost if it didn't mean we would have to lose a very promising young forward or 2.
If LPT becomes a mil dollar a year prop, then we will be in a very good position. Along with Toby Couchman and KK, we would then have one of the best front row rotations in the game.
 

Eric

Staff
View attachment 862Boxing session with Mark Gambin
Who are the two on the far right? Is the one standing the new backrower (Coutts?) and the one kneeling in front of him? I understand LPT is leaning forward but even so, looks like Coutts, if that's who it is, towers over Feagai who is no dwarf.

Edit: Looks like he has his twin on the other side kneeling. Is it the twin forwards from Penrith? I didn't think they'd be training with the NRL squad yet.
 

User

SGI NSW Cup
Who are the two on the far right? Is the one standing the new backrower (Coutts?) and the one kneeling in front of him? I understand LPT is leaning forward but even so, looks like Coutts, if that's who it is, towers over Feagai who is no dwarf.

Edit: Looks like he has his twin on the other side kneeling. Is it the twin forwards from Penrith? I didn't think they'd be training with the NRL squad yet.
Setu Tu is on the left
David Fale on the right with Dylan Coutts behind him and yes he is a big boy and has been impressing at training.
 

TheRev

SGI NSW Cup
Hopefully Tu and Fale will provide some finishing power, something we have really missed is the ability to ice half chances like all the acrobatic wingers can do consistently thesedays.

Coutts im hoping ends up a rly good nsw cup prop, cant imagine him getting one of the 2nd row spots over Halangahu, Luciano & Nick, well.. injuries aside I guess.. its always 1 or 2 injuries before everything looks different.
 
Hopefully Tu and Fale will provide some finishing power, something we have really missed is the ability to ice half chances like all the acrobatic wingers can do consistently thesedays.

Coutts im hoping ends up a rly good nsw cup prop, cant imagine him getting one of the 2nd row spots over Halangahu, Luciano & Nick, well.. injuries aside I guess.. its always 1 or 2 injuries before everything looks different.
Just from an old coaches perspective. I strongly believed that the ressies were the key to our 1st grade team in my time.

Now I will quantify that sounds like a silly statement. The key to having a competitive 1st grade team is having a competitive ressies.

The lads running out in the 1st 13 knew and enjoyed the fact that there were players that were good enough to play 1sts in ressies knowing a loss of form or an injury would open the door for 1 of the ressies.

Last season was the first season that I saw competition from our ressies to our 1sts, mainly in our forwards. This is very encouraging and exciting for me to see.

Now this season ressies team would be one of the favourites to be a competitive top 4 team and that all goes well looking into the future.

There were a couple of sayings that I used regularly,

" A little competition never hurt anybody". (Motivational)

" Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity."

For far too long we have had a 1sts team that was far too comfortable.
 

User

SGI NSW Cup
Hopefully Tu and Fale will provide some finishing power, something we have really missed is the ability to ice half chances like all the acrobatic wingers can do consistently thesedays.

Coutts im hoping ends up a rly good nsw cup prop, cant imagine him getting one of the 2nd row spots over Halangahu, Luciano & Nick, well.. injuries aside I guess.. its always 1 or 2 injuries before everything looks different.

Once CT is fully fit and meeting his targets he will be the first winger picked.
I think he is just being given a kick up the arse ATM.
 

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
Agree with most of your points, he’d be taking a gamble coming to us and yes there are clubs that are much more likely to win the comp than us.

However I disagree on the money. The Bears have exactly the same cap as us to go around 30 players so they’re not necessarily better off than us just because they still have most of their cap left to spend. They still have most of their players to find. Whether we like it or not Flanagan has managed our cap carefully. I believe the reason for that is to give him the ability to pay overs if the right player comes along. The Bears will have to pay overs for most of their players to get them across. I think Tino is on a very short list of players that Flanagan would be willing to go the extra mile for. We’d need to beat his Gold Coast salary by a couple of hundred to make it work. So $1.4 might be the number. Will be interesting to see if those other clubs you mentioned can go that high. Tino, Payne and KK are the 3 available front rowers who could genuinely lift our club.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, did the Bears not have extra money to splash around for players in their inaugural year ?
 

Justadragon

SGI NSW Cup
Well if you look on the bright side I suppose, you have Sloan in there with a smile on his face, I really hope this guy can do something this year. I don't know how many chances one gets especially now that there seems to be other options.
 
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