3 Hookers walk onto a field

[Bates]

3 Hookers walk into a Bar and 13 knows all of them

[Thirteen]

Netanyahu?

You're so connected 13.

Was DCE there?

No need to be. Usually lots of first graders watching reserves. Not many people attend so it’s always easy to approach them. Is this really that hard for you to comprehend? Next time I see your cousin Michael I’m going to tell him you’re a complete tool. I’m sure he’ll agree .

Being a non game weekend I think players are on a break so the only other first grader I saw there was Angus.

[Thirteen]

Did you tell him how you've decided he'll be moving on when Robson arrives, like you said he'll have to?

I didn't think so.

Didn’t claim to have info on this at all. Was just my opinion.

[Bates]

No need to be. Usually lots of first graders watching reserves. Not many people attend so it’s always easy to approach them. Is this really that hard for you to comprehend? Next time I see your cousin Michael I’m going to tell him you’re a complete tool. I’m sure he’ll agree .

Being a non game weekend I think players are on a break so the only other first grader I saw there was Angus.

Don't be like that.

Are we signing DCE?

[Thirteen]

Don't be like that.

Are we signing DCE?

Wouldn’t have a clue. From what we hear in the media it seems like we are.

[Bates]

Wouldn’t have a clue. From what we hear in the media it seems like we are.

Could you please ask the club official that confirmed the signing of Junior Tupou?

Send him/her a quick txt and get back to us if you wouldn't mind.

[Thirteen]

Could you please ask the club official that confirmed the signing of Junior Tupou?

Send him/her a quick txt and get back to us if you wouldn't mind.

D-Head.

[MKCS]

Sam Verrills has great service too. I'd prefer him back for half the price. Robson very little creativity, rarely runs the ball, and way overpriced at what he would have cost.

Koroisau to replace him for game 3.

But 6 my overall point is, when you have invested in and built a pathways system that is as good as the one we have, signing high priced players from other clubs a year in advance, when so much could happen in the meantime both on their end and on ours, is a strategy that is fraught with risk. Exhibit A is Cherry Evans. Exhibit B is Robson. Robson is 27, and has signed a 4 year deal with us. This will be his highest priced contract ever, and highly likely his last. So we are buying him at the absolute top of the market, in terms of his price. Add to that signing him while he still has another season to run with another club, and it's just a really bad idea.

And Benny is a freak, another great talent unearthed by the pathways program, who costs a fraction of the price of Robson, who has to take a backseat and maybe we end up losing him? Like Hugo?

I find posts like this baffling.

Robson is about to play his 8th game of Origin, has won an Origin shield, has locked down a spot in the Blues for the past 3 years, hopefully wins another Origin shield in a week and a half and is now just hitting his prime as a hooker but instead of signing him we should instead have stuck with Benaiah Ioelu who has played 4 decent games of first grade as opposed to Robson who has been consistently good for years now.

Do you identify that we're trying to win a comp here and not just develop players? I like Ioelu as well but he's not going to win us a comp this early on in his career, let him settle in as a back up before suggesting he could replace the current NSW Origin hooker.

Same with DCE and Hugo, we're trying to win a comp, we're not doing that with a spine of Teddy, Savala, Walker and Ioelu.

[caz]

Ironic that you mention "cheese". Signed in December 2021, with still a year to run on his storm contract for 2022, he plays that full season for the storm, then he comes here in 2023. And for $850k a year, he was a complete flop. So as the replacement for Smith, what do we do, we replace him with another high priced guy who still has another tough season to play as an 80 min hooker with his current club. And he will come to us in 12 months time.

Should have just kept Sam Verrills. Would have saved us from 2 bad buys, and saved us a heap of cash.

on the other side of the coin if you only sign players who don't have a contract for the following year you'll never sign elite players. they've already been snapped up.
there's always a gamble in recruitment. for me the biggest problem with cheese was getting an acl at the wrong time. he was looking good at the end of last season. if him and sammy hadn't gone down we would have got a home semi and might have won the comp.
but sure, could be that if we'd stuck with verrills we might have won the comp. we'll never know. one of the reasons we got rid of verrills was because of his injury history.

[Batemans Bay Rooster]

I find posts like this baffling.

Robson is about to play his 8th game of Origin, has won an Origin shield, has locked down a spot in the Blues for the past 3 years, hopefully wins another Origin shield in a week and a half and is now just hitting his prime as a hooker but instead of signing him we should instead have stuck with Benaiah Ioelu who has played 4 decent games of first grade as opposed to Robson who has been consistently good for years now.

Do you identify that we're trying to win a comp here and not just develop players? I like Ioelu as well but he's not going to win us a comp this early on in his career, let him settle in as a back up before suggesting he could replace the current NSW Origin hooker.

Same with DCE and Hugo, we're trying to win a comp, we're not doing that with a spine of Teddy, Savala, Walker and Ioelu.

I know you do mate. We respectfully disagree with each other on this topic. For the record, I find yours probably equally as baffling.

Of course we're trying to win the comp.

But you say absurd things like to win the comp we need DCE, and there's no way we can win the comp with Hugo.

That's just farking nonsense mate. You make these ridiculous ironclad statements about what can and can't happen.

And on top of that, you so farkin overrate Cherry Evans. Let me tell ya mate, Hugo's already better than 37 yo Cherry Evans is now. And which one is improving, and which one is getting slower, and older, and regressing fast? And which one costs $180,000, and which one costs $1,000,000? And which ones club can't see the back of him fast enough?

And above all, which one has made the top 4 once in the last 10 seasons, as the highest paid player and leader of his team?

But you have this delusion that having this one top 4 from 10 seasons player, now the oldest player in the comp, is going to mean"we probably make the grand final" as you've said previously. Just think about what you're saying. It is just bullshit.

And I don't know how old you are, but aren't you in principle over the days of paying big money for old duds? Because I am.

[Rooster_6]

Sam Verrills has great service too. I'd prefer him back for half the price. Robson very little creativity, rarely runs the ball, and way overpriced at what he would have cost.

Koroisau to replace him for game 3.

But 6 my overall point is, when you have invested in and built a pathways system that is as good as the one we have, signing high priced players from other clubs a year in advance, when so much could happen in the meantime both on their end and on ours, is a strategy that is fraught with risk. Exhibit A is Cherry Evans. Exhibit B is Robson. Robson is 27, and has signed a 4 year deal with us. This will be his highest priced contract ever, and highly likely his last. So we are buying him at the absolute top of the market, in terms of his price. Add to that signing him while he still has another season to run with another club, and it's just a really bad idea.

And Benny is a freak, another great talent unearthed by the pathways program, who costs a fraction of the price of Robson, who has to take a backseat and maybe we end up losing him? Like Hugo?

Sam Verrills has great service but it's still not as good as Robson's and he hasn't displayed the same durability that Reece Robson has. Since establishing himself at the Cowboys Robson has played more than 20 games in his last 4 seasons straight. Verrills has only played more than 20 games in a season once in his career to date. That's not to mention that Robson is the far superior defender and it's pretty negligible when it comes to running, kicking and creativity out of dummy half compared to Verrills.

I don't disagree with the premise of your overall point and have made a similar argument around why I don't think we should sign Cherry-Evans. Internal promotion should always be the priority with the exception to the rule being an exceptional player or where there is a void of emerging talent coming through. In this case I think we were right to sign Robson given the void of emerging talent and bordering on being an exceptional talent as well (but that's just my opinion, I think he's the best dummy half in the game & I said that before we were even linked to him).

However the club can only act on the facts they have at hand, they can not afford to pass up opportunities to sign an elite level dummy half because they want to see if a young kid who had an ok NSW Cup season last year might come good. Even as it stands now with all the details at hand Ioelu hasn't proven he's an 80min first grade dummy half so I would still sign Robson in a heart beat, I like the balance he and Savala add to our spine, I don't think we need an attacking dummy half with Teddy & Walker already in the spine. It's overkill, like it was last year.

[MKCS]

And on top of that, you so farkin overrate Cherry Evans. Let me tell ya mate, Hugo's already better than 37 yo Cherry Evans is now. And which one is improving, and which one is getting slower, and older, and regressing fast? And which one costs $180,000, and which one costs $1,000,000? And which ones club can't see the back of him fast enough?

And above all, which one has made the top 4 once in the last 10 seasons, as the highest paid player and leader of his team?

But you have this delusion that having this one top 4 from 10 seasons player, now the oldest player in the comp, is going to mean"we probably make the grand final" as you've said previously. Just think about what you're saying. It is just bullshit.

And I don't know how old you are, but aren't you in principle over the days of paying big money for old duds? Because I am.

I can't agree that Hugo is better than DCE, hopefully one day he is but right now every stat points to DCE being better, as a matter of fact I think DCE might still be beating both our halves in key stats combined. I don't think DCE is looking for a million to come here, rumoured numbers 700-750k which is probably fair.

You can say the viewpoint is bullshit, we shall see as DCE is most likely already signed. I think we'll be runners up in the grand final at the very least next year if he comes here but will gladly admit if I'm wrong.