Sydney Roosters

Nah he's at least another year or two off being ready for First Grade. For a 17 year old who was still eligible for SG Ball to have the year he did in the 20's is awesome but it wasn't any where near the standard you'd want from someone who's about to graduate to Firsts.

 

Pretty excited to see how Hastings goes this year, I think he's got all the potential to be the best half to come out of NSW in a long time. Genuine ball player with an extremely high workrate and a good all round game. Watched him live tear up a few NSW Cup games for Newtown in 2014 and been sold ever since, has good vision which is a rare commodity these days.

On the opposite side I think we're so royally fucked at fullback, none of Ferguson, Mitchell or Slaimankhel have me feeling any kind of confidence. No matter which way you slice it there's just no good outcome IMO.

 

Nah if they want to throw a kid in the deep end, it'll be Latrell Mitchell.

Nikorima will be used as a utility & depth for the halves.

 

We've had multiple opportunities to sign better halves than Farah if we wanted to use Hastings as a fullback.

Sounds like some lazy journalism if you ask me.

 

Ian Henderson was signed as Mcillwricks replacement.

Joey Lussick is a very promising hooker too, the pick of the under 20s dummy halves running around anyway. We only managed to pick him up cause Eels burst their cap so don't think he'll stick around too long but I'd back him to do a job if needed. Reckon he's the real deal.

 

We play the top 8 teams of 2015 14 times (most of any team) and have seven 5-day turn around (most of any team). Haha yeh fair to say we got the short end of that draw.

Seven 5-day turn around in the first 20 rounds does seem extremely excessive, to the point where you have to think surely it got brought up and surely they would've fixed it.

Not fussed about who we play and where and usually not fussed about the odd short turn around everyone has them but 7 in the opening 20 rounds will undoubtedly result in a higher chance of injury.

 

The Cows and Roosters copped it the worst. It's ridiculous that in the NRL's hunt for blockbuster games they pretty much make the top 8 sides from the previous year play each other twice. I'm pretty certain both the Cows and Roosters have 14 matches against the other 7 top 8 teams. Ridic.

 

Looks like Jenko might be leaving, can't say I'm too fussed tbh. Seems strange that we wouldn't keep him at least for the rest of the year given he's already been factored into the cap and I doubt we're going to make a 600k signing this late in the piece.

Copley's obviously a huge downgrade too if we go down that path even though I've always had a bit of a soft spot for him and think he's got some development left in him.