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Recruitment and Retention for 2027

should have bout 5 spots to be filled in the 30 too with kain not annouced nor brian nor george
 
Lewis Symonds, Zac Garton both till 2028 and Kilarney Lavender 2030 have be resigned to the top 30
 
Good to see the young guys extend

Hopefully the good re-signing news keeps coming

Herbie, Hammer and Bostock all to re sign before Nov 1 please
 
Kristian Woolf to get a contract extension post season Reader confirms

Not surprising at all for obvious reasons but that's good
 
Interesting article

Here is what I find interesting about it. The club has been very planned and focused on making enough room for those they want to keep.

I know Isaako has done a fantastic job, but getting on in years and upgrading him early would have been a mistake knowing we have all these other guys to keep. He obviously wanted more then we could afford considering the talent off contract, hence they couldn't reach an agreement. He obviously wanted too much.

What it tells me is we arent going to be held to ransom. We arent going to overpay, as we know we will be an attractive club to join. We will keep who we want to keep, and they will generally stay on our terms, and they will want to stay on our terms.

I'm very comfortable with Reader making the calls, and if someone leaves, I'm comfortable in the fact it will be in the best interest of the club, its cap space, and its success going forward. Because fucking your cap, and cap mismanagement is the first step to the bottom of the table. Just ask the Bulldogs.
 
Yep, as a former Titans fan destroying the cap just brutalises a club. right now they're at risk of losing Zane Harrison who is probably the most promising halfback of the current guys who debuted this year and their best halves prospect since Scott Prince since he is a true game managing 7 he is exactly the player that club needs - his floor is basically being Fogarty and his ceiling is being an origin level player. They need to keep him and they're put it in jeopardy with cap mismanagement. Now the Titans will suck even if they do keep him for a while because of the situation in other parts of their squad/cap but if they lose him it is just OVER for the Titans for at least another three years or so and they will be a bottom 4 club every season, whereas if they keep him they have a chance to at least be mid table in a few seasons time if they develop/recruit well as the cap situation starts to resolve.

It is insane the way they have fucked their cap paying two fullbacks starter money as well as paying overs for Tino/Mo/JC and paying massive overs for Fermor after an injury had already clearly ruined him - extending Fermor when they did would be the equivalent of us paying 900k a season to Flegler now with the info we already have to extend him for multiple years, and potentially risking losing Katoa because of it, that's basically the spot the Titans are in because of cap mismanagement. They've done it multiple times in the past with Hayne, spending big on Fifita and Tino at the same time leaving no room to fix the spine and then now that they are slowly starting to address the spine issues, their cap is too fucked to fix their forwards/backs/second row situation.

We don't want to lose Hammer, Herbie or Bostock but if we have to lose one of them as long as it's not Herbie the club will survive and stay in a contendership window (and even if Herbie does go it will sting a lot, but we will probably be okay)

I'm confident we are smart enough to keep all three of them without massively overpaying and will make the cap space with the Safiti/Flegler/Knowles/Lemuelu money if need be along with the players we already released in Isaako, Averillo, etc and Nikorima as much as it sucks to lose him mostly covers Williams given what we would have had to pay to re sign him and Williams will be good and deliver for us.

I would go as far as saying it would be a bigger disaster to pay long term overs for Flegler and Knowles for example than it would be to lose a single non Katoa/Herbie/Plath/Donoghoe player from the roster.

I also think as much as he's become an elite player and has amazing goalkicking not extending Isaako given we have Naufahu and the cap situation was probably the right call and I actually think that at the time the decision we made re Nikorima and Williams is fine too. Nikorima is having his best season ever, but there is always a chance of a regression like Shibasaki this year vs last year in the future etc, hopefully we can send Kodi out with a premiership and then win another premiership with Williams next year. Williams is a gamble but it makes sense to raise the ceiling, he is literally one of England's incumbent starting halves, not a random super league player.

If we keep everyone we could easily become a dynasty like Penrith but it's better to lose one player (say Hammer or Bostock as much as I want to keep both) than it is to fuck the cap overpaying for multiple players (especially if it's Flegler/Knowles/Lemuelu etc) and then losing the key stars we can't afford to lose - i'd love to keep the entire current squad but if we can tactically shed the players it's less important to keep and continue developing talent while keeping the key 6-7 players than make us great and build around them the sky is the limit.

I still think we keep everyone we want to keep over the next two seasons personally but that will involve letting a few more guys who are in our best 17 but not in our best 6 or 7 players along the way.
 
SwoopAE said:
Yep, as a former Titans fan destroying the cap just brutalises a club. right now they're at risk of losing Zane Harrison who is probably the most promising halfback of the current guys who debuted this year and their best halves prospect since Scott Prince since he is a true game managing 7 he is exactly the player that club needs - his floor is basically being Fogarty and his ceiling is being an origin level player. They need to keep him and they're put it in jeopardy with cap mismanagement. Now the Titans will suck even if they do keep him for a while because of the situation in other parts of their squad/cap but if they lose him it is just OVER for the Titans for at least another three years or so and they will be a bottom 4 club every season, whereas if they keep him they have a chance to at least be mid table in a few seasons time if they develop/recruit well as the cap situation starts to resolve.

It is insane the way they have fucked their cap paying two fullbacks starter money as well as paying overs for Tino/Mo/JC and paying massive overs for Fermor after an injury had already clearly ruined him - extending Fermor when they did would be the equivalent of us paying 900k a season to Flegler now with the info we already have to extend him for multiple years, and potentially risking losing Katoa because of it, that's basically the spot the Titans are in because of cap mismanagement. They've done it multiple times in the past with Hayne, spending big on Fifita and Tino at the same time leaving no room to fix the spine and then now that they are slowly starting to address the spine issues, their cap is too fucked to fix their forwards/backs/second row situation.

We don't want to lose Hammer, Herbie or Bostock but if we have to lose one of them as long as it's not Herbie the club will survive and stay in a contendership window (and even if Herbie does go it will sting a lot, but we will probably be okay)

I'm confident we are smart enough to keep all three of them without massively overpaying and will make the cap space with the Safiti/Flegler/Knowles/Lemuelu money if need be along with the players we already released in Isaako, Averillo, etc and Nikorima as much as it sucks to lose him mostly covers Williams given what we would have had to pay to re sign him and Williams will be good and deliver for us.

I would go as far as saying it would be a bigger disaster to pay long term overs for Flegler and Knowles for example than it would be to lose a single non Katoa/Herbie/Plath/Donoghoe player from the roster.

I also think as much as he's become an elite player and has amazing goalkicking not extending Isaako given we have Naufahu and the cap situation was probably the right call and I actually think that at the time the decision we made re Nikorima and Williams is fine too. Nikorima is having his best season ever, but there is always a chance of a regression like Shibasaki this year vs last year in the future etc, hopefully we can send Kodi out with a premiership and then win another premiership with Williams next year. Williams is a gamble but it makes sense to raise the ceiling, he is literally one of England's incumbent starting halves, not a random super league player.

If we keep everyone we could easily become a dynasty like Penrith but it's better to lose one player (say Hammer or Bostock as much as I want to keep both) than it is to fuck the cap overpaying for multiple players (especially if it's Flegler/Knowles/Lemuelu etc) and then losing the key stars we can't afford to lose - i'd love to keep the entire current squad but if we can tactically shed the players it's less important to keep and continue developing talent while keeping the key 6-7 players than make us great and build around them the sky is the limit.

I still think we keep everyone we want to keep over the next two seasons personally but that will involve letting a few more guys who are in our best 17 but not in our best 6 or 7 players along the way.
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Worst thing with the titans is that their reputation precedes them. People won't go there for less money because they know the club is spinning it's wheels every year. So you won't go unless you get the big money, but then because you and all your mates are on the big money you can't surround yourself with the players who are actually going to get you somewhere, because they are on market value at a good club.

I cannot stress enough how glad I am that so far out administration have made so many calls looking to the future while building a bit of culture that might sustain itself. If you ever read about the super league war you'll find out that almost every Sydney club at some point was a total basket case, and some of them have never really changed, almost like it is set in stone from here on out.
 
Yeah the culture here has been really positive from the start, winning their first NRL game as 16.5 point underdogs really set the tone - while the squad wasn't ready to play finals immediately they were here to compete and the club didn't panic buy Munster or Tino on 2m a season or whatever just to have a marquee player, they built a balanced squad, invested in young talent and pathways, signed some veterans and kept the cap flexible by not signing players until 2030 or whatever off the bat incase things went wrong the ability to rebuild was there - they took a shot on Katoa identifying his ceiling and it's worked out, honestly the recruitment and player development has been incredible and now we're in a spot where we should be a top 8 side for most of the next decade at worst and at best could win multiple comps in the club's first decade of existence.

Perth by comparison have signed an absolute terrible roster where they basically take any unwanted player, beyond Liam Henry and I guess Wishart and a couple others there really aren't players that their current club wanted to keep, maybe Barber as FB prospect etc

Mal was not at ALL the man you want building your franchise though he's an absolute fraud when it comes to anything that isn't on field in his prime, he has no passion for any club other than the Raiders and is there to collect a paycheck same as he was at the Titans and he has no eye for knowing what talent is worth paying for and clearly doesn't know how to build a winning culture either from his time at the Titans, they're now in an even worse spot than before he came to the club.

PNG seem to be doing a better job of it so far they have an oldish set of outside backs but top 8 ready and if they can add Walker or even Zane Harrison (i'm assuming they won't get Cleary) they basically have a top 8 backline ready to go, then if they can add a few good middles/second rowers they're good to go.

Their issue will be compound lifestyle and not a lot of actual locally developed players beyond filling the non top 17 depth spaces on the roster whether they can actually build a winning culture, but squad wise they're going to have a much better chance than Perth will of being decent immediately, they'll have insanely passionate fans and a big home ground advantage too the issue is whether they can get a bunch of Australians and islanders there for the paycheck to buy into the club's identity since the local PNG talent just doesn't exist yet at NRL level beyond a handful of players.

Regarding the Titans I don't think it'll ever truly change while the Frizelles own the club, Kelly is gone now, but they've kept clowns like Laffranchi and Mitchell around behind the scenes when they have been absolute failures for the past decade or so and it's just not going to get better. Holbrook took them from spooners to a mid table side briefly with a poor roster and was promptly axed for a washed up Des who ruined the playing squad having them sacrifice pace for size when the game was trending in the other direction and completely fucking up the cap among other things. I just don't see a world where the Titans become contenders any time in the next decade which is insane given they have a talent rich local feeding ground in the Gold Coast and Northern Rivers etc

Culture is so important and that's one thing the Dolphins have gotten right. Being able to shake off a 66-0 loss and just say okay that was one bad day we're going to go and win every game from now on and then doing it just shows the club has a winning culture when if it was say the Wests Tigers that would have been the end of the season and possibly the playing group sticking together etc
 
yonathonjoung said:
Worst thing with the titans is that their reputation precedes them. People won't go there for less money because they know the club is spinning it's wheels every year. So you won't go unless you get the big money, but then because you and all your mates are on the big money you can't surround yourself with the players who are actually going to get you somewhere, because they are on market value at a good club.

I cannot stress enough how glad I am that so far out administration have made so many calls looking to the future while building a bit of culture that might sustain itself. If you ever read about the super league war you'll find out that almost every Sydney club at some point was a total basket case, and some of them have never really changed, almost like it is set in stone from here on out.
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Rugby League Digest did an amazing series on the Super League War so comprehensive and went deep into so many clubs including dedicated chapter to how Souths were run prior to them being kicked out and done a two part series on Gold Coast, a two part series on Peter Moore (Bulldogs CEO) and even a chapter on the Crushers. It was very compelling and comprehensive.
 
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