NEWS Reece Walsh to save QLD

[1910]

How long have you known Walsh has a pretty good chance of being an NRL player? Why do we continually let these guys go to open market instead of extending them? The amount of young talent we have off contract at the end of this year is disgusting. Fair enough you can’t keep them all but at least extend the ones you commit too. Haas is the only one we’ve done it with and Flegler (for no reason).

First time I noticed him was Under 16-2018. They started this process last year.

 

[Renegade]

Yeah as a one off, for sure but it is more the fact so many of our kids have become available in recent years, this is a seeming symptom of a larger problem.

I think the problem is we are shit and therefore any issue snowballs into something more as we revel in misery. How many awesome kids have we lost in the last few years? Fifita, who got offered a bomb that everyone agrees we shouldn't have matched. Who else?

 

[theshed]

I think the problem is we are shit and therefore any issue snowballs into something more as we revel in misery. How many awesome kids have we lost in the last few years? Fifita, who got offered a bomb that everyone agrees we shouldn't have matched. Who else?

Ask me again in 12 months

 

[Sproj]

I think the problem is we are shit and therefore any issue snowballs into something more as revel in misery. How many awesome kids have we lost in the last few years? Fifita, who got offered a bomb that everyone agrees we shouldn't have matched. Who else?

Su'A, Tino (yes this is a stretch I know), Collins, Taylor, Walker.

Yes some of these are a stretch but as mentioned above, let's see in 12 months. Right now, nothing has happened either way, so it is honestly a lot of hysteria about things not have happened yet. We just want to see these kids show some faith in the club and stay, we want things to be positive about.

 

[theshed]

Su'A, Tino (yes this is a stretch I know), Collins, Taylor, Walker.

Yes some of these are a stretch but as mentioned above, let's see in 12 months. Right now, nothing has happened either way, so it is honestly a lot of hysteria about things not have happened yet. We just want to see these kids show some faith in the club and stay, we want things to be positive about.

Allen

 

[HarryAllan7]

What we should be doing:

'Ok these 5 players come off contract end of 2022, so let's have made our decision on whether we want to keep them by start of 2021 and then have them signed and extended by the end of 2021 before other clubs can come poach them. We can't and don't want to keep them all, but let's use the advantage of having exclusivity to try to lock up our top prospects now'

What we are doing:

'Hey champion your contract expires in 4 days, have you been enjoying spending the last 6 months talking to all our rivals, fielding offers, starting a bidding war and touring facilities? That's great... so we were wondering if you want to re-sign with us? We need to know.. or you can just tell us later, that's totally fine too... Oh the Titans want a few more days to shake Mal by the ankles and see if they can scrape up any more cash? Well of course we'll wait, look forward to having you be a Bronco for life just like you said in the newspaper :)'

 

[Foordy]

Allen

how far do you want to go back ... because we lost Alfie in 1999

 

[Fozz]

everyone needs to settle down. losing our minds about a kid potentially going to another club on massive overs that hasn't played even 1min of NRL.

he may well be a good NRL player, but it's not as if he's an absolute lock like a Folau or an Inglis type where you just know he's going to be an out and out superstar.

I think it'd be nice to see the kids our club has developed debut for the Broncos and not get poached before we see some kind of return for the investment.

Sure, he may not turn out to be the next Ponga but I'd like to see us find that out not whoever has the biggest chequebook.

 

[Sproj]

how far do you want to go back ... because we lost Alfie in 1999

And we all hold White and Morris responsible for that too. Hehe

 

[Renegade]

Su'A, Tino (yes this is a stretch I know), Collins, Taylor, Walker.

Yes some of these are a stretch but as mentioned above, let's see in 12 months. Right now, nothing has happened either way, so it is honestly a lot of hysteria about things not have happened yet. We just want to see these kids show some faith in the club and stay, we want things to be positive about.

Su'a was playing like dogs balls and Seibold was happy to release. This wasn't a "we got outbid by someone", we actively said it's cool you can leave. Whether or not that was a good decision is a different story, but it's not the same.

Tino is a stretch as you've said so no point addressing this. Collins is a decent forward that got lucky playing for Qld because we literally had no one else. Are you upset that Wallace or Keegan Hipgrave are playing elsewhere?

Taylor was offered 1 million dollars. Same deal as Fifita. Walker hasn't played a game of NRL?

Hysteria for the sake of hysteria. **** I hope we win some games this year so the sky isn't falling about everything.

 

[Renegade]

I think it'd be nice to see the kids our club has developed debut for the Broncos and not get poached before we see some kind of return for the investment.

Sure, he may not turn out to be the next Ponga but I'd like to see us find that out not whoever has the biggest chequebook.

I am sure the Tigers feel the same way with Moses and Tedesco but that's the way of modern professional sport.

 

[Sproj]

Su'a was playing like dogs balls and Seibold was happy to release. This wasn't a "we got outbid by someone", we actively said it's cool you can leave. Whether or not that was a good decision is a different story, but it's not the same.

Tino is a stretch as you've said so no point addressing this. Collins is a decent forward that got lucky playing for Qld because we literally had no one else. Are you upset that Wallace or Keegan Hipgrave are playing elsewhere?

Taylor was offered 1 million dollars. Same deal as Fifita. Walker hasn't played a game of NRL?

Hysteria for the sake of hysteria. **** I hope we win some games this year so the sky isn't falling about everything.

As mentioned, yes it is a lot of hysteria about nothing so far, lets see what happens as the season progresses and where these kids are next year. Hopefully most of them are still with us.

 

[Kooly87]

What we should be doing:

'Ok these 5 players come off contract end of 2022, so let's have made our decision on whether we want to keep them by start of 2021 and then have them signed and extended by the end of 2021 before other clubs can come poach them. We can't and don't want to keep them all, but let's use the advantage of having exclusivity to try to lock up our top prospects now'

Nobody is arguing that this might be acceptable for a couple of your absolute best prospects once you've seen them play a bit of senior football at a minimum, but we're talking specifically about Walsh here, or at least that's how it started.

To stop people taking to Walsh at barely 18 years old today, you'd need to have made this call back when he was 16 or just barely 17 and still in high school (he would have barely played much high level high school football at this point mind you) and if you're doing that sort of thing on a regular basis you're just not going to have a very high strike rate for success.

The gap between making a call like that on a 19 year old Fifita who is already playing Queensland Cup, and in his case NRL and State of Origin, is vastly different to doing it with a 16 or 17 year old high school student like Walsh would need to have to been in this example.

Yes, in broad strokes out recruitment and retention has been horrendous, but I think in the Walsh example specifically, it might be clutching at straws a little to suggest the Broncos needed to act more decisively at an earlier age.

 

[Fozz]

I am sure the Tigers feel the same way with Moses and Tedesco but that's the way of modern professional sport.

Both of whom debuted and played 50+ games for the Tigers. Even if Reece only plays 50 games for us, I'd be happy with that.

 

[Renegade]

Both of whom debuted and played 50+ games for the Tigers. Even if Reece only plays 50 games for us, I'd be happy with that.

But left before they peaked, so not really a huge return on their investment. Especially considering how Tedesco has gone since.

Frankly I'd rather lose a player before they've played a game for us than lose someone like Fifita where you know how good they are and now another team is reaping the rewards for it.

 

[Galah]

Arrow

 

[Renegade]

Arrow

I like Arrow agree we should've kept him, I seem to recall the rationale behind him leaving was that we had Carrigan looming who was equally as good (also debatable).

 

[HarryAllan7]

Nobody is arguing that this might be acceptable for a couple of your absolute best prospects once you've seen them play a bit of senior football at a minimum, but we're talking specifically about Walsh here, or at least that's how it started.

To stop people taking to Walsh at barely 18 years old today, you'd need to have made this call back when he was 16 or just barely 17 and still in high school (he would have barely played much high level high school football at this point mind you) and if you're doing that sort of thing on a regular basis you're just not going to have a very high strike rate for success.

The gap between making a call like that on a 19 year old Fifita who is already playing Queensland Cup, and in his case NRL and State of Origin, is vastly different to doing it with a 16 or 17 year old high school student like Walsh would need to have to been in this example.

Yes, in broad strokes out recruitment and retention has been horrendous, but I think in the Walsh example specifically, it might be clutching at straws a little to suggest the Broncos needed to act more decisively at an earlier age.

If we're not willing to be able to man up and make a call on whether we think someone like Walsh will develop into a good first grader by the time they are 16/17 years old then why are we bothering to develop players at all? Nobody is suggesting you offer an enormous long term contract, only that what you are going to offer, you do it while you still have the upper hand of exclusivity instead of trying to outbid everyone unnecessarily.

Yes he has very little experience, yes its a gamble, no we won't get every decision right... but I'd damn well prefer the Broncos saddle up and place a few bets and live by their choices than simply allow open season on our playing roster and we're stuck with whoever is left.