PLAYER Blake Mozer

[Culhwch]

I genuinely think that Mozer is a shot at starting in 2025 from the get-go if he closes out the year strongly and shows out in the preseason. He's got to match Billy's defensive effort, though, and it remains to be seen how he'll handle the opening exchanges.

 

[Johnny92]

I genuinely think that Mozer is a shot at starting in 2025 from the get-go if he closes out the year strongly and shows out in the preseason. He's got to match Billy's defensive effort, though, and it remains to be seen how he'll handled the opening exchanges.

I agree that it's a chance, Kev has had a plan with him going by Mozers interview.
He's done well so far bringing him in when he's ready.

 

[Sproj]

It really is a horrible thing to make a player earn it, just a terrible thing to do hey.

 

[Manofoneway]

I agree that it's a chance, Kev has had a plan with him going by Mozers interview.
He's done well so far bringing him in when he's ready.

I genuinely think that Mozer is a shot at starting in 2025 from the get-go if he closes out the year strongly and shows out in the preseason. He's got to match Billy's defensive effort, though, and it remains to be seen how he'll handle the opening exchanges.

One thing you cant fault Kevy for, he knows how to bring young players through the system and he has done Mozer a service by letting him do a full apprenticeship in Qcup. Mozer will be ready in 2025 thats for sure and Billy should assume the bench utility role.

 

[BroncsFan]

I think we need to get away from needing to start at hooker to be "the guy". There's very few teams that have an 80 minute hooker nowadays, because the game is too fast.

Harry is the hooker for Qld but often starts from the bench or plays the most minutes throughout the game.

Teams carrying two hookers generally only want to use one interchange.

If the starting hooker plays 20mins and then isnt seen again for the rest of the game, then he's not actually the no. 1 hooker for the team.

Storm were starting Bsmith and then bringing Harry on at 30mins to play out the game. Harry was the hooker and Smith was just taking the initial sting out of the game.

Mozer should be aiming to get 30-40mins a game and when he's getting 50mins then he's "the guy" regardless of jersey number

 

[Culhwch]

I think we need to get away from needing to start at hooker to be "the guy". There's very few teams that have an 80 minute hooker nowadays, because the game is too fast.

Harry is the hooker for Qld but often starts from the bench or plays the most minutes throughout the game.

Teams carrying two hookers generally only want to use one interchange.

If the starting hooker plays 20mins and then isnt seen again for the rest of the game, then he's not actually the no. 1 hooker for the team.

Storm were starting Bsmith and then bringing Harry on at 30mins to play out the game.

Mozer should be aiming to get 30-40mins a game and when he's getting 50mins then he's "the guy" regardless of jersey number

This is all very true. And I could definitely see situations where even if Mozer is named in the nine he starts from the bench anyway, depending on the opponent and game situation.

The Grant/Hunt combination is a fair comparison if we move forward using Walter/Mozer, although Billy would probably get fewer back-end stints - although he's certainly capable enough if needed.

 

[BroncsFan]

This is all very true. And I could definitely see situations where even if Mozer is named in the nine he starts from the bench anyway, depending on the opponent and game situation.

The Grant/Hunt combination is a fair comparison if we move forward using Walter/Mozer, although Billy would probably get fewer back-end stints - although he's certainly capable enough if needed.

I wouldnt mind seeing if Billy can handle a middle role.

He wouldnt be there as a stocky bustling middle for hitups and quick ptbs but he could do a pure ball playing role, which is what dogs have been doing with their lock rotation of Mann, Salmon and Hayward.

Billy can handle himself defensively, so if he can do a role in the middle that allows us to rest Patty then we should be looking at it.

At the moment our structure is so dependent on Patty ballplaying in the middle that he cant come off the field and we have no one that comes close to replicating it. Smoothy actually looked the best doing it in recent times... and he was able to take hitups.

If Billy were out there with Mozer he'd need to be on with two big middles, but they would also need to be aggressive in defence so they can't spot the two of them up.

 

[Johnny92]

One thing you cant fault Kevy for, he knows how to bring young players through the system and he has done Mozer a service by letting him do a full apprenticeship in Qcup. Mozer will be ready in 2025 thats for sure and Billy should assume the bench utility role.

Were pretty lucky Mozer seems switched on and knows who and what he wants to be In the game which is why I reckon he's hasn't kicked up a stink about doing his apprenticeship in the lower grades.
Some others have/would have asked for a release because they think their a first grader.

 

[McHunt]

One thing you cant fault Kevy for, he knows how to bring young players through the system and he has done Mozer a service by letting him do a full apprenticeship in Qcup. Mozer will be ready in 2025 thats for sure and Billy should assume the bench utility role.

Does he though?

How many home grown rookies has Kevvie blooded lately? Now do imports who turned out to be useless.

We only had one debutant this year - Ben Te Kura - and he played a sum total of 24 minutes.

 

[Sproj]

Does he though?

How many home grown rookies has Kevvie blooded lately? Now do imports who turned out to be useless.

We only had one debutant this year - Ben Te Kura - and he played a sum total of 24 minutes.

Mam
Mariner
Piakura
Mozer
Willison
Te Kura

Semu and Leota on the fringes and Black in the coach's box last week.

That's 6 in the last 2 or so years with more getting close. Do you want a whole team of rookies?

 

[BroncsFan]

Does he though?

How many home grown rookies has Kevvie blooded lately? Now do imports who turned out to be useless.

We only had one debutant this year - Ben Te Kura - and he played a sum total of 24 minutes.

Karapani as a debutant as well.

I think we've used everyone in our Top 30??

Except maybe Hoeter and Pereira, but that's due to injuries.

So the two rookies in the squad have been debuted.

Leota would be the "next one", but he looks far from ready for first grade.

I think the reluctance to use train and trial comes down to trust... maybe they're just not up to first grade standard

A lot want to talk about Patston... but he's 25 with 50 Qcup games under his belt.. if he was NRL ready he likely would've played by now wouldnt he??... he's been at Tweed and Burleigh, so in the GC feeder systems, but he wasn't making the Titans team either.

I would be interested to know how many forwards have debuted in NRL this year from Qcup... whilst also being outside a system.

So not Shibasaki, Te Kura, etc.

I can think of Hubner from Dolphins, but not sure if he is in the top 30 or not.

 

[McHunt]

Mam
Mariner
Piakura
Mozer
Willison
Te Kura

Semu and Leota on the fringes and Black in the coach's box last week.

That's 6 in the last 2 or so years with more getting close. Do you want a whole team of rookies?

Considering we have "all of QLD to pick from" I don't think we're unearthing a bunch of rookies:

2021: Piakura, Willison
2022: Mam, Mariner
2023: Mozer, Rogers
2024: Te Kura, Karapani

 

[Sproj]

Considering we have "all of QLD to pick from" I don't think we're unearthing a bunch of rookies:

2021: Piakura, Willison
2022: Mam, Mariner
2023: Mozer, Rogers
2024: Te Kura, Karapani

You don't think Kevvie does anything right, so doesn't matter what he does.

In this time, Wests have debuted:

2021: Utoikamanu, Simpkin, Cini, Madden, Pauga, Simpkins, Tuilagi
2022: Tupou, Pole, Dias, Matamua, Freebairn, Kautoga
2023: Tumeth, Bula, Da Silva, James, Reilly, Faataape
2024: Galvin, L.Fainu, Alaimalo

And aren't they smashing it.

 

[Foordy]

Mam
Mariner
Piakura
Mozer
Willison
Te Kura

Semu and Leota on the fringes and Black in the coach's box last week.

That's 6 in the last 2 or so years with more getting close. Do you want a whole team of rookies?

Of course ... What could go wrong with that?

Oh yeah ... 2020

 

[broncos4life]

Considering we have "all of QLD to pick from" I don't think we're unearthing a bunch of rookies:

2021: Piakura, Willison
2022: Mam, Mariner
2023: Mozer, Rogers
2024: Te Kura, Karapani

We don't have all of QLD to pick from, we have multiple teams picking from that same landscape now. You know this though...

 

[Sproj]

We don't have all of QLD to pick from, we have multiple teams picking from that same landscape now. You know this though...

Hence why I didn’t reply to that part of the post, it’s written like true NRL gossip column

 

[BroncsFan]

We don't have all of QLD to pick from, we have multiple teams picking from that same landscape now. You know this though...

I was only thinking the other day and whether broncos start looking at NSW players?

But is it even viable for us?

Gotta be hard to entice NSW players out of junior systems in NSW OR even convincing them to move north instead of finding another option with 1 of the other 9 Sydney teams.

Broncos will want to stay predominantly Qld, but if we completely ignore NSW players then our pool of possible recruits is drastically reduced... whilst we're also competing with all the other teams picking up Qld players.

I would probably consider Karapani one of those guys that we've picked up from the NSW system and he's been pretty good coming into grade... I'm considering him more so than Baker, Gos and Jock, because they were in Top 30 squads and started up a first grade career, rather than guys who are in junior systems that we target and bring up here.

Promising Qld juniors head down south all the time, even if they have opportunities with Qld teams (Sam Walker, Oloapu, etc.), but it doesn't seem to occur in the opposite direction.

It's puts a lot of pressure on the Qcup system to be continually developing reliable first graders to 'feed' the Qld teams... if NSW players are pretty much off limits.

 

[Big Pete]

Karapani as a debutant as well.

I think we've used everyone in our Top 30??

Except maybe Hoeter and Pereira, but that's due to injuries.

So the two rookies in the squad have been debuted.

Leota would be the "next one", but he looks far from ready for first grade.

I think the reluctance to use train and trial comes down to trust... maybe they're just not up to first grade standard

A lot want to talk about Patston... but he's 25 with 50 Qcup games under his belt.. if he was NRL ready he likely would've played by now wouldnt he??... he's been at Tweed and Burleigh, so in the GC feeder systems, but he wasn't making the Titans team either.

I would be interested to know how many forwards have debuted in NRL this year from Qcup... whilst also being outside a system.

So not Shibasaki, Te Kura, etc.

I can think of Hubner from Dolphins, but not sure if he is in the top 30 or not.

There's a few players at Red Hill on training contracts, but the only one that I recognise is Bukowski.

You made the point the other day that the gap between the NRL and QRL is widening and I tend to agree. There's plenty of talent there and clubs would be silly to put the QCup to the side entirely but you couldn't pick a QCup or NSW Cup player and expect them to do a job.

The exception is when you have a player like Hosking who put in the hard work for years, was a massive stand-out and came in during the Origin period. He was never going to get the Broncos out of their 2022 slump, but when the Broncos were out of troops he made an immediate impact.

There's nobody of that calibre at the Broncos affiliates. You're looking down another level at your Patston's and Coburn's and for whatever reason, Kevie didn't want to invest in either. My hope during the off-season was that Ethan O'Neil would catch fire, force his way into a development deal and effectively become Capewell 2.0 (who also started as a Hosking type signing fwiw) but it just hasn't happened for him this year.

While Patston has been better and has had his moments at Burleigh, I can't recall any game where I thought he was in the Top 3.

Still, I would have liked to have seen Kevie name two affiliate players when they played the Dragons - just for my own peace of mind that every base was covered.