Broncos Roster, Signings and Rumours Discussion 2021

[Unbreakable]

I'll reiterate my sentiments from a month or so ago, I'm happy to go in to next season with our current crop of Fullbacks.

We haven't seen Isaako's best yet. We've also never seen him with a competent Halfback & Five-Eighth feeding him the ball in the correct position. He could be well above average.

Farnworth has very high potential at 1, he's already got the running game & footwork of an upper echelon #1, just needs to continue to work on his ball playing and short kicking game, which hopefully Reynolds can help with.

Cobbo is arguably the most exciting Fullback coming through in QCUP, signing anyone else before we've seen what he looks like after another full off-season & pre-season of training with the big boys would be negligence.

If we cycle through these 3 options next season and none of them hit the mark, that is when we should go to market, certainly not before.

 

[theshed]

I'll reiterate my sentiments from a month or so ago, I'm happy to go in to next season with our current crop of Fullbacks.

We haven't seen Isaako's best yet. We've also never seen him with a competent Halfback & Five-Eighth feeding him the ball in the correct position. He could be well above average.

Farnworth has very high potential at 1, he's already got the running game & footwork of an upper echelon #1, just needs to continue to work on his ball playing and short kicking game, which hopefully Reynolds can help with.

Cobbo is arguably the most exciting Fullback coming through in QCUP, signing anyone else before we've seen what he looks like after another full off-season & pre-season of training with the big boys would be negligence.

If we cycle through these 3 options next season and none of them hit the mark, that is when we should go to market, certainly not before.

Who’s the competent 5/8 though?

 

[Foordy]

Who’s the competent 5/8 though?

with Reynolds as half any of Gamble, Kelly or even Staggs could go really well at 5/8

hell even Croft could thrive next to Staggs, when he doesn't have to worry about game management and can focus on his strength which is his running game

 

[Fitzy]

Yes but he has Holmes and Drinkwater ahead of him for the fb spot, just a bunch we can get him if we want him. They also owe us one for Timmy Dryden.

I think you mean we owe them look who our halfback is next year

 

[pagey]

We won our last Grand Final with a Centre playing fullback, give Herbie a shot, he is big, fast and has good footwork plus he is fit as hell and always is there in support, him in the middle would be chaos for the opposition.


They have 3 five eighths right now, they got no fucken idea what they are doing, plus they overpaid I'm genuinely surprised Hynes would take that deal even when you put the money into it I can easily see that deal being his last in the NRL at that club.

Hodges was a 1 playing center not a center playing 1. Can't compare the two, Hodges had all the skills and smarts , Herbie has the skills but it's harder to teach the smarts.

 

[Thelmus]

The question is though,why are we letting players go early given this signing?
Something must be up. If not what would it serve?

 

[Sproj]

I’m more than happy to go into next season with our current fullback options too. So it leads to a couple of questions:

1. Do we need to still offload Lodge?
2. Should we go harder for Hodgson or someone else?
3. If Melbourne were up for it, would you enquire about Isaako for Smith? I’m aware any trade with Melbourne may just not be worth it as they are unreasonable and we are pushovers.
4. Should we go after Gagai now and really work on Herbie as a fullback?

I’m actually kinda relieved we missed out on Hynes at that price.

 

[theshed]

with Reynolds as half any of Gamble, Kelly or even Staggs could go really well at 5/8

hell even Croft could thrive next to Staggs, when he doesn't have to worry about game management and can focus on his strength which is his running game

I’ve said a few times but Reynolds isn’t an elite ball player. He’s got a great kick and good organising but he doesn’t set up tries. With Isaako(or another running fb), Staggs, and Dearden in the spine, I don’t know who is producing the like break assists or try assists. To improve our spine we desperately need someone with a passing game.

Drinkwater or Hynes would’ve been ideal.

unless something changes between now and next season, I think we still have one of the worst spines in the comp, even with Reynolds and Staggs.

 

[HarryAllan7]

We gambled on not wanting to overpay for Walsh and that has clearly been an awful decision so far.

BUT

Glad we didn't compound that mistake by paying way overs for Hynes.

 

[Bongo]

Isaako hasn't been as bad as many people want to believe. still a bit to work on but he's building nicely in his first full season at the back.

so far this season he has:

5 tries
6 try assists
1477 run meters (average of 123m per match)
7 line breaks
5 line break assists
48 tackle breaks

How many errors? What are the stats about his defensive positioning and tries scored from kicks when he is out of position. Attack is only half the game. His clean up defensively and handling errors in attack are the big problems. His kick off errors are unforced and terrible too.

He is improving his general play but I think he is much better as a centre moving forward.

 

[Bongo]

I’ve said a few times but Reynolds isn’t an elite ball player. He’s got a great kick and good organising but he doesn’t set up tries. With Isaako(or another running fb), Staggs, and Dearden in the spine, I don’t know who is producing the like break assists or try assists. To improve our spine we desperately need someone with a passing game.

Drinkwater or Hynes would’ve been ideal.

unless something changes between now and next season, I think we still have one of the worst spines in the comp, even with Reynolds and Staggs.

We massively overpaid on Staggs. I think our spine will be

1. Isaako
6. Staggs
7. Reynolds
9. Turpin/Hodgson

Terrible.

 

[broncos4life]

Hynes is a big risk. He has only had a fairly small run of great form and it has been against poor teams. Add to that he comes from a system that we have seen first hand makes average players look great.

may 300-400k it is an acceptable risk, at 600k it’s crazy.

 

[Kooly87]

We gambled on not wanting to overpay for Walsh and that has clearly been an awful decision so far.

BUT

Glad we didn't compound that mistake by paying way overs for Hynes.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but there is a fair argument to be made that both deals look/looked to be considerable overs at the time they were done.

The Warriors look to have gotten great value with Walsh and Hynes may well prove the same for Cronulla, but on face value at the time I don't take issue with the Broncos choosing to be conservative and not match the offers either player actually took up.

 

[Kooly87]

Hynes is a big risk. He has only had a fairly small run of great form and it has been against poor teams. Add to that he comes from a system that we have seen first hand makes average players look great.

may 300-400k it is an acceptable risk, at 600k it’s crazy.

Risk is all relative. The Warriors gambled on Walsh and we didn't, but they have always struggled to attract Australian players and so their appetite for that risk is greater than ours might well be.

I thought when I read that the Warriors tabled an alleged $1.5 million for Hynes that it was probably a reasonable gamble on their end too, though again, it's probably slightly more than I'd have wanted us to risk.

I'd have been comfortable with $400k, perhaps $450k at an absolute maximum from our end. You can imagine Melbourne thinking that even that amount was too much risk, because for a club like them the appetite for risk is probably far lower than ours.

 

[Bongo]

Hynes is a big risk. He has only had a fairly small run of great form and it has been against poor teams. Add to that he comes from a system that we have seen first hand makes average players look great.

may 300-400k it is an acceptable risk, at 600k it’s crazy.

I agree 600 seems overs.
However, would you rather 700 for Staggs or 600 for Hynes at 5/8?

We paid overs too in my view. Hopefully, I am proved wrong by Staggs.

 

[Broncapz]

Everything we've done since Dave has come on board has been exactly what we should be doing. Chasing the right players with the right amount of money.

It's just refreshing not to be lead around by old Gill.

 

[HarryAllan7]

Hindsight is always 20/20 but there is a fair argument to be made that both deals look/looked to be considerable overs at the time they were done.

The Warriors look to have gotten great value with Walsh and Hynes may well prove the same for Cronulla, but on face value at the time I don't take issue with the Broncos choosing to be conservative and not match the offers either player actually took up.

I agree we have the benefit of hindsight.

The part of the Walsh situation which really annoyed me was that I can understand arguments that we let him walk without being willing to pay overs due to youth, inexperience etc

But we then turned around and paid similar money to both Riki and Robati. To let a potential superstar in the most important position in the modern game walk just to sign 2 youngsters in a position where solid players are a dime-a-dozen makes this a big error in my mind. I'd much rather we had taken the gamble on Walsh than lock down 2 second rowers who are easily replaced and can have limited impact on the game.

I like the fact that we're willing to stick to our guns and not overpay and play hardball, but throwing money at second rowers (one of whom was barely much older or more experienced than Walsh) at the expense of a spine player seems pretty incongruous and silly.

 

[broncos4life]

I agree 600 seems overs.
However, would you rather 700 for Staggs or 600 for Hynes at 5/8?

We paid overs too in my view. Hopefully, I am proved wrong by Staggs.

700 for Staggs, even with the unknown around 5/8. Reason being is we know and have seen that he is elite at centre in a SHITTTTTTT team. So even if he bombs at 5/8 he can go back to centre and we are not left with a gaping useless hole.