Tariq Gooooonnneee.

[Aaron]

[icon_thumbs_do

Brothers upset Ashton's NRL dream
By Damien Stannard
The Sunday Telegraph July 11, 2010

ASHTON Sims' dream of packing down with his siblings in the NRL has been sunk after younger brother Tariq pledged his future to North Queensland.

And the youngest of the trio, Korbin, could be the only Sims left at the Brisbane Broncos by the end of the year with Ashton still without a contract for 2011.

Tariq, 20, was wooed by both the Broncos and Cowboys after starring in the Toyota Cup National Youth League this season.

Brisbane offered to extend his contract until the end of 2012 but he instead chose a two-year deal with the Cowboys after taking a look at their Townsville base.

"I don't think there would have been too much difference between the offers," said Broncos manager of football operations Andrew Gee.

The Cowboys were delighted to get their man.

After releasing Manase Manuokafoa and Antonio Kaufusi, and with Carl Webb unlikely to be offered a new deal, they needed to bolster front-row stocks.

Up stepped Tariq, who represented NSW under-17s as an outside back but has this year averaged almost 140m as a hard-running prop in the under-20s.

"We liked what we saw," said North Queensland's new recruitment manager Adrian "Happy" Thompson.

While dominant in the under-20s, Tariq has this year been trapped behind Nick Kenny, Scott Anderson, Lagi Setu, Shane Tronc, Mitchell Dodds, Dunamis Lui and Ashton.

But Thompson believes the youngster will not be forced to cool his heels in the Cowboys' Queensland Cup affiliates.

"He's definitely got a first-grade future next year," he said.

"We'd like to think he'll play NRL and he'd be thinking that as well.

"We wanted to inject some youth into the squad and we've got that.

"He will come into the picture with Matt Scott and James Tamou."

While Queensland under-18s front-rower Korbin is locked in at Red Hill until the end of next season, Ashton's career remains up in the air.

Neither Brisbane nor North Queensland sought to stitch the siblings up on a package deal.

"Nothing's been decided yet. I'm hoping to get that settled in the next couple of weeks," Ashton said.

All three joined Brisbane at the end of 2007.

While his brothers still cheer for NSW, Korbin is happy to switch to Maroon. "When I moved up here I wanted to be a Queenslander and I've tried to prove that point over the past two years," he said.

Link...

Well there goes the reason I was happy we still had Ashton in the squad.
Although Ashton has played pretty good this year when given the chance.

 

[Nashy]

Massive loss.....

 

[Big Pete]

It's all Wallaces'/McCullough's/Dodds'/Wintersteins' and Henjak's fault!

 

[nopatience101]

thanks scoop!

 

[Nashy]

Massive loss.....

Huge. What are we going to do now? Premiership hopes for 2011 just went straight down the drain.

Not making the semis next year.

 

[Abe The Cop]

The Korbin and queensland bit at the end is interesting. eusa_think

 

[s_s_s]

Was talking to the under 20's manager at training this afternoon and he told me that Korbin Sims is in hospital in ICU after getting an elbow to the throat in colts on the weekend. He has a fractured larranyx, no need for surgery but will be in ICU for 3-4 days.

 

[Porthoz]

Was talking to the under 20's manager at training this afternoon and he told me that Korbin Sims is in hospital in ICU after getting an elbow to the throat in colts on the weekend. He has a fractured larranyx, no need for surgery but will be in ICU for 3-4 days.

That sucks (no pun intended), but now we have someone to take over Lockyer's voice... [eusa_eh