OFFICIAL Tom Dearden lost to Cowboys

The Cowboys have offered Tommy Dearden a paltry three-year deal worth a mere $1 million sealed with a dubious promise to be mentored by some guy named Jonathon Thurston. According to Dobbo, that works out to be cool $1 million dollars a year, maybe more if you count it in potatoes, but you might want to double check his maths.

Thurston's single premiership pales beside Dearden's current brains trust of Langer & Walters who've each won more premierships than Dobbo can count.

Greedy Cowboys football-operations baron Michael Luck said:

“Now that we’ve got Chad, we haven’t ruled out Tom at all. We would still love to have him here and we believe they could work well together as a halves pairing. He is still coming through and learning the ropes and we think Tom can do a wonderful apprenticeship riding shotgun with Chad and then potentially take over from him and be a long-term playmaker at our club."

“It would be great news if Tom accepts our offer. Tom has shown some things we like, so we would love for him to be here. Tom grew up in Mackay, he was part of our junior academy five or six years ago and then he went to Palm Beach Currumbin (on the Gold Coast) to finish school."

Cowboys looking for a young playmaker

“He has done a great job coming through the ranks during a trying period for the Broncos as a club. I know it’s a big decision from Tom so we will give him time and space. We know he is a wonderfully loyal kid, he has come through the system at the Broncos and if he leaves it’s a big decision for him, so we’re not putting any deadlines on him.”

Let's hear it for Townsville!

Meanwhile local legend Kevin Walters is having none of it:

“Tom is part of our system so at this stage we are not looking outside the circle. We don’t anticipate losing Tom. He has been a good player for us in our systems and he’s still learning the game but we see little bits of improvement in Tom each week and we expect that again tomorrow night from him… no problems there with Tommy."

"We have been through everything with Tommy, he has a nice clear picture in his head about his job in the side and we are confident he can do that job for us (on Friday night) and moving forward as well.”

“If you wear a seven jumper these days you are linked to the Broncos, so that part of it… we are a big club, we are a strong club. It’s great to know other players want to come and play at the Broncos, that’s what it is all about. For us, we have our structures around what we will be doing and won’t be going outside those structures.”

“Adam Reynolds is a good player and there is some interest in him, but we need to tie up Kotoni Staggs first and if and when we do that, we will look at our other scrumbase options."

Mitchell Moses, another rumoured player of interest said:

“I‘d love to stay at the Eels, that’s my main thing, I’ve made that clear to them but that’s up them now if they want to keep me or if my management will sort it all out. When a contract is ready to go my management will let me know.”

“The ultimate goal is to get a premiership. But everyone is different Everyone is in a different situation and different ages, all those types of things. The premiership pact gets tossed around every now and then but nothing in depth. The way footy is at the moment everyone looks after themselves and that‘s how it is.”

McHunt

 

[K-Style]

The Cowboys game was tough to watch. I didn't watch the whole game but the parts I saw Tom wasn't terrible in defense. He made a decent tackle only for no one to close the gap on the next play while he was marker.
With the ball it looked very similar to us in that every time Tom received the ball it was just behind him and halted any momentum. One of the passes he received was a hospital pass. I'd say that in part because they haven't had much time to work on combinations but I also remember him having the same issue with Asiata while playing for us.
But what worried\worries me about Tom is that he appears to lack the ability to kick further than 30m on the fly. In the game one of these went out on the full. Do selector\recruiters not consider kicking important in the NRL. I am yet to see him do anything in first grade that reflects the hype the media placed on him.

 

[Mightybroncs2k17]

I'd love to say it just looks like tom needs time in Q cup to develop. But he's honestly shown absolutely zero to suggest that, literally every aspect of his game just seems average.

Obviously alot of people both in the broncos and cows have big wraps on him so coming through the ranks he must have been impressive. But he might be one of those kids that hit top gear in under 20s and thats as good as he'll get.

 

[Allo]

I'd be more worried about who at our club put so much faith in him in the first place. Lockyer was convinced at one stage he was going to be the player to build this club around.

Dearden's issue is he just needs development. He is a 20 year old halfback who has been thrown into a pretty terrible system for development in recent years, then thrown into a basket case of a football team way before he was ready. We have probably damaged a promising career but if he goes back to ISC and works on his game he may come good. He is a shining example why we need to let these young blokes develop instead of bowing down to their demands of NRL football.

I don't trust the NRL to govern it well, but we need a system to stop the player agents taking advantage of them and the hype (media obviously has their part in this too) and achieving bidding wars of up to half a million dollars for kids that haven't even played reserve grade, particularly the spine positions as they usually need the refinement and you can manage and rotate forwards far more easily.

What happened with Tom and Reece is what will always happen if there's no agreed rule for all clubs. We tell player x he needs a season in QCup, player agent finds a club willing to offer him money and/or a starting spot.