I cannot believe all this competition in this squad, especially coming up to nines. With a wing spot open, we assumed that Faraimo would be a shoe in. Than Goodall was mentioned. Than we signed Robinson and he is the favourite to get that wing spot, now Halauafu Lavaka has came out of nowhere and now put his claim in to start RD1. Same with centre, re-signing Toutai, having Morgan, moving Hopoate to fullback opened a spot which was given to new signing Takairangi, And Beau champion added some much needed experience. Now Folau has put his foot forward
I have no idea who will be starting in the no.5 and no.3 jerseys against Manly but its anyones call, I think Robinson and Folau will get the nod but theyre other options that make that prediction uncertain, Every player will have to be on their game
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I'm surprised that Morgan and Toutai didn't get named in the 9's
I reckon Arthur is not risking anyone who isn't 100% fit. If it was an NRL match we might see a few different faces - top 17 players (whoever they are) will be allowed to (expected to, actually) carry niggling injuries into competition games, but for the Nines it's not worth risking a first teamer.
Great blog LB.
It's a nice position to be in isn't it? Finally we have some depth and all positions we have back ups with NRL experience. We have a decent team but with an excellent and modern coach who takes no shite. We also have no prima donnas.
This year we can finally say that we have a real team and I'm looking forward to who shines out of these 'nuffie' yet cheap signings we now have.
I'm excited by the manly influence particularly.
If there is a team I wish we could now base our club / team on it would be manly. I don't like them but respect the team more than any other over the past decade. We have their assistant coach, Hoppa, Gower, Watmough, Lussick and others and a big chance to have their absolute best in Foran.
I don't want my beloved club to be Manly but BA will bring much more to the eels than being an excellent coach. He had a few team members at Manly who were big admirers of BA.
We are soooooo lucky we didn't get Jason Taylor.
To be honest, I'm a bit concerned about all the off contract players in the squad. It can be a massive distraction.
I wouldn't think that the players selected at the vacant centre and wing positions will be outside being a top 25 NRL contracted player.
It is my understanding that the NRL Squad Booklet is available for sale in the next day or two which should give us a better understanding where players such as Crooks, Faraimo, Champion etc., are in the pecking order.
The selection of Folau and Lavaka in the 9's would be to gauge and evaluate them against men or a higher standard them the u20's.
If we have cap space (and apparently we do) it's easy enough to change the top 25 by just upgrading the ones you want to bring in. If I was the coach of a squad with heaps of internal competition I would do just that. Wait until after the trials and upgrade anyone I wanted to bring in. It would probably just mean paying John Folau (for example) an extra $20k (or less) on top of his approximately $70k. An upgrade like that would jump him over half the (currently 40 man) squad.