Currently the eels have by far the most players with player options in their contracts.
Talagi 2025, Brown 2026, penisini 2026, matterson 2026, lane 2026 and Moses 2027.
The eels also have 3 players with mutual options.
The raiders are 2nd with 3 players with player options, most clubs have 1 or none.
Mark O'Neil has to go.
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Angus Crichton has essentially told the media that clubs can talk to him as he needs a contract. Fuck Lane off and get Crichton. The club cannot wait for our forwards contracts to expire. They need to move on 1-2 of our forwards that are underperforming and on big money.
Yea I can't see the club moving on any of our forwards until their contract expires. So yea we won't have cap space
Mataele had big wraps for the 2023 pre-season as he was a damaging backrower. He played cup in 2022. However, in 2023 his defence had left him down to the point he was dropped to Flegg and switched to the middle. Unfortunately the club had resigned him long term before this happened. As you know he has pretty athletic however tore his hamstring in the second round of the season and has not come back yet. He definitely has a higher ceiling than Ogden and Makatoa but I do not think he will ever reach it. Will see how he goes, should be back from injury next week.
Tuivita has massive wraps and should actually be named to start in the front row for the NSW Under 19's this year. He is still in flegg this year despite having a crack at cup last year. Tuivita is a big boy like Paulo. I know a couple people think he could play cup already, but I think the eels are playing him in flegg for 2 key reasons. When your a big forward coming through the juniors, it is easy to get way with the 1% and minor details in your game because your size makes you good enough to dominate. So I recon the club wants him to fine tune certain parts of his game so he is ready for open age footy where all forwards are his size or are 100% effort players. The other reason is because he still has a lot of baby fat. If you look at him, he looks to be more fat than muscle right now. He is only 19 so hopefully another off-season will help make him ready. However, his ceiling is really high and I recon he is Paulo's long term replacement for sure. I hope he plays cup regularly by the end of this year. Same with Saxon Pryke who is a hard working middle that has a little punch in his runs.
Do not stress abotu Guymer. He is building his way to cup very well. Started the season off the bench, that injuries allowed him to get good game time starting in the backrow, and now with the injured players (keir and doorey) returning, he has still managed to force himself to remain in the starting side at lock. The club rate him highly and I believe he will stay at the club. As I have said in many previous post about him, he is not an X-factor player but a 100% worker. At lock he reminds me of Jurbo and at backrow he is like L Martin with slight less explosiveness but better defence. Leads the line speed and clean up the scraps in defence. Less of a ceiling but very consistent and reliable.
I thought Grieg had a great ceiling when we say him last year being forced to play big minutes before his injury. This year he has yet to reach those heights. Bit hard to tell if Tuivita or Grieg have a bigger ceiling. Both are similar players though.
Richie Penisini is a slightly taller version of Will. I recon he has a future with us for sure. He would have been playing cup this year and honestly had a shot for FG with how shit Sivo has been. Tradionally a centre, but with Talagi, Lomax and Will at the club, I believe his future is on the wing replacing Sivo. But given he has done his ACL, he will take time now to be FG ready and may of lost a yard of speed. However, his strength has always been his power and defence like Will.
AMS reminds me of Bula a lot. Both skinny and glide a long the field. Obviously ACL will affect his speed. Will be interesting to see where he lines up in Cup next year. However, I rate Richie more than AMS. Not completely sure if AMS has a future in the NRL tbh. If so, I doubt it will be at parra because I think he will be down the pecking order.
In regards to our outside backs, next year I believe we will be in an interesting position. With AMS and Richie back, we will have actually a decent amount of outside backs the club will be trying to develop that all have potential and different types of players to each other. I would be getting rid of Cini and Lumelume from cup who have reached their ceiling and not reliable for FG.
I could see a cup backline of this next year:
Twiddle and Alamdine are not certainies yet. Also depends on our first grade selection around Sivo, Russel and Talagi plus Harper contract.
I am assuming you meant Dick Penisini and not Will
Yep made a couple typos sorry
Good luck trying to move overpriced players, you have didly squat chance of another club taking these players unless you pay a big chunk of their salary.
There is absolutely nothing in it for a club to agree to a player option in a contract. The only reason a player would take up the option is if they weren't worth what the contract is, if they are playing good they will pass up the option to sign for more.
If you can't get a player to agree to sign without the option don't sign them.
EA / Coryn what about Sitili Tupouniua?
Reported he may not be able to stay at Roosters. Or do you feel he's more of what we already have?
Yeah good points, he's an interesting one, was a starter for so long & as you said he's been overtaken by a few now, even Egan Butcher seems ahead.
It's been reported that he's allowed to leave end of season, Roosters trying to keep Crichton.
I like Tuipiniou. Like Bup said, he runs good lines and great leg/lateral speed for defence. However he does require a lot of work after seeing him player this year. He makes a decent number of errors and misses a decent amounf of tackles. He is 100% worth the punt, but I feel BA magic is running out. I really thought Tualagi would do well this year. I cannot see the club signing any recognised forward right now until we clear out some of our current expensive forwards.
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