Im hearing a lot of people talking like Mahoney is a shoe in for our number one starting hooker next year, excited fans talking him up like he's the next big thing.

Ive been very impressed with him like most but im worried im seeing the same pattern of building young blokes up, only to see them fall hard down the track.

Do we lock Reed in as our second stringer and buy in a tried hooker weve so desperately needed the last 5 years? 

Do we give a green Mahoney the top hooking role off a promising back end season this year?

Do we keep both King and KP to play second string behind Reed so effectively nothing changes in our rake dept?

Id personally like to see King let go and replace him with a tried and tested hooker, maybe a journeyman like Segeyaro who i believe is the best attacking hooker on offer, on a 1 or 2 year contract.

Its a risk off the park but we sure could do with an attacking hooker.

Somebody to work in unison with Reed to help ease him in.

This would be putting a lot of faith in Reed to be our future hooker, that maybe a good or bad thing but the kids definitely got promise..

Reed might be good enough that we dont need a replacement to share the duties, but i think we need the injection of a new hooker to our stocks, new energy, reliability, good delivery, maybe a decent short kicking game.

We need some reliability and stability, King and KP are injury prone and cant be relied upon, we need better foundations at hooker than them imo.

Kings the man to go imo, maybe even both him and KP need to be let go..

How would you play our hooker situation for next year and moving forward?

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  • Segeyaro & Mahoney would be a great combo for me. Either could start and both offer something from the bench. Forget the whole "him & Corey won't work"....they would (if Corey stays that is) and them partying together..well it already happens now. The club they play for doesn't influence it that much.
    • Agree Segs best on offer but not sure how he would go off the park.

      • He Corey Norman,Junior Paulo and the Commancheros will go well together 

    • How's he going atm? Pretty good. Especially if Norman isn't here, what's the issue? Don't forget that when that incident happened at the Star, Sege wasn't at Parra, so again, the club he plays for won't stop it from happening. But honestly, the guys done 1-2 silly things. Compared to Fergo he's a Saint.
      • Not from what ive heard, i think he'd be a big risk off the park and it seems he struggles fitting in at clubs.

        Agree hes in good form the last year, hes the best hooker on offer.

    • This reply was deleted.
  • Depends on how you expect we'll go overall next year. If we were challenging for the comp I'd say buy the best hooker we can. But we're at the bottom and probably won't move any higher than 6 places on the ladder if we don't recruit anymore noteworthy players. We can afford to let Mahoney have a go as our main string hooker and see how he handles it. Keep KP for depth; Smith will be there too. King can be let go or keep him on low coin as a last option for depth as well.

  •  A minimum of 2 specialist #9's is required in the roster and probably a utility that can fill in at hooker if needed. If both Kaysa and King are let go, we would still need to sign another full time #9. King is not good enough to be the main hooker in the roster. Kaysa has the ability but gets injured way to often to be the main hooker in the roster. Mahoney is to young and inexperienced to be the main hooker in the roster. Personally, I would try and sign someone with experience that could guide Mahoney for a couple of years. I would let King go and possibly work with Kaysa at becoming the utility type player. We have seen Kaysa play in the middle as a forward in the past and he can handle that. I'm not sure Segeyaro is the player I would be looking at but I'm not sure who else is available. Possibly someone like Issac Luke or Mitch Rein would provide better leadership qualities.

    • Yep agree, Mahoney needs a mentor.

    • Slip, I would be keeping Kaysa for another year, not fussed about Segeyaro though, as I believe that between Mahoney and Kaysa, they could form a vg work round in sharing the on field time.

      If anyone from outside to sign then perhaps Apisai Koroisau from Manly could be worth a years contract, but still rather Mahoney and Pritchard for the year ahead.

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