What are everyone's thoughts on giving Kautoga a shot in the centres next year?
At the moment, we're clearly in the market for a centre. With the club being heavily linked to Best, if we do manage to secure his signature, I'd say there's a fair chance we head into next season without bringing in another specialist centre.
That would leave us with Samrani, Penisini, Kelly/Simonsson, and Nanva as our centre options. I think all of those players are capable of doing a job, but none of them really strike me as game-breaking centres or long-term solutions. They're solid enough, but fairly average by NRL standards.
On the other hand, Kautoga's position in the forward pack could become a lot less secure next season. With Jaydn Su'A arriving, along with emerging youngsters like Petrus and Latu pushing for opportunities, and Jack Williams arguably playing his best football on an edge, Kautoga could find himself fighting hard to hold onto a starting spot.
The thing that keeps me interested in Kautoga is his upside. He's shown at times that he can be a devastating ball-runner witth a handy offload. His biggest issue isn't talent, and rather it seems to be effort and football IQ.
Similar to Kelma, he has a tendency to come up with frustrating errors at critical moments, whether that's a missed tackle, poor defensive read, or a simple knock-on. Personally, I think some of this comes down to fatigue and decision-making under pressure. As an edge forward, he's regularly expected to make 30+ tackles a game while also carrying a heavy workload with the ball.
That's why I'd be interested in seeing him trialled in the centres.
The reduced defensive workload might allow him to focus more on his strengths as a ball-runner and attacking threat. Physically, he certainly looks like he could develop into a centre, and his ability to bend the line and offload could create plenty of second-phase opportunities. Defence would obviously remain a major question mark, but perhaps with fewer involvements throughout a game we'd see fewer of the concentration lapses and costly mistakes that sometimes creep into his performances.
It's also worth noting that Fiji experimented with this during their World Cup campaign. While Kautoga was named in the back row, he often found himself defending and attacking in wider channels, with Sakuru drifting into the back-row role.
What are everyone's thoughts?
Replies
Centres require a lot of defensive effort. The last backrower who did a handy job for us Marata Niukore and he was far more mobile than Kautoga.
Marata offered a different balance PP, as a second rower playing in the centres his defence was terrific in a complimentary sense to those around him, we were weak in the centres in those days, since he left Parra, he has not been a shadow of the player he once was. I would say to you that if they had a one on one game, Kautoga would murder him, all Kautoga would have to do is stop him head on, Marata had no step, on the contrary I don't think Marata would be able to stop Kautoga from running around him...... just goes to show how differently we see players....that's fine
Kautoga should move to the Ron massey cup
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