Thompson didnt play the mental health card...
Oh...and he's not indigenous....

Now that I think about it, we should be lucky it wasnt 5 weeks!

Yes, that is what we are practicing this season, we have nearly got it right.

Who would be into the 17 with Luke Thompson out? From the available reserves, the only forwards are Joe Stimson & Chris Patolo. Would TB replace a prop with the more experienced 2nd-rower or the less experienced prop/2nd-rower (C.Patolo)? Regardless of whether Ava Or Napa moves from the bench to start, it would leave only 1 prop on the bench.

Just reading that the rorters are now after the cheese. I suppose if they offer him 500 big ones and two brown paper bags per annum, that would equate to a nice retirement fund over 3 or 4 years.

I think we are at the experimental stage of the season, so I would say CP.

Flannos inclusion tells me this is his last chance to prove to both TB and Gus that he can step up and salvage his career. I reckon it is a Gus decision as he probably wants to start making enquiries about shopping him around.

Lewis has probably as already proven his worth. I certainly think so. 

I would be super annoyed if we couldnt match whatever his total rooster package would be...

Not sure what cap space the Titans have, but I reckon they too would be annoyed. If Ash Taylor is off contract, they can offer Cheese that 1M....

One thing you can be absolutely sure of, Gus won’t pay overs for anybody.

So we’re not even in the game for Cheese.

You wonder why I have some hope for JMK, and then you mention Lewis.

One has shown improvement this year, in only 9 games. The latter has been treading water his whole career.

I don’t think it’s Flanno’s last chance…. He just needs a little confidence and hopefully he kicks it into gear & can play the rest of the season in the halves and get the team to score more points. 

Well Villi, I can't agree that our defence hasn't improved ALL season. There have been a couple of games that we defended super and were not to far behind at full time also at times were only a brain fart or two away from a win. Even when we got blown off the park it occurred late in games where we were gassed due to a mountain of "dubious infringements" against us and not seeing any ball for eons at a time. 

I still hope Wakeham will be back next season,

This week seems to be all about developing Flanno and giving him a chance.

I think they have concluded a Lewis/Averillo combination doesn't work.

My concern about Flanno is defence, but against Manly he was teamed up with 2 rookies.
Schoupp may have a tough day defending between Flanno and Okunbor, those 3 need to put their heads together, come up with a plan and stick to it.
The best plan is Flanno makes the decision and the other 2 follow.

Seafood and Okunbor might have concussion, Atoni, Stimson and Odgen would come into the mix in the forwards.

I'm not optimistic, but I was optimistic last game. I think I need to drink during and after the game regardless, why didn't I think of that earlier?

Defence has been mixed, but we have had problems on the edges more often than not.
Defence isn't easy with the new rules, but some games our energy and line speed has been down from the kick off.

When we play with energy and purpose the defence is better and we tend to get more posession. At times our attack looks handy. Meaney and Atoni are players we might miss in attack, but the replacements are great.

We should consider defence when making the rest of our signings, hooker and backrow in particular.

What do you call "overs"

I value him as an 800k player. Id easily make him the highest paid player in the team.
He is a dual premiership winner. Test player, in peak form and can play multiple positions better than anyone at our club.
He is very likeable and a crowd favourite. He is marketable.

To be honest, i would even pay 1M for him. I rate him that much and believe there is not 1 player in the game that would be more suited to the club. Not 1

JMK has improved since coming back from injury. He was much in the same basket as Lewis prior to that and earlier in the season.
He has also been at the club for ages and not been able to go to that next level.
I already feel BBO offers more and still think Dietz offers more. I concede that JMK is a better defender (still gets dominated).

My point is that he is not a reason to not chase a better hooker. BBO is.

Our points scored has certainly increased and that is a combination of Avo-Wakeham and Avo-Lewis.
More importantly, our teams has made better ground with our sets. 

Still, we look like a team that just wastes 5 tackles in order to get to our last tackle Hail Mary play and you need to put our points-scored into context as we either score them from kicks or get them gifted by opposition.

Once we become a team that "constructs" points on our own, i will declare us contenders.
And by that i mean we create plays that move defences and create holes, we create overlaps, we create line breaks or we create forced errors from sustained pressure.

Given we have conceded the most points, yes defence is certainly an issue.
There are times watching us that we do it well and can hold out even the best of teams.
But unfortunately it is not sustainable especially given we are "happy" to give away 6 agains in order to slow the play down and unlucky when the ref pins us on it constantly.

My biggest issue with defence is that we are incapable of numbering up and sliding and most importantly i hate watching us not get into marker effectively or in some cases not get into marker at all. It all starts from marker in my opinion and the slide defence is Defence 101 so i dont know how a professional team cannot get that right

You’d have to ask Gus that.

But I’d suggest anything that involves a bidding war would quickly become “overs”. He just won’t do that, everything he’s ever said and done in the past is testament to it.

He likes flexibility in the SC EVERY year.

The Cheese is not worth any more than 500 big ones. Just ask your mate Cooper, he said it himself.

And no, I wouldn't pay one mill for him.

Cooper wants to keep his price down so the Roosters can legally make a play for him....
Or.... he is just jealous Cheese might approach his old salary....

The point is, you can still manage a SC with 1 or 2 Million dollar players. We dont have any in our team and in my opinion your #1 hooker who is versatile enough to also be one of the better middle or edge forwards, is well worth it.

If Taumalolo is worth 1M, so is Cheese.

And on that note....

I think with the current rules, having 2 hookers where 1 shifts to second row is the new prototype for success. 

Playing hooker at full effectiveness (tackling in the middle whilst defending and playing rake on every play in attack) is very demanding. 

The supposedly 80min hookers in the game cant do it effectively for the 80, no matter what they think. 

So it's not outrageous to pay 2 guys good money for it. Storm currently do it and Raiders do it. And it works well. It means your bench hooker is not just coming on for 20mins. And it means you dont waste interchanges either. 

Whether we get cheese or not, we'll wait and see, but I dont think we have solved our hooker position. I have good Hope's for BBO but not so much JMK...

Forget Lewis.
He doesnt add anything to the attack.
A good kick, OK.
I hope Flanno stands up now in the last chance saloon Gus is giving him his shot. Take it son.
Talked to the Fiji coach (Brandon Costin) or ex coach now coaching the Coffs Comets.
He said that Wakeham is a hugely gifted player. Maybe needs a bit of confidence.

"Overs" is a complex definition.  For the same player it will vary from club to club. How good is the player, how deficient are you in that position, is team improvement better achieved by that player and position over others,etc.

Well this is awful...

Close to the worst 20 minutes of football I’ve ever seen...

The cheap and future proof way to do that is start Topine.

I see Topine as similar to the cheese just younger and 3 years away from is peak, while the cheese is very good, he is at his peak or past his peak.

Past his peak.... 
Assuming the surplus of grog is dwindling...

Flat track bullies doing their thing minus their flattest and trackest,... 

Parra don't deserve zero, time for negative numbers.

Sam Walker is so clever he only takes the kicks from right in front...