The young guy from Fiji, is a rugby 7s player.

Can play anywhere in the backline or edge backrow.

Might play NRL in a few weeks.l

IMO adapting to the speed of the game, decision making in defence and tackle technique is the challenge.

But if he is young and talented a taste of NRL will help his progression.

Him and Kicks in the backrow next season should be great, at least in attack.

Rotate with TPJ and have the middles make most of the tackles.

Schoupp and Kraz good defensive centres.

And that is when we can have good attacking backrowers, if all other players are good defenders.

This season we didn't quite nail recruitment.

We plugged a few holes, and more will be plugged next season.

This season 9 and 7 are big issues. 

My impression Gus didn't play a major role in recruitment for this season.

Like most fans 7 is concerning me until we have a good solution.

I prefer that before June 30th if we can get it.

I don't know if the young guy from Fiji is taking the last slot or playing reserve grade.
Gus mentioned him playing in a few weeks, didn't say what grade.

Edit: The young guy might be taking the place of Hethro who is out for the season.

In other news RFM seems to be progressing.

I very much agree MDOG, the rebuild has taken eternity. 

I always thought we had the best administration and would rectify a poor season or two in quicker time than most other clubs. I don't withbagree with HD that our admin was poor in the years from 1996 to 2004. I thought it was one if the best. It's around about 2005-2006 where it started going downhill.

It's amazing that we find ourselves 18 years since our last premiership and 10 years since we last had a legitimate top 4 team.

I think it proves our clubs ideology of trying to tap into performances of the 80s is flawed. It just doesnt worknin the modern game.

We still haven't fixed this and still ignore having our spine as highest paid players. Gus makes numerous references to this which somewhat pleases me but at the same time, I feel we are still another 3 years of rectifying it.

Don't forget the salary cap scandal and oasis.

The players from 2004 were in the system for a long time, the club had a strong culture from the 1980s and 1990s.

IMO the football department continued to perform for a while with crappy admin.

But we had players like Steve Price who was from the earlier era.

I also think as follows 2018-2020 knockdown- fixing the SC mess.
2021 - groundwork getting ready for rebuild.
2022 - first season of rebuild and we ordered some of the wrong timber.

We should be going better this season, but this kind of rebuild isn't easy.

I will be fairly objective here and say that our 80s success was based on us being one of the best of the non professional era. In the era of professional rugby league and salary cap, we arent really all that good. 

But I honestly believe we are our own worst enemies on this. 

We continue to spend large chunks of the cap on forwards who aren't marketable and don't entice any 3rd party deals. Further, they don't put bums on seats or sell a million jerseys.

The problems started when Des left. When Pay signed the club advertised the 80’s era. Bringing Turvey and Lamb and numerous other Bulldogs legends together. They pushed the idea that we were going back to our family club roots. 

We were huge in the 80’s because Bullfrog could spot talent and afford to pay for it with our great leagues club. 

Micko, the problems started when Des arrived. The extent of the damage was exposed when Des left, and a series of blunders at admin level since has failed to rectify the damage.

Yep, after the super lesgue war, the rules changed diluting the advantage of a leagues club.

But it is also true that post Bullfrog the financial management of the club and leagues club got sloppy.

In the 80s snd into the 90s out scouting was the best in the business, as shown by the great players be brought through the grades, the last one being Thurston and we can see a real drop off after that. I think things are now better.

Chris Anderson going to Melbourne was also huge, they got Kimmorley and Hill who might have gone to the Dogs, also a some of our talented lower graders. We did very well to recover from that and be competitive 2002-2005.

In terms of scouting and development most clubs copied our playbook, many of our scouts and their networks were recruited. 

Under Des our scouting, juniors, player development and lower grades in general went backwards. For many reasons not all do to with Des,  harmony and unity in the club went backwards.

In many areas we went from being the best in the league in the 1980s, to the worst in the league by 2017.
We had lots of rubbish players in all grades and not a lot of exciting young talent coming through.

We also haven't had a proper halfback since noddy was unfortunately injured or a decent hooker since we punted Ennis. Our forward pack 2018-2021  was the worst in the league, and a pale imitation of our traditional strength.

But Gus is focused on getting us back to where we should be.
I think that the worst is behind us, but it is taking time for that to register in the NRL wins column.
We know why, we are missing quality players in a few key positions.

But we do have a lot of exciting young talent coming through the grades, more than any time since 2000.

Let's also not forget we made some truly abysmal recruitment and retention decisions 2004-2021.

Mostly when Des was at the club, but also under Folkes, Pay and Baz.

There are too many to list and I don't want to depress fans, but again we were clearly the worst in the league, with the Tigers, Warriors, Titans and occasionally others trying hard to give us some competition.

I give recruitment and retention under Moore a pass mark, that was a very difficult rebuild handled well.
That was also a brief period when our management almost had it's act together, before we were dragged into the mire of political in fighting.

There are definitely green shoots under Gus and I really hope that this is not an illusion or me being overly optimistic.

Mostly in life you get the results you deserve, our club fully deserved the last 5 years.

ODF it seems like things were such a mess that Pay had to gamble on some cheap long shots and got nearly all of the gambles wrong. But without some truly inspired signings and a lot of luck, Pay was no hope of getting acceptable results.

Baz kind of 50/50 on signings, but defence and fitness questionable.

The club has vastly improved scouting, juniors and lower grades, but that doesn't bring immediate results.

The main question mark on management so far is, going with Pay and Baz.

But at the time Pay took the job, I bet no decent coach would touch it,

Lets not forget the elephant in the room "the minimum cap floor".

I struggle to think of a more damaging guideline introduced by the NRL that can have such adverse effect to poor performing clubs entrenched to the bottom of the table.

It is seriously the most stupid thing ever conceived.

It has made sure we have overpaid our hacks in the period of 2016-2021 and instead of allowing us to clean up our SC mess, it exacerbated it.

NRL morons.

If they are serious about helping the bottom clubs, they should not enforce the minimum cap floor on the bottom 4 clubs

Again, it's because we hear of a spine player wanting 1M and we run away.

We then complain when all good halves aren't available.

Like I said.... we are either genuinely wanting to spend our big money on the spine or we don't.

I still think we dont

I blame Zef for all this coz back in 2016 when I wanted Des sacked for Ivan Cleary, who would have brought his son to us, we would never have been in this hole we are in.

All I got from Zef back then was "what has Cleary done" blah blah blah.

Instead, we extend Des only to sack him later for a massive payout, but not before he buries our SC and it takes us 5 years and 2 rookie coaches to get to where we are (back to back to back spoons).

Next time..... fekking listen to Dr Marki.

Souths v Manly sin bin definately, send off, probably the wrong call.

At least Des will be in a good mood in the presser.

Tackle as dangerous as it gets. All his own doing, no shared responsibility. Happy with the send off 

That’s just crap. That is the excuse made by every board. And it is very clearly political spin. 

Des is long gone. He can not be used as a get out of gaol free card for all our subsequent woes 

There is a lot more to it than that.

How many really talented lower graders transitioned to NRL in the time Des was here?

How many hacks did we sign?

Players let go too early - Pritchard, Cook, Ennis
.
Players used in entirely the wrong way, Lichaa, Reynolds.

Good reilable spine players signed or developed - zero.

And most of all the salary cap and the backloaded contracts was a mess.

Also there were not many talented lower graders to promote. More tan any other era, the cupboard was bare, lower grades and juniors were a mess.

In NSW cup older subpar players were blocking the path for young players.

I barely remember any good young players making their debut under Des or Pay.

No but if we want to know why the rebuild is taking so long  - Des and those running the club are mainly to blame.

When Moore took over the squad was crap, but there was no cap issue.

Moore was smart enough to have Ennis and Kimmorley on deck, day 1.

Hannant, Eastwood, Pritchard and Graham were excellent signings. Josh Morris was an excellent signing.

But we were probably an attractive club in that era. Until this season we were not a club that would attract good players. Many of the players who joined for season 2021, are not likely to be here long.

Spine players. Are you kidding? Hodkinson signed by Des. Perrett signed by Des. Reynolds and Barba both playing off the bench or in reserves in different positions until Des. Other than the cheating chickens what team signed great spine players instead of us when Des was coach? 

Des tried to turn Lichaa into an 80 minute player and completely stuffed up his game .

I blame Des and those running the club for the mess.

Most of the better players were from the squad assembled by more or in our lower grades when Des got herr.

Taupau another clanger, ultimately replaced by Woods.

I think Des can coach but keep him well away from recruitment and retention and cap management.

Prior to thus season it looks like our main signing critera 2019-2021 was price, we were shopping in the bargin bin with very few good lower graders. Or in other words, a total mess.

Name one player we signed 2019-2021 that was an in demand player first choice at their club for their position. 
Ironically Cotric is probably the one. And he seemed like a good signing at the time.

Looking at the future. Mahoney and Kikau are great signings. The Canberra bloke is solid. Hopefully turns into another King signing. 

Yes agreed. Lifted beyond horizontal, held on at all stages even though he could have pulled out, and worst of all drove him into ground and lifted his legs for extra oumph.

As textbook spear tackle as you can get. Fortunately Murray overturned and twisted to his side to avoid direct neck compression. Could have been much worse.

Send off every day of week.

You still didn’t answer the questions. But no need. You don’t like Des. 

Agreed. Spear tackle that has been outlawed for many years. Could have broken his neck. Definitely send off. 

This brings up a point. Personal foul versus  a foul that affects the flow of the game. Could the player be punished but the team and the game not be ruined. Just a thought, open to opinions/suggestions.

Oh get real.

The Cleary we would’ve got in 2016 is the Cleary the Tigers got who loaded up their cap with Mbye and Reynolds and Packer who they’re still paying for, not the Cleary who got the club Gus built. And he didn’t get the Tigers Junior either nor were ever going to nor was anyone else no matter who Senior coached.

If we got him for 2016, you would’ve been calling for his sacking about mid 2017 because he would not have done in 5 years with our cap what he’s been able to do achieve at The Panthers, which is credit to him, but don’t try and kid any of us you’d be still patiently giving him time at The Dogs when he couldn’t do it here, nor at The Tigers, nor anywhere else he’s coached really.

The minimum cap is part of the EBA with players Union so that the players get their cut of the game’s revenue. The grant money handed to the clubs to use on the cap is not the club’s money to “spend” or “save” it’s the players money and they must be payed it.

Hence the minimum cap.

It’s the players money, simple as that.