Recruitment Warriors 2026/2027 Recruitment & Retention

Makasene · 2025-12-07T01:22:24+1300

Milking! said:
Totally agree. If he can shake the injury bug, he’s the strike centre we need!
A side of Leka, Ali, RTS is a matchup nightmare for other teams

I see he still has knee strapping in pre-season

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watcher · 2025-12-07T01:27:03+1300

Very early days but I am guessing Leka has one 2nd row spot locked in. The other young guys who have performed at NRL level is Laban and Demi. Others like EIT, TSS are more potential than proven. Does Healey get a spot, possibly 14, but does he provide enough coveing 9 and 13 rather than TMM.

CWC · 2025-12-07T04:08:45+1300

Might be cleaner putting them this way for ‘26

Barney/Fish/Marata/Demi/Ford/Laban/EIT/TSS
Cape/Leka/Fats
Clark/Gannon/(EIT)
A bunch of juniors ready for debuts some time later in the year

Some serious pack if most play to their potential

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Warriorsfan92 · 2025-12-07T09:40:28+1300

Five&Last said:
If we take Leka out of the picture, I don't think Gannon is remotely close to the talent of Fatialofa, Bishop or Laban.

Fatialofa is seriously a special talent.

If anyone has to play lock to fit these 4 guys in the team (Leka, Bishop, Fatialofa and Laban), then Gannon isn't getting a look in.

While I don't agree, I think you can make an argument for Gannon over EIT, that will be an interesting battle to watch next year.

But then you have guys like Tuiloma and Sikuvea coming through who Gannon will have to fend off as well, who are very clearly far better than Gannon at the same age

All of this just depends on how Gannon improves this year. Some people reach new heights in a new environment. Some don't.

Tuiloma is years away imo. He’s still SG ball eligible, and may get a debut at flegg this year but won’t come near cup & first grade for another 12-24 months imo. Sikuvea will likely be a regular cup player in 26

Cces · 2025-12-07T12:24:15+1300

Five&Last said:
But then you have guys like Tuiloma and Sikuvea coming through who Gannon will have to fend off as well, who are very clearly far better than Gannon at the same age

Gannon made his professional debut at 17. That ship has already sailed for both Tuiloma & Sikuvea. Neither are likely to do so before they are 20 years old so I'm unsure how you can be so adamant that they're better than Gannon was at the same age.
His talent is unknown to pretty much everyone in Australasia

sydneywarrior92 · 2025-12-07T13:57:45+1300

CWC said:
Might be cleaner putting them this way for ‘26

Barney/Fish/Marata/Demi/Ford/Laban/EIT/TSS
Cape/Leka/Fats
Clark/Gannon/(EIT)
A bunch of juniors ready for debuts some time later in the year

Some serious pack if most play to their potential

Laban/EIT as middles? I think they're second rowers no?

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cock_o · 2025-12-07T14:49:53+1300

sydneywarrior92 said:
Laban/EIT as middles? I think they're second rowers no?

Bit of both.
But the club is stacked with edge forwards.
Capewell, Halasima, Laban, Fatialofa, Ieremia-Toeava, Neal.
So some might have to spend time as middles to fit them all in.

Playdaball · 2025-12-07T15:00:12+1300

The club is most definitely lacking Bob middle forwards - when JFH or Barnett get injured or Suspended we’ll be struggling again .

sydneywarrior92 · 2025-12-07T16:56:40+1300

Playdaball said:
The club is most definitely lacking Bob middle forwards - when JFH or Barnett get injured or Suspended we’ll be struggling again .

you can say that about any team in the comp should they lose their starting middles for an extended period. The problem last year is that many of our young forwards replacing Barney/Fish were in their first year. So you gotta kind of expect things to slide as they did towards the end of the year. The young bucks will be better for it this time round. Focus our recruitment efforts on backs, not forwards.

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WAH MAN · 2025-12-07T21:11:30+1300

Defence said:
It’ll be interesting with Gannon- I don’t see him starting round one but I do think they have a plan for him.
They’ve obviously seen something in his game that they like, something that provides a point of difference.
They didn’t recruit him on a whim but there’s some competition there so if he’s good enough to crack it we’ve got a good one.

What happens is that once the season starts taking players hostage to injury....

The Gannon's and Tuaupiki's and fringe blokes get their chance

WAH MAN · 2025-12-07T21:28:54+1300

sydneywarrior92 said:
Laban/EIT as middles? I think they're second rowers no?

EIT handled himself in the middle well in the small sample we have so far. Still a pup but has a good frame and room to grow

Naynay · 2025-12-07T21:42:02+1300

Defence said:
It’ll be interesting with Gannon- I don’t see him starting round one but I do think they have a plan for him.
They’ve obviously seen something in his game that they like, something that provides a point of difference.
They didn’t recruit him on a whim but there’s some competition there so if he’s good enough to crack it we’ve got a good one.

I think you can pretty much lock him into one of the bench spots at the monent, maybe - healy , Demi , Gannon , Leka bench looking likely but healy could go either way really

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Matiunz · 2025-12-07T21:54:33+1300

Gannon I don’t think is being looked at as a big middle like those other guys, he’s coming over to essentially be a ball playing forward we’ve missed since we lost Tohu and Walker, I’d say we will see him with stints off the bench pretty much identical to how we used Walker

Five&Last · 2025-12-07T22:10:14+1300

Cces said:
Gannon made his professional debut at 17. That ship has already sailed for both Tuiloma & Sikuvea. Neither are likely to do so before they are 20 years old so I'm unsure how you can be so adamant that they're better than Gannon was at the same age.
His talent is unknown to pretty much everyone in Australasia

In the super league lol?

Look at all the half decent English players. They all debuted at 16/17/18 years old. That’s what they do. They hand out debuts very young. (I thought this was common knowledge??) That doesn’t happen in the NRL. You would be hard pressed to find NRL players that debuted before 20, there’s a few of the elite ones but not many.

Sikuvea would’ve debuted in super league already imo if he was in those systems. He was best player in our Flegg team by a mile at 18.

Tuiloma less likely because of his injuries but still a better talent when injury free.

Bishop would be playing regular super league week after week at 16 years old if he was on those systems lol.

Cces · 2025-12-07T23:17:03+1300

Five&Last said:
In the super league lol?

Look at all the half decent English players. They all debuted at 16/17/18 years old. That’s what they do. They hand out debuts very young. (I thought this was common knowledge??)

None out of Gareth Ellis, Thomas Burgess, Luke Burgess, Elliot Whitehead, Ryan Sutton, Matty Nicholson & Luke Thompson were playing Super League at 17. All were, or are, handy NRL players.
Regardless of Super League being a lower standard, a debut at 17 actually puts Gannon amongst some pretty elite company alongside Sam Burgess & Adrian Morley

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WAH MAN · 2025-12-07T23:39:09+1300

Cces said:
None out of Gareth Ellis, Thomas Burgess, Luke Burgess, Elliot Whitehead, Ryan Sutton, Matty Nicholson & Luke Thompson were playing Super League at 17. All were, or are, handy NRL players.
Regardless of Super League being a lower standard, a debut at 17 actually puts Gannon amongst some pretty elite company alongside Sam Burgess & Adrian Morley

There's plenty of next season to see him debut for us and see if he has the adaptability and skill to take his opportunity and kill it here. I have no idea how he will go but am keen to see.

Five&Last · 2025-12-07T23:52:18+1300

Cces said:
None out of Gareth Ellis, Thomas Burgess, Luke Burgess, Elliot Whitehead, Ryan Sutton, Matty Nicholson & Luke Thompson were playing Super League at 17. All were, or are, handy NRL players.
Regardless of Super League being a lower standard, a debut at 17 actually puts Gannon amongst some pretty elite company alongside Sam Burgess & Adrian Morley

Those guys you mentioned were all either 18 or 19.

The 17 years old list includes John Bateman, Jack Welsby, Jack Sinfield, Max Simpson, Louis Senior, Tom Holroyd, Josh Thewlis, Arron Lindrop, Zach Fishwick, Anthony Mullally, Harry Newman (Bears signing) and many more

Seriously its a large list. I could keep going. Most of these guys I've never heard of but I recall often hearing that there's a new 17 year old making their SL debut so I knew with a quick google search there would be a large list. Gannon isn't in as elite company as you think with this.

Ewan Irwin debuted at 17 this year and just played against NSW U17 when Warrington Academy was touring Australia. He was good in that game, but wasn't any better than any of the NSW players who are all realistically 3-4 years minimum away from playing first grade NRL.

By that measure, majority of the NSW U17 team would've made their SL debut by now if they were over there.

CWC · 2025-12-08T02:06:57+1300

We will see how good Gannon is when Webby trains and plays him as impact lock in a few months lol, nobody knows how he will go, polymarket?

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Player	2026	2027	2028	2029
Mitchell Barnett	✔	✔
Rocco Berry	✔
Tanah Boyd	✔
Kurt Capewell	✔
Erin Clark	✔	✔
Wayde Egan	✔	✔
Kayliss Fatialofa	✔	✔
James Fisher-Harris	✔	✔	✔
Jackson Ford	✔	✔
Morgan Gannon	✔	✔	✔
Leka Halasima	✔	✔	✔	✔
Chanel Harris-Tavita	✔
Sam Healey	✔	✔
Eddie Ieremia-Toeava	✔	✔
Alofiana Khan-Pereira	✔	✔	✔
Jacob Laban	✔	✔	✔	✔
Ali Leiataua	✔	✔
Jye Linnane	✔	✔	✔
Te Maire Martin	✔
Haizyn Mellars	✔	✔	✔
Luke Metcalf	✔	✔	✔
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad	✔	✔
Marata Niukore	✔
Adam Pompey	✔	✔
Tanner Stowers-Smith	✔	✔	✔
Taine Tuaupiki	✔
Roger Tuivasa-Sheck	✔
Demitric Vaimauga	✔	✔	✔
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak	✔	✔
Connor Bowden	U	U	✔
Jett Cleary	S	U
Sio Kali	U
Braelan Marsh	U	U	U
Motu Pasikala	U	U

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