Recruitment Warriors 2024/2025 Recruitment & Retention

Warriors 2024/2025 Recruitment & Retention Discussion
key: T = Team option, M = Mutual option, P = Player option, D = Development contract

Confirmed Top 30 2024: 28/30
Confirmed Development 2024: 5/6

Confirmed Top 30 2025: 25/30
Confirmed Development 2025: 1/6

2025 Gains: Nil
2025 Losses: Addin Fonua-Blake (Sharks)
 
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Just thinking.

The Broncos scored with Herbie Farnsworth and I wondered why he chose Redcliffe for next season. Is it the cooler coastal air?

Apart from Sam Tomkins being a bit on the expensive side, our Pom imports have been duds, but surely we could do with the odd good one.
Is it to do with the weather? If you are leaving a Lancashire or Yorkshire winter Australia must sound more inviting.

A dinosaur story.

Ken Armstrong, the Chelsea and England football star of the 1940s and 1950s left England after the 1956 -57 season on a 3 months boat trip to New Zealand where he had signed with the forerunner of Gisborne City FC.

I remember him telling the story of having played at Stamford Bridge and his next game was on a mud heap, with a few spectators standing on the sidelines, in New Zealand in August 1957.

Prospective English immigrants were fed some bullshit about what New Zealand was like. One couple I spoke to asked at NZ House what the weather was like. The guy replied with a smile that he had a lemon tree in his back yard.

Now that is true, in Auckland lemon trees grow like weeds, but to these people it conjured up images' of the south of Spain!!! Then they had to put up with being told to stop being a moaning Pom. They got that is Oz too, but at least the weather was better.

Seriously though, we could do with a Herbie Farnsworth or an inside back, couldn't we?
 

Disappointing for the Kiwis but great for the Warriors that SJ won’t be joining the them for the upcoming tests. Interesting when he says in the article that when he signed they said they’d look at it again next season, sounds like if he had another one like this he’d sign again. Feels to me that he’s targeting a title rather than playing for the Kiwis.
So he should.

I'd also pick the Kiwis over the Warriors, but he's a 33 year old, playing one more year in a tough competition.

That's a common sense choice, and he missed out last year and look what happened to the Warriors.
 
Just thinking.

The Broncos scored with Herbie Farnsworth and I wondered why he chose Redcliffe for next season. Is it the cooler coastal air?

Apart from Sam Tomkins being a bit on the expensive side, our Pom imports have been duds, but surely we could do with the odd good one.
Is it to do with the weather? If you are leaving a Lancashire or Yorkshire winter Australia must sound more inviting.

A dinosaur story.

Ken Armstrong, the Chelsea and England football star of the 1940s and 1950s left England after the 1956 -57 season on a 3 months boat trip to New Zealand where he had signed with the forerunner of Gisborne City FC.

I remember him telling the story of having played at Stamford Bridge and his next game was on a mud heap, with a few spectators standing on the sidelines, in New Zealand in August 1957.

Prospective English immigrants were fed some bullshit about what New Zealand was like. One couple I spoke to asked at NZ House what the weather was like. The guy replied with a smile that he had a lemon tree in his back yard.

Now that is true, in Auckland lemon trees grow like weeds, but to these people it conjured up images' of the south of Spain!!! Then they had to put up with being told to stop being a moaning Pom. They got that is Oz too, but at least the weather was better.

Seriously though, we could do with a Herbie Farnsworth or an inside back, couldn't we?
Agree Bruce, even a prop, problem is a lot of them are tied to family, don't want to move out of the M40 corridor etc.

If you look at the successful long term poms, they are all forwards.

I'm pretty sure Herbie moved out with Family when 14.
 
Just thinking.

The Broncos scored with Herbie Farnsworth and I wondered why he chose Redcliffe for next season. Is it the cooler coastal air?

Apart from Sam Tomkins being a bit on the expensive side, our Pom imports have been duds, but surely we could do with the odd good one.
Is it to do with the weather? If you are leaving a Lancashire or Yorkshire winter Australia must sound more inviting.

A dinosaur story.

Ken Armstrong, the Chelsea and England football star of the 1940s and 1950s left England after the 1956 -57 season on a 3 months boat trip to New Zealand where he had signed with the forerunner of Gisborne City FC.

I remember him telling the story of having played at Stamford Bridge and his next game was on a mud heap, with a few spectators standing on the sidelines, in New Zealand in August 1957.

Prospective English immigrants were fed some bullshit about what New Zealand was like. One couple I spoke to asked at NZ House what the weather was like. The guy replied with a smile that he had a lemon tree in his back yard.

Now that is true, in Auckland lemon trees grow like weeds, but to these people it conjured up images' of the south of Spain!!! Then they had to put up with being told to stop being a moaning Pom. They got that is Oz too, but at least the weather was better.

Seriously though, we could do with a Herbie Farnsworth or an inside back, couldn't we?
Might be the weather. Quite a few league players that have gone to Australia from the north of England have never left. Sam Burgess who is going back to coach in SL for a season said Australia is home the other night.
 
Will be interesting to see if he’s let to get to market in November or re signed before. I think he was looked at as primarily a five eighth before and could play fullback in nsw cup, but looks like he probably could be a good halfback and game manager in time too. If he was re signed I’m not sure what that would mean for Volkman, hopefully we’d hold onto him. People say we’ve got too many halves with CHT coming, but perhaps they don’t see him in the halves at all going forward?

SJ/TMM are incumbent

Metcalf in box seat to take over from SJ in 2025/2026, if hamstrings hold

His partner would be TMM, the experienced one, and Volkman as back up

But I doubt Volkman will settle for that, so those rumors of him going might be true after all

I’d loan him to the Tigers or something, and bring him back when SJ retires

But we are most likely gonna end up with Metcalf/TMM, the Panthers junior signing as back up and CHT as emergency in 2025/26

Unless Metcalf bails after November then Volkman is a shoe in for post SJ, still loan him to Tigers next year for experience and keep him happy though, SJ/TMM/Metcalf/CHT is enough cover for 2024, Arthars and Walsh had good apprenticeships before returning to Brisbane
 
You mean the forum doesn’t actually make the signings?
Damn what a waste of 29 pages that was then.
Webby could be on the forum, he's just crazy enough, no doubt disguised as one of Bruce's socks. All credit to Bruce for exposing Fale, and uncovering all of Putin's boys on the forum, there's a bloody army of brainwashed russian bots on here for some reason, but Webby's way ahead of him.
 
I'm still waiting for the club to buy the Northern Mystics or Southern Stars so we can start giving big money deals to the WAGs

Cap breaches would be a lot less harsh in the ANZ Premiership than in the Telstra Premiership, Get on it Robbo

I think Papenhyuzens ex played for the Melbourne Storm's Netball team when they were together..
View attachment 971
If we bought a netball team it might be a great tactic for recruiting single guys with the teams mixing and mingling all the time!

Better than a woman’s league team… 😉
 
If we bought a netball team it might be a great tactic for recruiting single guys with the teams mixing and mingling all the time!

Better than a woman’s league team… 😉
Some of the England netball teams are affiliated to SL clubs. Off the top of my head, Leeds Rhinos has a netball team playing in the top-flight netball comp.

And surely WahsaurusRex meant the Northern Stars not the Southern Steel. SJ's missus plays for the Stars (when she's not pumping out kiddies).
 
Need to find a decent cyberneticist to work on putting metal inserts into Wayde Egan's head and every other part of his body he clutches at after a collision.
Would be interesting to see if any teams go after Freddy Lussick in November who has been solid as a backup in his opportunities. Lussick’s renowned for their toughness., if he did find another opportunity Rua Ngatikauri has been let go by the tigers and would be worth picking up I reckon. Represented Cook Islands at the last world and a bit more in the Brandon Smith mould of hooker.
 

Tigers also released this guy who was a cowboys junior and played in the indigenous game last year for the Maori side. Didn’t set the world on fire in that game but also played prop and listed as a second rower/lock. Probably better playing our young props but what I did notice in his stats from 2021 at the bottom of the page I posted is the 9 offloads in 5 games and 91% tackle efficiency. Could be worth a development contract if he wants to come home.
 
The talking heads going on about having 5 halfs on the books is clueslessness. CHT will be a utility - 12 months of eating taro and corned beef on his koros plantation should've bulked him up (has anyone got a recent pic?) The rest we can easily keep with Johnson only signing yearly till he's done (who wouldn't want to train alongside the master?)
In terms of middles, Bunty is going through body recomp to lower his center of mass making his running style more effective. (will he develop an offload?)
Curran is a year or two from taking over as lock.
We have a handful of promising juniors ready to step up to AFBs clear standard, of which only a few will last (money is on Zyon Maiu’u next year and Halasima the next)
If we had the cash to go to market (which I don't think we do competitively) we throw the checkbook at Aloiai or Tapine. (I'll bet Hamlin-Uele is regretting not getting on the bandwagon)
Next few years will be trialing the rookies, keeping the heartiest ones and paying a journeyman to come over and keep their standard high - Twal doesn't seem like a silly option in that case.
 
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