JFH Kiwis 5.png

Player James Fisher-Harris

Full Name
James Fisher-Harris
Date of Birth
Jan 5, 1996
Birth Location
Kohukohu, Northland, New Zealand
Nationality
  1. 🇳🇿 New Zealand
Height (cm)
187 cm
Weight (kg)
104 kg
Position/s
  1. Prop
  2. Second Row
  3. Lock
Nickname
Ika, Fish
Forum Nickname/s
JFH
Signed From
Penrith Panthers
Junior Club/s
Whangarei Marist Brothers
Previous Club/s
Penrith Panthers
Rep Honours
  1. NZ
  2. NZ Maori
  3. Junior Kiwi
Awards/Honours
  1. Golden Boot
  2. Dally M (Positional Award)
Status
Active
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fisher-Harris
Rugby League Project
https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/players/james-fisher-harris/summary.html
I'd prefer Haas or Olakau'uatu (still haven't learnt to spell his name correctly yet sorry.

Sorry I'm still buzzing about this signing. WOW!!!
I’m only saying Tapine because he has the Kiwi roots within him. An extra reason to come play alongside our boys. Those two while it would be a dream to see, I just don’t know how you’d convince them to come when they’re purely Aussie boys yaknow. But you never know these days, especially after a day like today 😂
 
I’m only saying Tapine because he has the Kiwi roots within him. An extra reason to come play alongside our boys. Those two while it would be a dream to see, I just don’t know how you’d convince them to come when they’re purely Aussie boys yaknow. But you never know these days, especially after a day like today 😂
Absolutely. This signing changes the narrative that we are a retirement or career start club. What this looks like to other players could be absolutely enormous. Wow...... still wowing
 
I’m only saying Tapine because he has the Kiwi roots within him. An extra reason to come play alongside our boys. Those two while it would be a dream to see, I just don’t know how you’d convince them to come when they’re purely Aussie boys yaknow. But you never know these days, especially after a day like today 😂
Ricky and Bellamy are old school, they're not as nice as Webby and Ivan about things like compassion and homesickness. They’re dinosaurs, but their era is ending now, we're entering a new age where nice guys finish first. I enjoy the challenge of still believing we can somehow get NAS and Tapine.
 
Absolutely. This signing changes the narrative that we are a retirement or career start club. What this looks like to other players could be absolutely enormous. Wow...... still wowing
Yeah it’s gonna take a while for me to settle back to things 😂 that’s how special this signing was for me. It’s not just because of the player but WHAT IT MEANS. You take a look at the NRL landscape and all the Kiwi superstars sprinkled across. They look at JFH’s pedigree through this signing. A premiership, golden boot, dally m prop winning player joining his hometown team. If a player as elite as he is can join, it can inspire others too. It’s just the beginning folks
 
Would him being back here for his grandfathers funeral a few months ago, and then the time off injured sitting with that on his mind not have played a more pivotal role?

***It all adds up I guess is the more balanced way to look at it.
Truly doubt that rumor is true. With so many Pacific Islanders, Māori and indigenous players at Penrith and also Cleary having coached and played for the Warriors, he would know how important their culture is to them.

Imo it would be more to do with what has been reported about his grandfather passing that would make him wanting to be back home closer to family.
 
Truly doubt that rumor is true. With so many Pacific Islanders, Māori and indigenous players at Penrith and also Cleary having coached and played for the Warriors, he would know how important their culture is to them.

Imo it would be more to do with what has been reported about his grandfather passing that would make him wanting to be back home closer to family.
And yet Penrith blocked him from playing......
 
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Fact check. JFH was promoting the game and saying he was playing. Then a no show with radio silence from Penrith.

I can't say who in the All Star set up passed that intel on (I do know, I can't say) other than it came from the highest level passed onto to someone I know (my mate is a NZ player who has Captained NZ in the past-he was called into camp as an advisor, he was told about the JFH situation inside the camp).

NRL clubs don't dare discourage their indigenous from representing but they dissuade the Maori players quite often as a way to minimize disruption to round one and or injury risk.

The Maori team has become less and less patronized by its own players, in this case, we are talking a player that Adam Blair wanted for Captain, a player that was doing all the promos till the last minute.....

The fact that Penrith held him back and has the reputation for being the culture club would be precisely the kind of hypocrisy that would push someone like this to wake up one Sunday and ring the Warriors late at night.....

That approach from JFH was not normal eh....sounds like someone who had enough.....

I mean, is that not speculation tho? Hardly seems fact.

Penrith have also done us a massive solid so I dunno, we can speculate that they've done a shitty thing to him but I don't really see the need. From the outside, it looks like Penrith have done the right thing by JFH and until it comes out otherwise...
 
I mean, is that not speculation tho? Hardly seems fact.

Penrith have also done us a massive solid so I dunno, we can speculate that they've done a shitty thing to him but I don't really see the need. From the outside, it looks like Penrith have done the right thing by JFH and until it comes out otherwise...

True. Just sharing what I heard from family that are involved in the All Star game.

Hey maybe they just leaned on him nicely not to play, the ole "please we need you fit for round one cause so and so and so and so are crook".

Either way, he was set to play and it didn't happen, and my 'rumor' comes from someone involved with the coach for that game so it is close to the source...it wasn't even meant to be a rumor, it has turned into one by me opening my fat Waha on here lol.

I didn't post it at the time, I should have stuck to that policy. Just got over excited yesterday and it came back to me (if you think about the sequence of me posting it so late, it is not something you would make up to get stale street points for this far down the track).
 
AFB is no teddy bear, but Barney, Fish, Marata with Zyon Maiu’u coming through, and Jazz maybe hanging around; that is a forward rotation with more than a few screws loose..

I keep thinking back to when AFB flattened out Mark Nicolls in the Dolphins game at MSS last year, where Barney and AFB both lost their damn minds, but imagining Fish in Addin's place

Screenshot 2024-04-18 at 10.47.24 AM.png
 
One of the things I love about this process, from a recruitment perspective, is that his manager and the media haven't teased us with months of drivel about "will he" or "won't he" and various potential clubs that he "might" land at. Also, that Penrith have demonstrated loyalty to their player by respecting them and allowing him to leave smoothly, without any snags

Looks good for all involved
 
AFB is no teddy bear, but Barney, Fish, Marata with Zyon Maiu’u coming through, and Jazz maybe hanging around; that is a forward rotation with more than a few screws loose..

I keep thinking back to when AFB flattened out Mark Nicolls in the Dolphins game at MSS last year, where Barney and AFB both lost their damn minds, but imagining Fish in Addin's place

View attachment 6726
Yeah Fish is more aggressive than anyone we have.

What I admire about our new signing is that he is quite similar to Jarred Waerea Hargreaves when it comes to on field presence and reputation, but our new player has no fake tough guy about him. May his reign be as long as Hargreaves.

And may forlorn covetous NRL fans post about rumored signings of this guy to their clubs for years in their recruitment threads while we sit smugly laughing at their made up rumors.

The sheds will be interesting when Marata and JFH have to share the same space. Two Alpha males in nature leads to conflict....after all, there can only be one Highlander.

Not suggesting they won't get along, just saying, after decades of watching Alphas let loose in the same pen, it is always interesting to watch the dynamic of how they settle and carve up the jungle between them.

When I worked in Jails and old timer boss I worked with, let me in on the secret of how they deal with more than one Alpha wannabe. The Staff decide who will be the KP, and the staff engineer it so that their preferred inmate Jail boss wins the election.

In this case that would be Andrew Webster, he is the prison warden the real Alpha...who lets his inmates pretend they are the Alpha when it suits him.

Ergo, under a weak coach you get dressing room fall outs, and the bs you can see happening at Souths.

Under strong management, the big ego's in your side know their place and this knowing makes them feel secure, there is no unfriendly internal competition, just good natured death riding each other over who has the heaviest bench press...honor then being satisfied....you go to war and have no confusion about who the real enemy is.

I digress, as far as player comparisons go, Fisher Harris plays like Sam Rapira. When Sam was rated number one prop in the world (by real pundits like Joey Johns).
Sam had the best play the ball for NRL props at his peak. He had the best leg speed. He single handedly turned a losing night vs the Cowboys in North Queensland on its head by destroying JT et al. He also destroyed the Storm pack almost single handed.
Not the biggest guy going around, rather small in fact. And JFH is the smallest of the top three props in the NRL by some distance. Like Rapira, it is the size of fight in the dog, rather than the other way around.

But the difference between Sammy and this guy, is that JFH owns it like a boss. He is an extrovert to Sams introvert.

A lot of fans feel as though the pressure is off now.

I feel the opposite. I feel like this signing just put pressure on us to find more. We have lost AFB next year, with this signing it feels now like we need to stop treading water with like for like, and that we are entitled to dare to dream about another Apex prop.

We need to find that Prop from within. That would really make the Warriors the new Melbourne Storm, the new Panthers....and not these other clubs that use chequebooks to win premierships.

Call me greedy, but I think our pack is great but one more strong Prop would catch us up to last years grand finalists.
 
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Ricky and Bellamy are old school, they're not as nice as Webby and Ivan about things like compassion and homesickness. They’re dinosaurs, but their era is ending now, we're entering a new age where nice guys finish first. I enjoy the challenge of still believing we can somehow get NAS and Tapine.

How long can it last ?

I understood while Bellamy & Bennett types are asholes to the media they are father figures to the players…

I remember an interview Cleary gave recalling his dark days at the Tigers and initially at Penrith. Almost broke him mentally
 
One of the things I love about this process, from a recruitment perspective, is that his manager and the media haven't teased us with months of drivel about "will he" or "won't he" and various potential clubs that he "might" land at. Also, that Penrith have demonstrated loyalty to their player by respecting them and allowing him to leave smoothly, without any snags

Looks good for all involved
Fox must be livid at all the missed gossip opportunities from this. They live off rumour and controversy
 

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