I think some of our biggest challenges on roster are going to be
1. Next year, in the forwards, we currently have no forwards between 23 and 28. Can the current crop of zesty boys step up to being forward pack leaders in their own right by 2027 when the powers of
Barnett,
Fish,
Marata,
Ford and
Clark start to fade and retire? If they can't, we'd have to go to market to bring in others to fill the void, which will potentially been seen as us signing over the next batch of youngsters coming through Ball/Flegg around 2027. We effectively have a COVID sized hole where 25 years old locals (i.e. Katoa) should be who would be stepping up. I appreciate not having these 25 year olds mean we can bring more zesty through now.
2. Can we start recruiting and producing outside backs of the quality of the forwards we have in the pipeline? Big fan of Kali, and really rate Lemana and a couple of others, but it seems like there's not as much X factor coming through out wide. Not sure if this is where Union is beating us at 17 year old level (i.e.
Siale Pahulu) or not. We also suffer from the COVID hole here too, which is to a degree explains AKP and
Haizyn Mellars signings. I can see this may be less of an issue as maybe OBs peak earlier?
3. If we can't fill these gaps or have the zesty boys step up, can we convince people like
Metcalf that our premiership window is open now and not opening later when the zesty boys all hit their mid 20's and are coming into their dominant years.
As you were, back to the recruitment.
