Well said. Tony Smith took time to get the side into shape and got rid of high profile players (Gleeson) and dropped others (Briers).
No more "filler" signings or "gamble" or "last chance saloons". Less is more. Go for quality.
Some atrocious singings since 2014 (start of our demise)
Roy Asotasi Anthony England Matthew Russell Gary Wheeler Ryan Bailey Ben Pomeroy Dom Crosby Jordan Cox (RIP) Matty Blythe Sitaleki Akoula Matty Smith Lama Tasi Leilani Latu Luther Burrell
Quality players lost since 2014 Lee Briers Ritchie Myler Michael Monaghan Brett Hodgson Ben Westwood Paul Wood Ryan Atkins Simon Grix Trent Waterhouse
Agreed mate, but you’ve missed 2 of the very worst out there…..Inglis and Tyrone Roberts. Truly terrible.
All of those would seem valid but there has been a definite change in the post Gatcliffe era.
in the mid 2000s to early 2010s our recruitment involved:
a) Genuine superstars who any club in the world would have liked to attract, and who lived up to their big expectations (Gleeson, Morley, Monaghan, King, Hodgson) b) Players with a reputation of good rather than superstar but whose performance was right up with the superstars (Hicks, Carvell, Louis Anderson, Higham) c) Young players with promise who turned out to be far better than we expected (Westwood, Bridge, Grix, Harrison, Hill....going back further you could include Briers although he was an outlier in an era of generally crap recruitment!) d) Some misses: players who had a big reputation and or had won stuff at other clubs, who didn't deliver what we expected (Swann, Rauhihi, Reardon, Cardiss, Vinnie Anderson).
As we transition from the late Cullen era into the early TS era you see category d drop off and more signings in a and b.
But in the later TS era (post Gatcliffe) we had a reversal of that trend. We're not signing the a/b/c's any more, we're signing a lot of d's.
This suggests to me that we're not identifying the right players, we're going for names that seem like they have done well elsewhere and hoping they translate/improve with us. But how many of them actually do? How many of the players we have signed in recent years do you say "well he improved at Warrington compared to what he was with his previous club"?
All of those would seem valid but there has been a definite change in the post Gatcliffe era.
in the mid 2000s to early 2010s our recruitment involved:
a) Genuine superstars who any club in the world would have liked to attract, and who lived up to their big expectations (Gleeson, Morley, Monaghan, King, Hodgson) b) Players with a reputation of good rather than superstar but whose performance was right up with the superstars (Hicks, Carvell, Louis Anderson, Higham) c) Young players with promise who turned out to be far better than we expected (Westwood, Bridge, Grix, Harrison, Hill....going back further you could include Briers although he was an outlier in an era of generally crap recruitment!) d) Some misses: players who had a big reputation and or had won stuff at other clubs, who didn't deliver what we expected (Swann, Rauhihi, Reardon, Cardiss, Vinnie Anderson).
As we transition from the late Cullen era into the early TS era you see category d drop off and more signings in a and b.
But in the later TS era (post Gatcliffe) we had a reversal of that trend. We're not signing the a/b/c's any more, we're signing a lot of d's.
This suggests to me that we're not identifying the right players, we're going for names that seem like they have done well elsewhere and hoping they translate/improve with us. But how many of them actually do? How many of the players we have signed in recent years do you say "well he improved at Warrington compared to what he was with his previous club"?
Just regarding that point, you need to take into account the shift in the sport and the world financially at that point.
we signed the 4 nrl players for 2008 and on 4 year contracts (initially) as part of the franchising sequence, which were able to do with the strength of the pound against the aussie dollar, aided by the image rights loophole that we were terrorized over and when it went to court, apparently we weren't; able to give the overseas players a chunk of money tax free, even monaghan said at the time it was very disapointing he wasn't going to be getting the money they said they would be, and there were queries about him and kingy leaving (after their form had improved).
And that wasn't just us, that affected the entire league, as demonstrated by the ditching of the exiles team when they realised in 2014 most of the overseas players in SL were dross. QUICK ADDITION TO THIS -THIS WAS WHY THE MARQUEE EXEMPTION WAS INTRODUCED
Granted we still signed some nrl players under smith in this period, but overlapping sims and asotasi aside it wasn't the same as previously.
Well said. Tony Smith took time to get the side into shape and got rid of high profile players (Gleeson) and dropped others (Briers).
No more "filler" signings or "gamble" or "last chance saloons". Less is more. Go for quality.
Some atrocious singings since 2014 (start of our demise)
Roy Asotasi Anthony England Matthew Russell Gary Wheeler Ryan Bailey Ben Pomeroy Dom Crosby Jordan Cox (RIP) Matty Blythe Sitaleki Akoula Matty Smith Lama Tasi Leilani Latu Luther Burrell
Quality players lost since 2014 Lee Briers Ritchie Myler Michael Monaghan Brett Hodgson Ben Westwood Paul Wood Ryan Atkins Simon Grix Trent Waterhouse
Agreed mate, but you’ve missed 2 of the very worst out there…..Inglis and Tyrone Roberts. Truly terrible.
And let's not forget the perma-injured Mitchell Dodds & the failed experiment of Luther Burrell.
How many of the players we have signed in recent years do you say "well he improved at Warrington compared to what he was with his previous club"?
I'm struggling to think of any. Maybe Mamo and Walker?
We sign a lot of "projects" or "potential" only for them to be out of the door without extension. You would think out of the recent list we would get 1 or 2 first teamers?
Savelio Brand Shelford Johnson (Luis) Kibula Robson* Doro*