boppa wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 1:37 pm
Interesting to read these responses. Hard to argue with the criticism he gets on here. Truth be told though, it wasn't that long ago he was a world beater and constantly getting mentioned for origin. I think he gets some unfair criticism and isn't given the structures or game plans to utilise his strengths. Maybe he isn't a good fit with the current coaching methods and imho his defence isn't as bad as most here would have you believe. All halves get targeted and most miss a lot of tackles. This teams problems are concerning and Blake is again imho the least of the problems we have.
Regardless, I think the fact the club tabled a reduced offer after (by all reports) him training the house down. Maybe that deflated him and it's hard to put in 100% for a coach or team that insults you by offering a reduced offer 1 week prior to a season kick off and named on a bench.
All I know is he has a great running game and isn't an organiser or dominant half. This is the same guy who picked up a fan off the side of a road and gave her a ride to the game. The same guy who came here and carried our attack in 2015 and has shown himself to be a guy of great character and I really believe it's just a confidence issue, if he sorts it out he is a top shelf running 6.
Seems it's too late now with what the club did and if that's the case get rid of him now. It's pretty sad. He really isn't worth more then the reported 700k and good on the club for not budging, but to table a reduced offer 1 week before a new season is enough to deflate anyone. He won't ever be the same again here. I think the guy is a top bloke and hope he ends up at a club that can actually bring out the best in him.
This club is a basket case from the boardroom and filters down to the coach and brain dead players so whatever! Any enjoyment or optimism I once had for this team is slowly dying and yeah Blake is my fav player so maybe I'm biast. So what!!! Lol
This.
If its true we offered the guy a reduced contract 1 week before the season started, that's nuts! Especially for a confidence player like Blake.
Why not say - you've got x amount of weeks to prove your worth?
My god, two seasons ago this bloke was 5/8 of the year. Now he's struggling to hold down a starting spot. The talent is there, what happened!
1. Our recruitment since '15 has actually played him out of a role. Our strength is now our edge runners - Whitehead/ Tarpz, with BJ and Rapa on the right, Papa, Croker and Cotric on the left. We dont need him to run, we need a half to shift the ball to them. I think he has been told to do this, and its not his go.
2. Attitude. He got a new lease on life when he 1st got here. He had a point to prove. Since then, he and Sezer have whinged about not having control of the team. They have whinged about lack of ball. He had a 'tiff' with BJ - forcing Ricky to switch the halves side of the field. His attitude in defense is pretty poor too. In '15 and even '16 he was making cover tackles from the far side of the field etc. Now he just trotts along and gives up.
In an age where player turnover is so high, unless they are a top draw talent 3yrs is long enough to seriously consider moving them on, esp if its not working.
Id consider a mid season trade if one was avaliable. Lamb is one id be looking at. Even Hastings, though he sounds like a team moral/ culture killer.
Unless we give Hingano a run and he proves better. TBH, i see a poor/ bankrupt mans SJ in him. He can run as well as Austin IMO, possibly better coz he can step both ways. But seems to have a better passing game. Not sure about kicking, but Sammy, Sezer and Hodgo can do that.
Matt wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 3:40 pm
I have 2 points on Austin:
1. Our recruitment since '15 has actually played him out of a role. Our strength is now our edge runners - Whitehead/ Tarpz, with BJ and Rapa on the right, Papa, Croker and Cotric on the left. We dont need him to run, we need a half to shift the ball to them. I think he has been told to do this, and its not his go.
2. Attitude. He got a new lease on life when he 1st got here. He had a point to prove. Since then, he and Sezer have whinged about not having control of the team. They have whinged about lack of ball. He had a 'tiff' with BJ - forcing Ricky to switch the halves side of the field. His attitude in defense is pretty poor too. In '15 and even '16 he was making cover tackles from the far side of the field etc. Now he just trotts along and gives up.
In an age where player turnover is so high, unless they are a top draw talent 3yrs is long enough to seriously consider moving them on, esp if its not working.
Id consider a mid season trade if one was avaliable. Lamb is one id be looking at. Even Hastings, though he sounds like a team moral/ culture killer.
Unless we give Hingano a run and he proves better. TBH, i see a poor/ bankrupt mans SJ in him. He can run as well as Austin IMO, possibly better coz he can step both ways. But seems to have a better passing game. Not sure about kicking, but Sammy, Sezer and Hodgo can do that.
Gee didn't the knights look better when Lamb came on and Watson went to hooker?
We've already got our Hastings (roll of the dice) in Hingano and we get to comfortably see how it plays out this year. I wouldn't be bringing someone like Hastings in even if he was the only player that didn't have a club and we had Shannon Boyd at halfback.
Williams did what Ricky has been hoping Sezar would do at half back, which is organise the team.
Sezar was getting a lot of notice at the Titans because he was a 5/8th. That means he gets a bit more time to look at what's in front of him and choose the best option available.
Austin is a running 5/8th. So, he's not organising and he's taking away form the time he has available by already being in motion. Problem is, he's not actually running at the moment. The Raiders have seen this before with Terry Campese and I reckon that's why he's received a reduced offer. He needs to regain his confidence and run of he's going to get another look-in at the $700K mark. Maybe his additional video review work this week could include "Forrest Gump".
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Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
Fuifui Bradbrad wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 5:32 pm
Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
Fuifui Bradbrad wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 5:32 pm
Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
Good on the club. I think it's best to see how the cards fall with most of those players, potentially cop a tough year next year and start a rebuild in 2019 when more quality is available. There is also one long term player I think needs to be looked at carefully.
It's just dissapointing some of the long term planning around our middle forwards has put us at a disadvantage. So much focus was given to Jnr both in terms of cash and role and he will likely walk. Vaughan and TPJ are probably on a lower combined contract and look far better this year. Same goes for Bateman over someone like Barnett, at least from a time perspective.
Fuifui Bradbrad wrote:Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
Fuifui Bradbrad wrote:Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
yurithe1 wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 4:30 pm
Williams did what Ricky has been hoping Sezar would do at half back, which is organise the team.
Sezar was getting a lot of notice at the Titans because he was a 5/8th. That means he gets a bit more time to look at what's in front of him and choose the best option available.
Austin is a running 5/8th. So, he's not organising and he's taking away form the time he has available by already being in motion. Problem is, he's not actually running at the moment. The Raiders have seen this before with Terry Campese and I reckon that's why he's received a reduced offer. He needs to regain his confidence and run of he's going to get another look-in at the $700K mark. Maybe his additional video review work this week could include "Forrest Gump".
1 run for 10m in 80 mins. Thats simply not good enough. I prefer if Sticky went with his original selections and started Blake off the bench. It might encourage him to play a more impactful role rather than simple ball distributor.
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Fuifui Bradbrad wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 5:32 pm
Dean Ritchie just said on Triple M that a bunch of off Raiders players off contract at the end of the year have gone to the club asking for “2016 Money”.
The club has apparently advised them them won’t be getting based on 2017 and current form
Sure, Austin didn’t run and that’s his main thing. But didn’t he also kick the entire width of the field to set up BJ’s try and hold up a charging Hurrell over the line? Two huge plays right there.
He just doesn't look like a happy player, and that's not just Sunday night, it's just the eye test over the past 12 months. Usually when you have that in a group it has a knock on effect and it's worth getting on top of it fast.
I know he was coming back from injury early last season but he just didn't look like an NRL footballer. I can see why blokes run straight at him. The past few weeks as we built up to the season you'd see photos of him and think that he looks in better shape than he ever has to attack this season and really put 2017 behind him. He played like the 2017 version though. It's really worrying. I look at his strengths and weaknesses and based on the current version, his best position is probably that #14 coming on and trying to run at tiring players and inject energy. I can see why Sticky swapped it up to cover Havili but the knock on that had by having to start Austin just took the band-aid off one blister and stuck it on another.
I've enjoyed what Austin has done here but for all parties concerned I wouldn't be offering him a huge deal. He's an awesome fella by all reports but that's not good enough for this footy club anymore.
We continue to **** about with blokes that are part of some fraternity. It's infuriating.
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Seemed like he was waiting for it. In that situation I'd have preferred to see him have a go and miss it off a bad bounce rather than wait and see the bounce and lose it anyway because Hurrell was right there.
yurithe1 wrote: ↑March 12, 2018, 4:30 pm
Williams did what Ricky has been hoping Sezar would do at half back, which is organise the team.
Sezar was getting a lot of notice at the Titans because he was a 5/8th. That means he gets a bit more time to look at what's in front of him and choose the best option available.
Austin is a running 5/8th. So, he's not organising and he's taking away form the time he has available by already being in motion. Problem is, he's not actually running at the moment. The Raiders have seen this before with Terry Campese and I reckon that's why he's received a reduced offer. He needs to regain his confidence and run of he's going to get another look-in at the $700K mark. Maybe his additional video review work this week could include "Forrest Gump".
1 run for 10m in 80 mins. Thats simply not good enough. I prefer if Sticky went with his original selections and started Blake off the bench. It might encourage him to play a more impactful role rather than simple ball distributor.
That's precisely my point guys. Our side doesn't need a running 5/8. It needs a 2nd ball distributer. We have 3 good ball runners on each edge, we need someone to get it to them. Williams and Sezer are much better suited to this role. Id even say Hingano is too.
Maybe we should be thinking about who we want in the halves if BJ continues to act like a bonehead and cost us games from centre? Cotric is gonna move somewhere and is/was a centre... NRL wingers are cheap to replace and often come up...
If we had Cotric or Jack in the centres- still good but not a wrecking ball who demands more service- then how would you like to see our halves balanced?
BadnMean wrote: ↑March 14, 2018, 10:51 am
Maybe we should be thinking about who we want in the halves if BJ continues to act like a bonehead and cost us games from centre? Cotric is gonna move somewhere and is/was a centre... NRL wingers are cheap to replace and often come up...
If we had Cotric or Jack in the centres- still good but not a wrecking ball who demands more service- then how would you like to see our halves balanced?
If its Cotric, there is no change at all at centre. Both BJ and Cotric use strength of fend or in contact and offload. Both have enough toe to get around players when required too. Therefore, we need a ball distributer in both half and 5/8.
Jack adds a bit more ball playing. However, Jacks ball play is best used when a defender has to choose, therefore its ball running that is his strength too. So again, distributors not runners.
BadnMean wrote: ↑March 14, 2018, 10:51 am
Maybe we should be thinking about who we want in the halves if BJ continues to act like a bonehead and cost us games from centre? Cotric is gonna move somewhere and is/was a centre... NRL wingers are cheap to replace and often come up...
If we had Cotric or Jack in the centres- still good but not a wrecking ball who demands more service- then how would you like to see our halves balanced?
If its Cotric, there is no change at all at centre. Both BJ and Cotric use strength of fend or in contact and offload. Both have enough toe to get around players when required too. Therefore, we need a ball distributer in both half and 5/8.
Jack adds a bit more ball playing. However, Jacks ball play is best used when a defender has to choose, therefore its ball running that is his strength too. So again, distributors not runners.
Sound reasoning. But Cotric is more of a humble, team oriented person (knew him a bit irl) so wouldn't necessarily throw the tanties and silliness and give penalties away of the game isn't all about him for a period of time. Definitely he's a similar, power, tackle busting type but gee he's got more footy smarts + better defence and wouldn't be demanding the ball from a half, just getting it when he should.
Could be the slight difference there. As for Leipana magic. I'm backing Cotric to be excellent and Rapana to be a rampaging handful no matter who is next to them.
I feel very disappointed and sad to see Austin in this position after showing so much promise in his first year with us. His strength is undoubtedly his running game and his big boot. Without his running game he simply offers a big boot coming out of our half or with a drop out (which i think its an unnecessarily overrated skill anyway).
Without his running game at his best he is easily our biggest liability in defence. I feel sad and harsh writing this but the truth is he should be dropped back to Mounties until the time he can gain confidence running the ball again.
Last edited by Finite on March 17, 2018, 10:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.