Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\nIs signing Luai a mistake for the Eels? | 05:19<\/p>\n
As talented as he may be, Luai is not really going to make other players better. He plays a pretty ad-lib style of play that seems to be pretty difficult to play with.<\/p>\n
I just don\u2019t understand it. It seems like a very desperate strategy to get wins and sends a very unclear message.<\/p>\n
I know that they keep talking about Lincoln Fletcher and Lorenzo Talataina, the two talented young halves they have in their system who aren\u2019t ready yet to play in the NRL. <\/p>\n
But to me, that sounds more like a good excuse. They went with Pezet last year for the same reason. <\/p>\n
So, why aren\u2019t they ready now? <\/p>\n
It\u2019s the third year in a row they have done this and I know the Brown situation was different. <\/p>\n
But in my eyes, it just reeks of them wanting to win now instead of really wanting to build for the future. <\/p>\n
Jason Ryles is about to go into his third year and the reality is a coach\u2019s reputation is build on wins. He needs to start winning. <\/p>\n
Jarome Luai is off to Parramatta. Picture: NRL PhotosSource: Supplied<\/p>\n
The hope, obviously, is Luai will help them do that.<\/p>\n
But what about the message this sends to your most important player, Mitchell Moses?<\/p>\n
Are you really telling him we wanted to trial someone different in 2025 because Brown wasn\u2019t going to be here, then we wanted to bring in a kid who had played only 10 first grade games in Pezet and then in 2027 we are going to get another player for you to have some success with but then in 2028 we are going to bring in a new rookie who you have not played any games with to partner you in the halves?<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m Moses, I\u2019m saying thanks but no thanks.<\/p>\n
If anything, I think this whole situation shows Moses is a very loyal player and unfortunately he is the one who is going to have to shoulder the responsibility to develop these players.<\/p>\n
Developing young halves is not linear. It\u2019s up and down.<\/p>\n
So the fact they want Moses to mentor a new half in 2028, maybe two, it\u2019s good PR but it doesn\u2019t make much sense \u2014 both for the club and Mitch\u2019s own aspirations.<\/p>\n
MY DARK HORSE<\/p>\n
If South Sydney start to piece a few things together, they could put pressure on some top-four teams if they scrape into the finals.<\/p>\n
David Fifita is starting to play some good footy. The effort areas are there. He\u2019s chasing kicks. And beyond that, he\u2019s getting back to his usual destructive self.<\/p>\n
Tallis Duncan has really developed and taken the opportunity to play centre. He\u2019s holding that spot really well.<\/p>\n
Jack Wighton is now back. Brandon Smith had his best game of the year on the weekend and his damaging running game is starting to show up again.<\/p>\n
It all hinges on Cody Walker being healthy.<\/p>\n
Add in the fact Latrell Mitchell usually misses time close to the finals, but instead this year he\u2019s going to come back refreshed and ready.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been wanting to see Latrell really feature in September and October since he got to the Roosters. I really hope he can get healthy so we can see him dominate in the finals.<\/p>\n
I know everyone brings up the discipline issue with Souths, and Walker especially.<\/p>\n
But this is where the beauty of where Wayne Bennett as a coach comes in.<\/p>\n
Cody having an outburst like that gives Wayne a really clear opportunity to hold him accountable and have a measured conversation with him around his actions.<\/p>\n
It is an easy way for him to gain motivation heading into the back-end of the competition.<\/p>\n
Arrow’s half time birthday celebrations | 00:39<\/p>\n
FORGOTTEN ELEMENT OF TUPOU\u2019S 300-GAME RISE<\/p>\n
On another note, how great was it seeing Daniel Tupou play 300 games?<\/p>\n
And for the Roosters to give us the opportunity to see Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Frank-Paul Nu\u2019uausala and the boys do the Haka in the captain\u2019s run at Allianz \u2014 that was really cool. <\/p>\n
It was a nice insight into their club. I know they had a massive huddle after that with ex-players, club legends and current players who spoke about the impact of Daniel Tupou.<\/p>\n
I like seeing guys be championed like that.<\/p>\n
Especially someone like Daniel, who is one of the genuine good guys of rugby league.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s one hell of a player too \u2014 and one point I\u2019d like to make about him that is sometimes forgotten is the fact that he plays on the left wing and is a right-hand carry. <\/p>\n
‘One of the great wingers of all time’ | 01:07<\/p>\n
At the beginning of his career, Trent Robinson made the big decision to play Tupou on the left wing.<\/p>\n
Why is that important?<\/p>\n
Well, what that allowed Tupou to do was become a really good yardage carry winger because when you have a right-hand carry out of your own end, usually you are carrying to the left side of the field which allows a player to hold the ball on the opposite side of the defenders and straighten off his right foot and poke his nose through.<\/p>\n
But it also limits your ability to score tries, because you\u2019ve got the ball in your right hand. If he plays on the other side of field Tupou probably scores another 50 tries playing outside of Joseph Manu.<\/p>\n
In other words, he\u2019s a very team-first player.<\/p>\n
And that selfless decision perhaps best sums Daniel Tupou up. A player his team mates love to play with. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All the talk in the NRL at the moment is about Jarome Luai. Did he live up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-800990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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