Interesting read.
Saints seem to be making it a specialty of sniffing out players who are a bit dissatisfied with the NRL, whilst still being good enough, as we fell on Coote in similar circumstances as well. Does us no harm having senior members of the squad telling the likes of Knowles and Welsby a few horror stories after all!
I really think Sironen will rip it up for us
Got to hope he's over the injury. You'd hope Saints will have done plenty of due diligence on him, but it's always a risk.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
Here's a question someone with a bit more knowledge of the workings of transfers might be able to answer. Do players have medicals in rugby? You see it all the time in football but obviously rugby transfers work differently, being announced well in advance. Does the club at least get to see medical history, injury reports etc before making the signing?
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
He will have a point to prove which is good enough for me. He should just be reaching his peak age wise, which is unusual for an Aussie coming over here.
Knowles is definitely a flight risk, his style of loose forward is very fashionable at present. Small, tough, ball playing lock.
A few years ago you could argue that Knowles was too small but the attitude has changed thanks to Cameron Murray and Victor Radley. It is getting to the point where if you want to be a top club you need this type of player in your squad.
Selfishly I would love to see Knowles stay at Saints but for his sake it would be great to see him become one of the big stars in the NRL. He would be a great player for the Dolphins in 2023. I would back Wingfield to be good enough by then to take his spot at Saints.
I could agree with you but then we would both be wrong.
Manly club Doctor has thrown his hand in after the story of Sironen broke surface.
https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/revel...or-quit-44611/
A typical SARL post that implies things but doesn’t actually make clear what the situation is.
Better (albeit with a bit more spin from the club/ less focus on Sironen specifically) : https://silvertails.net/threads/staf...t-manly.61317/
The timing is the thing that links Gibbs quitting to Sironen (as it came days after his Dad went public) but it sounds like it was brewing for a while.