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2026 Squad, Signings and Rumours Thread

If Zane wants to go to PNG on stupid money so be it. What are we going to do pay overs and bitch about how our pack it not up to standard and we need more decent names every week because we have an unbalanced team that can’t compete.

I don’t want to lose Zane. I feel he is the absolute future of our club. Moreso than a cooper bai or kini but eventually we have to be real. Our cap is royally farked. We would have a majority wrapped up in just 5 players and would be asking why our second rowers suck and we are running a no name back line. If PNG come in and want to offer some super tax free deal then onya bike Zane.

If he wants to live in a compound in PNG over the Gold Coast then so be it. If he doesn’t want to continue to represent the club he grew up wanting to play with because he manager wants to take advantage of this tax free bullshit then so be it.

Plenty of other halves out there. For titans to be a force we need to stop overpaying to sign every single player who has been a junior at our club.

Zane is excellent, will be elite but he’s not there now and the contract needs to reflect that. I’m sure if the contract is the in the ball park and loaded at the back end he will sign. He wants to be on the coast. If not we move on. You can’t tell me for a Tino, AJ and Fermour we could have 6 NRL level players that would have us winning games but we couldn’t walk away from “muh optics”.

To reiterate I love Zane. The last thing I want him to do is leave. Id throw Fermours money at him any day but unfortunately that’s not where our cap is at so eventually we have to let some good players go
 
If we lose Zane we’re just going to have to probably overpay for another halfback on market anyway or be stuck again

I get that we’re terrified of overpaying for potential but the reality is it’s a scarce position with a lot of clubs willing to fill it with big bucks.

Can’t really have your cake and eat it too in the halfback market unfortunately
 
The second rowers suck right now because Fermor got a deal till 2029, Arama is in his 2nd year of real development and doing more then a lot of second rowers who are the best 2 years on, It takes time like Kuli up at Phins who could barely defend till last year now looks a world beater. Despite all that chat, We're still paying Dave and RCG which cuts off someone on 300k you might find compared to the benchies we have.

It's just a shitty deal to a second rower who sucks and for some reason the club freaked out when he threatened to leave, I would've packed every bag for him. Fermor still isn't as much a problem as AJ imo, Fermor is a **** 2nd rower but you can kind of cop that as a coach because you know what he offers and at least has effort, It's **** effort but he does try.... AJ is someone we're forcing into a position where he is worse maybe then our back ups but on 8/900k so you can't drop him and doesn't want to do any hard work and whinges.

I'd take JDG on 250k in the centres everyday and cop the loss but AJs worth on the market is at an all time low and noone wants him.
 
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Yep and when we overpay for Zane we will continue to take up the bottom 4 spots on the ladder. If we take Zane then they need to shed AJ, Fermour and whoever else they can and sign some quality mid range player. The feel good local boy done good signing Zane for 800-900k a season is gone when next year looks like the warriors game every second week because our pack sucks our wingers and centres can’t mark up, our lock offers exactly zero apart from a few tackles and the odd pass and we are praying our bench punches 10 x above its weight.

Our outlook is bleak id rather sign Zane and just eat cap loss for a few years on Aj, Fermour even Tino as much as I’d hate to lose him. Purgatory awaits

Also we still need to resign Pascoe and Jojo and also probably going to lose Moe so who replaces him. This is where we see how ****** our cap is
 
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The way it is 5yc, Got to take the risk and make the leap with juniors and good buys.

We'll still be a team with Fermor and AJ who are big issues on the cap or just suck. Having a centre who doesn't want to do the tough yards is a killer for a team who can barely get on the front foot due to our defence. My example is Tom Chester, Why can't AJ be like him becausse they are similar sizes and Chester was a gun fullback coming up. He's doing 170m or so in dirty metres, Aj refuses to take a hit up.

Zane is the least of the worries even on some overs imo which all **** teams pay and we won't cop it to bad, I think people would be shocked at what halves at that level get paid as well, 800k or so isn't bad at all from 2028 especially when his new deal will start..... It will be starting around 8/900k on the new cap more then likely at all clubs for halves at his level.

The worst thing the club did this year was play AJ at 5/8th, We might've been able to sell another club on that but since he looked shocking he has so little value left on the market even as a fullback.
 
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5 Year Contract said:
Yep and when we overpay for Zane we will continue to take up the bottom 4 spots on the ladder. If we take Zane then they need to shed AJ, Fermour and whoever else they can and sign some quality mid range player. The feel good local boy done good signing Zane for 800-900k a season is gone when next year looks like the warriors game every second week because our pack sucks our wingers and centres can’t mark up, our lock offers exactly zero apart from a few tackles and the odd pass and we are praying our bench punches 10 x above its weight.

Our outlook is bleak id rather sign Zane and just eat cap loss for a few years on Aj, Fermour even Tino as much as I’d hate to lose him. Purgatory awaits

Also we still need to resign Pascoe and Jojo and also probably going to lose Moe so who replaces him. This is where we see how ****** our cap is
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Yeah. Once again the issue for our cap management points back at the AJ and Fermor contracts. Mo’s deal will be potentially off the books by the time Zane extends but that doesn’t make me feel much better
 
Cowabunga said:
The way it is 5yc, Got to take the risk and make the leap with juniors and good buys.

We'll still be a team with Fermor and AJ who are big issues on the cap or just suck. Having a centre who doesn't want to do the tough yards is a killer for a team who can barely get on the front foot due to our defence.

My example is Tom Chester, Why can't AJ be like him becausse they are similar sizes and Chester was a gun fullback coming up. He's doing 170m or so in dirty metres, Aj refuses to take a hit up.

Zane is the least of the worries even on some overs imo which all **** teams pay and we won't cop it to bad, I think people would be shocked at what halves at that level get paid as well, 800k or so isn't bad at all from 2028 especially when his new deal will start..... It will be starting around 8/900k on the new cap more then likely at all clubs for halves at his level.

The worst thing the club did this year was play AJ at 5/8th, We might've been able to sell another club on that but since he looked shocking he has so little value left on the market even as a fullback.
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I agree. To make it clear I’m not saying Harrison isnt worth the overpay I’m saying on our roster if PNG makes a stupid offer and we have to match or we are stuffed. We are stuck with the current roster give or take a few inconsequential pieces. I wish AJ did play like Chester is on a rookie contract on the back of massive injuries. If AJ played like he did now on chesters money I wouldn’t care.

As elite as Harrison is and plays it doesn’t matter if we see our pack turn up like it did yesterday. I have no issue with Hau because look he’s a rookie playing above his level in his first year and you have to take the good and the bad. Aj, Randall, Fermour etc are what hurts our future.

What if PNG offer 900k+? Again I will celebrate if we resign him but reality is we can’t whinge about the results, letting all the quality players on the market that would improve our team come in the market that we can’t even look at because our cap is stuffed. I’m not saying we have a choice, can do anything I’m just saying the reality is that eventually we are going to have to let players walk otherwise we will never get off the bottom of the ladder.

I clearly understand Harrison isn’t the issue of our cap it’s the other poor resignings like AJ etc I’m just saying the reality is now having to overpay is going to only cripple us further and eventually we are gojng to lose a Jojo, Pascoe or Harrison to resign one or two of them. We are going to need to make some drastic moves for short term pain.
 
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PNG can make the same offer, It's just the tax off, At the end of the day if he wants to go so be it but I think it will be a fair deal at a bit overs on where he's at due to what he has already done and how hunted halves are and his quality, I doubt we're going over a limit though.

I agree you have to make a stand but I think the club has shown it letting Sami go which seems a wild choice right now but that 2nd and 3rd year would be suspect that we can't do as a rebuilding club trying to realign the cap to the spine where it really matters. Paying Zane makes more sense because he can actually change how the club goes being a main position.

In my world I pay Zane and try and try find a 2nd rower to replace some Fermor minutes like AC, The issue is AJ doesn't want out or Fermor and who can blame them.... Both on overs to sit and get paid and be what they are as players. I'm nowhere near as off the wingers we saw in Jensen or Siale on min contracts who offered some of the same with big issues themselves which Sami has always had, It just looks bleek right now.

There at least seems to be some kind of planning, The Fermor deal is by far the most criminal thing this new era has done though.
 
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Yeah there’s no real conversation to be had about legit needle-moving signings until AJ, Beau and Moe are off the books… Moe will be gone shortly, and could’ve just been down to AJ if the club was smart and let Beau go.

Until then, try and grab some legit huge middles from somewhere, and pray there’s a starting calibre winger randomly happy enough to come here.

The AJ one is so so bad rn. Could’ve kept Sami, and then have Hiroti play his best position left centre, then go get a solid winger with whatever was left over. Or let Sami go and just have a huge amount of space ready. Tough to think about.
 
NZTITAN said:
Yeah there’s no real conversation to be had about legit needle-moving signings until AJ, Beau and Moe are off the books… Moe will be gone shortly, and could’ve just been down to AJ if the club was smart and let Beau go.

Until then, try and grab some legit huge middles from somewhere, and pray there’s a starting calibre winger randomly happy enough to come here.

The AJ one is so so bad rn. Could’ve kept Sami, and then have Hiroti play his best position left centre, then go get a solid winger with whatever was left over. Or let Sami go and just have a huge amount of space ready. Tough to think about.
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AJ would've been off this year as well.... despite not having a spot guaranteed they gave him a 6 year deal.
 
I am not convinced that PNG want Harrison that badly as a marquee. He doesn't tick any of the boxes that they really need to be competitive at this stage plus his hammy will be sending warning signals to everybody ... bad timing for him.

What we need is more obvious than an overdose of viagara at a nudist beach and how Satts handles it will be interesting.
 
I just don’t understand the dumping on AJ. Yeah, his contract was dumb by the club but he is still a quality first grader and remains our best fullback.
 
Boonarga said:
I just don’t understand the dumping on AJ. Yeah, his contract was dumb by the club but he is still a quality first grader and remains our best fullback.
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I think if he was our best fullback he’d be playing fullback

I get that he’s your best fullback. But the coaching staff think differently. And he’s playing centre. And that’s what really matters when we consider his value and contribution to the team relative to his salary
 
Boonarga said:
I just don’t understand the dumping on AJ. Yeah, his contract was dumb by the club but he is still a quality first grader and remains our best fullback.
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It’s nothing personal against AJ. Yes, he’s a quality footballer, but he’s not a 900K per season starting left centre, we could get a quality left centre for close to half the price and probably one that does more than he does in yardage and effort areas anyway. That’s the problem, and his 900K contract is without a doubt probably the biggest handbrake for this club’s roster improvements moving forward.
 
I agree AJ is overpaid, but I also feel our backs would look better next to a forward pack that at least matches the opposition. We get beaten through the middle every week and struggle to give our backs momentum to work with (especially next to Fermor).

He definitely needs to provide more out of our own end though
 
My only issue with AJ is he’s on marquee fullback money playing centre and doesn’t take hard carries, destroys the edges or is a defensive rock that salary should command (same with Fermour). That’s 900k that would plug other holes in the roster. As Hannay said at the start of the year we have a high ceiling and low floor player wise (and cap distribution wise) and need to reduce the gap between for a more balanced competitive team.
 
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