DitheringD

Kasiano & Asofa Solomona in the same team!

Blow for the Storm. The improvement from McLean & Asofa Solomona this season coupled with the established Bromwich have given them the best front-row rotation in the NRL. That old fella Smith dictating play out of dummy half ain't half bad either!

Back on the James Maloney issue. 2-time Premiership player, firmly established In the NSW number 6 jersey. You would think at the age of 31 the one thing remaining on his mind is to earn one more lucrative big-money contract from which ever club he could get extract it from.

I would be annoyed if I were Maloney. One of the better halves in the NRL yet watching all around him since the boom in player salaries with the new TV deal, millions of dollars being thrown around at clearly inferior players. A lesson for players & agents in the future when signing long term contracts to attach certain raises in contracts when new TV deals, Salary Cap raises etc. are put in place.

Poor Queenslanders, only have the likes of Morgan, Milford, Cherry-Evans, Norman etc. in back up. All would probably make the NSW team!

Shaun Fensom spent much of last year playing reserve grade football because Stuart brought in the likes of Paulo from Parramatta, Whitehead and Soliola from Super League, where was the loyalty there? Can't have it both ways.

I don't know whether I'd be rushing Billy Slater back to fullback too quickly this year if I were the Storm. Soon to be 34, and having basically missed the entirety of the previous 2 seasons, getting a few games under his belt on the wing might not be the worst idea. Canberra can pretty much say that the likes of Wighton, Leilua, Croker and Rapana are concrete starters for the Raiders. I'd assume Canberra would have some talented young outside backs coming through the system if they are looking to offload Edrick Lee. Nick Cotric seems to be a name many in Canberra are very excited about.

Penrith would probably be the last team in the NRL in most need of signing Ben Hunt. Most likely agent talk trying to up his next contract's value. Parramatta should get rid of Radrara now. If they were a team with a realistic chance of competing for the title in 2017 you could understand keeping him, but they do not so no point keeping him around given his off field behaviour recently and a decent crop of young backs coming up at the Eels worth blooding.

Beyond stupid when you think about it, a squad player who would struggle to pick up a NRL contract elsewhere turning up to training "worse for wear".

Surely in the year 2017 Turbo Tom is the much better option at fullback, both now and into the future.

Financial reasons I guess, with the cash on offer in the new Australian competition it would have been very hard for a lot of the better NZ players to turn their backs on the money on offer in Australia, thus diluting the talent in the domestic NZ comp which I assume would run at a similar time. No too much different from the All Blacks I guess, having to play domestically to represent the national team. Bit of a risk given Australia's dominance recently, NZ isolating their best from competing with the Aussies on a domestic level, and intriguingto see which NZ players might defect.

I don't see it happening any time soon, seems to be a bit of lazy reporting to say he is returning simply because he got engaged. It is not as if he is off playing the majority of the year in the domestic French or English league. With a WC in 2019, and him being the Wallabies most marketable & recognisable player, will Folau's ego allow him to go from being the man in one sport, to just another good outside back in RL?

Valentine is pretty much a shoe-in to take the fullback role in 2017. Will take him a bit of time to develop his ball playing skills though, which is the biggest thing they will miss from Barba's indiscretions.

Manly obviously hoping the influence of a Trent Barrett can be beneficial to Hastings, and also bringing some depth to the halves position which will allow Api Koroisau to entrench himself in the number 9 jersey unlike last season in which he spent majority of playing in the halves due to injuries. Blake Green is a solid player, but Hastings fulfilling his potential could take Manly back to being a genuine finals player.