blake austin to gold coast

[Sports Prophet]

I am really concerned what this will mean for England’s potential on the wing for the World Cup.

[paulwalker71]

19 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

I am really concerned what this will mean for England’s potential on the wing for the World Cup.

Beat me to the punch  

 

[Cheshire Setter]

17 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

although where else can you get from blake austin signing for gold coast to your wifes comfy knickers in less than half a dozen replies?

Because both myself and Blake will feel like we’re finally going to free the shackles and move forward in our new identity? He’ll be settled in a hot and humid place, as will I.

[Dave T]

2 hours ago, DoubleD said:

I think he has been very good but has faded badly. He certainly doesn’t suit Price’s structured style, in a similar way to how he struggled to fit in at Canberra in his latter days. The biggest concern watching him recently is that he appears a weakness in defence that opposition is targeting, and I never noticed him being a poor defender previously 

He doesn't look happy or confident to me. I think in order to try and boost his confidence he is trying hard and running really hard but that is making him a bit like a glorified 2nd rower who kicks on the last. 

I really think Price has let him down badly.

[Spidey]

10 minutes ago, Dave T said:

He doesn't look happy or confident to me. I think in order to try and boost his confidence he is trying hard and running really hard but that is making him a bit like a glorified 2nd rower who kicks on the last. 

I really think Price has let him down badly.

It did come across that he was made a bit of a scapegoat when he was dropped

[ELBOWSEYE]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

He doesn't look happy or confident to me. I think in order to try and boost his confidence he is trying hard and running really hard but that is making him a bit like a glorified 2nd rower who kicks on the last. 

I really think Price has let him down badly.

Absolutely agree with that, price has a lot to answer, you can see Austin bustin a gut but is given no freedom to use his skills. 

[Lowdesert]

21 minutes ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Absolutely agree with that, price has a lot to answer, you can see Austin bustin a gut but is given no freedom to use his skills. 

Got to say, Price has had a good squad this last 2years and they have the ability to play great rugby but imo he has shacked them at times.  He just doesn’t come across as a motivator at all.

[ELBOWSEYE]

17 minutes ago, Lowdesert said:

Got to say, Price has had a good squad this last 2years and they have the ability to play great rugby but imo he has shacked them at times.  He just doesn’t come across as a motivator at all.

I think it's fair to say we have made 3 finals and won one in spite of him not because of him

[Lowdesert]

1 hour ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

I think it's fair to say we have made 3 finals and won one in spite of him not because of him

Indeed.  Certainly hasn’t been a failure but with that squad it could’ve have been champagne stuff and 3 trophies.  The Austin situation seems weird right now and I think he will be back in favour before seasons end.

[LeeF]

8 hours ago, DoubleD said:

I think he has been very good but has faded badly. He certainly doesn’t suit Price’s structured style, in a similar way to how he struggled to fit in at Canberra in his latter days. The biggest concern watching him recently is that he appears a weakness in defence that opposition is targeting, and I never noticed him being a poor defender previously 

Interesting comment about his defence. Huddersfield’s last try on Monday. He seemed to get out of the way or at least didn’t commit to an attempted tackle

[BrisbaneRhino]

I haven't seen that, but if there was one thing Austin did at the Raiders it was put in effort.  He's not a classic playmaker but he can make things happen by effort and confidence.  If he's lost those he will be very ordinary.

[MidlandsJohn]

11 hours ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Because both myself and Blake will feel like we’re finally going to free the shackles and move forward in our new identity? He’ll be settled in a hot and humid place, as will I.

At this rate TotalRL is going to be the only Rugby League site in existence that lost its Cross-Code forum but gained a Cross-Dressers one.

[goldcoaster]

No thanks. I’d rather the club invest in Tanah Boyd and Jamal Fogarty. I think we are better investing in a top no.9, given Ash Taylor is seemingly on the way out

[Davo5]

Well the Gold Cosst area is a large retirement home and the Titans are renowned for being a career graveyard.

[Saint Toppy]

3 hours ago, goldcoaster said:

No thanks. I’d rather the club invest in Tanah Boyd and Jamal Fogarty. I think we are better investing in a top no.9, given Ash Taylor is seemingly on the way out

Nah you'll be signing Austin, Yet another Aussie who can’t hack it in SL and flakes out mid-contract. I think he likes the look of the new NRL rules where nobody can ruffle his hair without getting 10 in the bin 

[Mr Frisky]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Nah you'll be signing Austin, Yet another Aussie who can’t hack it in SL and flakes out mid-contract. I think he likes the look of the new NRL rules where nobody can ruffle his hair without getting 10 in the bin 

Yep another Aussie who can't hack SL and scurrys off home as soon as things get tough by the look of it..... maybe he's homesick - that usually gets Aussies out of their contracts

[Barry Badrinath]

5 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Nah you'll be signing Austin, Yet another Aussie who can’t hack it in SL and flakes out mid-contract. I think he likes the look of the new NRL rules where nobody can ruffle his hair without getting 10 in the bin 

Thats austin that's 6 months away from completion of his contract you're waffling about   right?

[Anita Bath]

George Williams could replace him...another brit who can’t hack it in the NRL and flakes out mid contract.

[Saint Toppy]

11 hours ago, Anita Bath said:

George Williams could replace him...another brit who can’t hack it in the NRL and flakes out mid contract.

Oh you are slow to the party !!

I was already quoting the pathetic line from Goldcoaster

[goldcoaster]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Oh you are slow to the party !!

I was already quoting the pathetic line from Goldcoaster

The difference is, Austin is off-contract.

FWIW, I don’t endorse any player breaking contract. Australian or English. I just see it happens so often for English players coming here. I’d wager at least 75% of Englishmen that come to the NRL quit mid-contract

[Eddie]

22 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

Nah you'll be signing Austin, Yet another Aussie who can’t hack it in SL and flakes out mid-contract. I think he likes the look of the new NRL rules where nobody can ruffle his hair without getting 10 in the bin 

Why are you so anti Australian? Loads of Aussies have been successful in the NRL, and I’d include Austin among them. You also have a massive chip on your shoulder about GI. 

[Saint Toppy]

5 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Why are you so anti Australian? Did your bird get banged by an Aussie when you were on holiday there? 

I'm not anti-australian, i'm very much anti some of the muppets on here who constantly tell us how great the NRL is, how much better all the australian players are and how even a reserve grade aussie would walk into any SL team and be the best player there, how SL is such an inferior competition and such a step down from the NRL.

Where the NRL has a distinct advantage over SL is Money and a significantly larger player pool of good quality.

Despite what some on this board would have you believe, over the years there have been far more Aussies who have come to England and flopped in our competition than there has been the other way round, and many of those haven't just been journeymen, there's been plenty of so called' big name NRL superstars'. Inglis is just another to add to that list.

There's a perception, very much fuelled by the Australian media that SL is a significantly inferior competition and there have been large numbers of Aussies who have come over here wrongly believing this and then finding out that its just as tough. They have to train just as hard and they get hit just as hard on the pitch, its not the semi-retirement they thought it would be.

Kiwi players and the pacific islanders don't seem to come here with the same attitudes and perceptions and on the whole tend to adapt better and be more successful when they come to SL than the australians. There are always exceptions of course, the likes of Jamie Lyon were superstars both here and in the NRL, likewise Brits like Morley, Graham and Sam Burgess. 

[Eddie]

50 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

I'm not anti-australian, i'm very much anti some of the muppets on here who constantly tell us how great the NRL is, how much better all the australian players are and how even a reserve grade aussie would walk into any SL team and be the best player there, how SL is such an inferior competition and such a step down from the NRL.

Where the NRL has a distinct advantage over SL is Money and a significantly larger player pool of good quality.

Despite what some on this board would have you believe, over the years there have been far more Aussies who have come to England and flopped in our competition than there has been the other way round, and many of those haven't just been journeymen, there's been plenty of so called' big name NRL superstars'. Inglis is just another to add to that list.

There's a perception, very much fuelled by the Australian media that SL is a significantly inferior competition and there have been large numbers of Aussies who have come over here wrongly believing this and then finding out that its just as tough. They have to train just as hard and they get hit just as hard on the pitch, its not the semi-retirement they thought it would be.

Kiwi players and the pacific islanders don't seem to come here with the same attitudes and perceptions and on the whole tend to adapt better and be more successful when they come to SL than the australians. There are always exceptions of course, the likes of Jamie Lyon were superstars both here and in the NRL, likewise Brits like Morley, Graham and Sam Burgess. 

Fair enough. I do think the NRL is vastly superior to SL personally, but yeah there have been some flops come over, though I wouldn’t count Inglis among them he knew what he was getting into. 

[ELBOWSEYE]

1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:

I'm not anti-australian, i'm very much anti some of the muppets on here who constantly tell us how great the NRL is, how much better all the australian players are and how even a reserve grade aussie would walk into any SL team and be the best player there, how SL is such an inferior competition and such a step down from the NRL.

Where the NRL has a distinct advantage over SL is Money and a significantly larger player pool of good quality.

Despite what some on this board would have you believe, over the years there have been far more Aussies who have come to England and flopped in our competition than there has been the other way round, and many of those haven't just been journeymen, there's been plenty of so called' big name NRL superstars'. Inglis is just another to add to that list.

There's a perception, very much fuelled by the Australian media that SL is a significantly inferior competition and there have been large numbers of Aussies who have come over here wrongly believing this and then finding out that its just as tough. They have to train just as hard and they get hit just as hard on the pitch, its not the semi-retirement they thought it would be.

Kiwi players and the pacific islanders don't seem to come here with the same attitudes and perceptions and on the whole tend to adapt better and be more successful when they come to SL than the australians. There are always exceptions of course, the likes of Jamie Lyon were superstars both here and in the NRL, likewise Brits like Morley, Graham and Sam Burgess. 

If you look deeper its probably similar in percentage of players who fail or jump ship earlier. The weight of numbers will always be in the coming over here. I totally agree with your comments on some posters who probably mirror the media impression in Australia that its easy over here when in fact its a shock to their system when they play here. At Warrington the better results are from some unknown players like Hicks. But we have plenty of failures as well. 

[latchford albion]

3 hours ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

If you look deeper its probably similar in percentage of players who fail or jump ship earlier. The weight of numbers will always be in the coming over here. I totally agree with your comments on some posters who probably mirror the media impression in Australia that its easy over here when in fact its a shock to their system when they play here. At Warrington the better results are from some unknown players like Hicks. But we have plenty of failures as well. 

Tyrone Roberts must be about the worst of the recent signings - Blake Austin probably did more in his first game than Roberts did in a whole season, a season where we reached the Challenge Cup and Grand Finals.  Matt King too, although he came good eventually, struggled in his first season.  Trent Waterhouse was one who came in unheralded and did a job.

If Blake does leave for Gold Coast I'll wish him well - he's been pretty good for us, always seemed to try his best, and has probably been let down by Steve Price.