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It’s the most exciting Tuesday of the year for NRL fans today, with the release of Round 1 teams in addition to cheap pizza. So perhaps it’s time to have a look at what your club recruitment officers have actually been up to.
With their different needs, strategies, junior depths and rate of player behavioural atrocities, each club has a unique way of going about their ins and outs.
However, generally a club’s shopping habits can be placed into four categories – the boutique buyers, the bargain hunters, the cyclone shoppers and the distracted dads.
The boutique buyers
The boutique buyers are likely to skip the local Woollies and head straight down to the gourmet deli in the cool part of town where no one will smile at you.
They won’t buy a lot, are picky with what they do buy and happy to pay over the recommended retail price to get back in the premiership mix.
Surprisingly, there’s not too many of these sides this year, with only the Warriors, Dragons and maybe the Cowboys really fitting the bill.
The Warriors are pretty obvious, with their purchase of English superstar Sam Tomkins and the burgeoning Jason Bukuya, while the Cowboys have largely limited themselves to re-adjusting their spine, with Lachlan Coote and Cameron King (ahh, might need to go back to the chiro here though).
Elsewhere the Dragons have a bit of St George extender to go with their key signings, but the purchase of Gareth Widdop, Dylan Farrell and Sam Williams can be seen as direct buys to spark an attack more boring than Steve Price’s hairdo.
The bargain hunters
The bargain hunter is your club who’ll spend the majority of their pocket money on fringe first-graders or those on the ‘quick sale’ rack with the fruit flies buzzing around them.
Generally these are successful clubs who are feeling the pinch of the cap and are trying to see if the no-name milk tastes as good as the expensive stuff.
Melbourne have made an art of putting teams together from collected coupons over the years, and Manly followed suit last year with much success. Both teams will continue this approach in 2014, with Manly bagging Dunamis Lui, Cheyse Blair and Delroy Berryman among others, while Melbourne picked up George Rose, Travis Robertson, Joel Romelo and… Ben Roberts.
In addition to these guys, the Roosters, Sharks and Titans look to have to put together decent looking ‘in’ trays without breaking the bank.
The cyclone shoppers
Your cyclone shopper is your panic merchant who runs in, elbows several other shoppers in the head to grab whatever they can get their hands on, before running out of the shops screaming with a colander on their head.
Unfortunately for them they often end up with a trolley full of frozen pie crusts, a jar of cloves and bottle of Tom Collins mix.
I’d put the Broncos, Parramatta, Penrith and Wests into this category.
The Tigers definitely look the weakest here, with Blake Austin the only signing who’ll add more than just a few 2005 premierships yarns in the sheds.
Brisbane and the Eels have gone out and bagged a couple of superstars each, most notably Ben Barba and Will Hopoate, but have mixed this with a few head scratchers and one wonders if the position of these marquee players are ones that were priorities for filling (*cough* Josh Hoffman *cough*).
Penrith have been much lauded in their player purchases, and the additions of Tyronne Peachey, Kevin Naqaima and Elijah Taylor look like setting the club up well for the next few seasons.
But the hasty additions of Jamie Soward, Peter Wallace and particularly Jamal Idris, all players who were on the outer at their last clubs and all pulling a decent pay packet, may concern fans.
The distracted dads
Without picking on the men of the house, occasionally I’ll get the call up for shopping duties on the way home and go about the task believing I’ve done a reasonable job, only to later be accosted for forgetting the milk, bread, breakfast cereal and anything resembling a vegetable (did manage to pick up the caramel ice magic and grape pip cheese however).
Canberra, Newcastle, Souths and the Bulldogs all look like they could be in for an ear bashing when they start unpacking the plastic bags.
Souths I can understand a little bit, as with their quality squad they have just added some depth out wide with Lote Tuquiri and Joel Reddy.
You can make a case for the Knights too, considering that with their strong finish to last season and the fact Kurt Gidley will switch to hooker in 2014, they didn’t need an awful lot.
The Bulldogs and Raiders though? Sheesh, someone should have written down a list because both of these teams have missed out big time.
Canberra needed a top-line hooker and have come up with the serviceable Kurt Baptiste, while the Bulldogs have bought a group of players with more question marks on them than the Riddler in Batman Forever.
While no one knows for sure how the new purchases will stack up, please feel free to leave your opinion below.
In 15 words or less…
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