"I'm not GI": Latrell to blaze his own trail at the Bunnies

Latrell will be fine playing for Souths. He is 22 he will need to earn an upgraded contract for next year. He is most likely not worried about rep teams. Gagai will be a bunny for a while. Souths need a strong solid offloading forward who can hang on to a footy and can tackle a bull. Souths have some outstanding juniors waiting for an opportunity. Souths will be ok. Manly will be ok. Easts have a little pressure but will be ok. Melb should be ok.

But its easier to follow them and forego the hassle and consequences when someone decides they were bent to far.

Rules are made to be bent.

Not sure about Taukamo. Plenty of highly rated young players go missing.

He will be a loss. Sounds weird to me to be stabbed at a church gathering. There has to be more to this than a simple assault. He doesn’t seem like the kind of kid to just do this. Hopefully it works out for him A question – Souths had a young kid tyrone taukamo who had huge wraps. He suddenly went to Manly mid season but haven’t heard of him again. Do you know anything about him?

So some of your educated guesses have been right and some wrong. To date given the evidence that has been presented it seems these can be put in the wrong column as Souths, Burgess and Inglis, as much as you don’t like it (a different thing altogether of course) have done everything by the rules. If however it’s proven otherwise I will be the first to look you up, apologise and admit you were correct

He is close to my favorite Manly player and thought we were a chance to win last season if he regained his best form but I then realised he was playing wounded for much of the season.

I'm not sure a club getting away with something is a conspiracy theory, it's reading too much in to it. I've made plenty of observations over the years without any solid evidence and many of them have been proven to be valid , it's semi educated guessing.

Fair enough. I can understand that your opinion on Burgess and Inglis is based on the perception that your club was dudded. I don’t really know everything about Matai and Stewart’s injuries to comment as I would rarther discuss on facts. You are not sure about Burgess injury a technicality. as I understand the shoulder injury he had was ligament/muscular and whilst the same area Infection in bone reducing density. Bone is not muscular/ligament based. With Inglis again the job was above market and the difference was deducted from the salary cap. He did not take any contract Money. The NRL penalised Souths for the additional payment Where the tigers got into trouble was they offered Farah a job of $900k after he retired, without telling the NRL, for him to re sign. Now that would have been fine if that $900k was included in the salary cap for the year he had the job but it wasn’t. That’s dodgy. You state that your not much into conspiracy theories in general but you seem happy to believe and promote the conspiracy theory that that Souths are getting away with favourable treatment without proof. Not sure you can really claim one and then promote the second

Don’t get me wrong Manly have done very well taking out the first 25 years which you can understand given the powerhouse clubs in existence at the time and the strength of union at the time. Souths did not perform for 28years and then had to start again when they came back into the comp. we can compare eras and stats till the cows come home for arguments sake since manly were admitted souths won 10 comps to 8 despite Souths demise in 99 and starting from scratch in 02. Also I have great respect for Arko. Without the likes of him and a few others we would be watching super league and yes Manly got the rough end of that. Thankfully for Manly rich benefactor Max Delmege stumped up $10m + to get you out of difficulty, way more than Crowe and Holmes a court put into Souths. I brought him up as I am sure you will remember all the jibes back in the 70/80’s about Arko’s open cheque book. The conspiracy theories about favouritism etc. were there any truths to these rumours? No they were propagated by Roy Masters and now are taken as fact. Same as this rubbish about the roosters salary sombrero. Seriously had enough of it! If someone has proof put it forward to be investigated otherwise shut up. They just manage the cap better. It frustrates me why we sabotage our own game. anyhow rant over I was trying to achieve two things with this post. 1. Outline that success is a matter of timing and perspective. A fan starts following Manly in 2012 and another Souths in 2012. With 1 premiership to nil and four prelims to nil and more final appearances does that make Souths the more successful club. Maybe in the eyes of 1 person but since readmission no! Since 1972 No since 1947 yes. It’s all subjective and fun to discuss. What’s the saying lies, damn lies and statistics. The second was trying to get insider to respond to one of my posts. Since I rejected his solicitation to wear a little black dress and be his madam he doesn’t seem to want to converse. Now I have nothing against what he does in his private life and don’t hold anything against him and that was the main reason for the post. Sadly insider does not want to talk any more.

Just read young Doueihi has been by given permission to negotiate due to the signing of LM... Hope the cows pick him up, this kid has talent.

Just read up on the infection for Finau’s shoulder and certainly sounds serious with a staph virus and possibly sepsis which is life threatening. Despite the charge over the alleged stabbing for which he is innocent unless proven guilty, I wish the young man well and a full recovery. Certainly a talent.

The best comparison is the Eels. Came in to the comp the same year as Manly and have had one great era in one decade. Apart from that and despite having proper stadiums and facilities, huge fan and junior base and not being mauled by the Super League war unlike Manly, have specialised in collecting spoons. Manly has produced two better juniors in the last few years than the Eels have produced since the mid eighties.

I'm not much in to conspiracy theories in general, they are as boring as hell. I do however have a personal belief, which is not evidence based, that clubs saw Manly have to include two highly paid players in the cap despite them never going to play again and worked out how to avoid that happening to their club. It looks like Burgess got judged as it being a new injury on a technicality. Chronically injured shoulder but somehow it's a new injury. The prior injuries apparently had nothing to do with the infection and deterioration? Offering players jobs well above their value will always be regarded as dodgy. Clubs are always looking at ways of getting around the cap and they can attract players like Mitchell by showing him how they look after ex players. ''If you get hurt or when you retire, we'll look after you, just have a chat to GI.'' I don't know all the details of anything but just like when Wayne denies he's interested in a player or moving clubs himself, the odour of a deceased rodent is hanging in the air.

FT was using the period from when he started following them (early 70’s) which coincidentally was the time Manly won their first comp and commenced their golden era. That way he could provide me with the stat of a premiership every 6 years and a GF every 3.5. Of course if you take it from the time Manly joined the comp in 1947 then is one every 9 years and a GF every 3.8 years both still impressive given it took 25 years to win your first comp. But you are correct never a wooden spoon.

I understand the points of view from a Manly fans perspective however of course you can believe anything you like and clearly do! Probably love a good old conspiracy theory like JFK and UFO cover ups. The facts are that burgess contracted a bone infection whilst undergoing minor clean up surgery on an existing injury. He had no pre existing bone infections and as a result of bone deterioration he had to retire but of course if you can show me some facts confirming that he not did then I will agree with you that Souths got away with a dodgy retirement whilst Manly were dudded. See I am going on facts not gossip or others opinions which are often based on a desire to denigrate or perhaps even make the Author feel better about themselves. I don’t know about Finau’s shoulder and I haven’t researched it so cannot comment. I was saying the issue with him for this year was the stabbing incident. Now that one seems pretty serious. As for inglis his DV was a different case but I was also disgusted with the NRL on how they treated Stewart on that one. But are you saying that no player is ever allowed to retire mid contract. Can they not walk away from a club during their contract without payment. I understand Souths offered (under advice to the NRL) him a job at above its value and they were penalised for this in the cap by the difference, as would be expected, and you feel this to be a stunt. I think a stunt would have been to be told to walk away and offered a job at 10x the value (And not advise the NRL) at the club when his playing contract finished as was the case with Robbie Farah with the Tigers which saw the CEO stood down.

I don't know how we couldn't manage one soon after the Northern Beagles era. None of our halves could land a bomb in the field of play.

FT, we have NEVER EVER WON A SPOON, Souths have plenty

Manly didn't need favorable treatment from Arthurson , they had the dollars and there was no cap. Just like Matai and Stewart , Inglis and Burgess had given their all and injuries caught up with them. Even other fans can see that it's not fair to have the Manly players under the cap but not able to play but let the Bunnies buy new players like Arrow and Mitchell. If anyone believes that Burgess's previous shoulder problems had nothing to do with his retirement then they're probably still waiting for the Easter Bunny in a couple of months. Fainu has an infected shoulder and it sounds much worse than Sambos but because he hasn't been injuring his shoulder for years he'll be fine. if he continues to injure his shoulder and can't play on when he's 30 , I hope they'll give him the same verdict as Sam but I wouldn't be holding my breath. As for Inglis , he's had a couple of run ins with the law with very little punishment but Stewart does nothing wrong is hammered by the NRL and then refused a medical retirement. Inglis even got a reference and everyone can see the stunt being pulled by paying him 'overs' in his role at the club.

Might just be that they both look like blokes you really don’t want to get in front off if they have a head of steam up. Hope Inglis can teach Latrell that fend!