The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Dolphins must start targeting younger players but only three Origin players on market

23rd January, 2022
Advertisement
Autoplay in... 6 (Cancel)
Up Next No more videos! Playlist is empty -
Replay
Cancel
Next
Expert
23rd January, 2022
136
2068 Reads

The Dolphins are not going to be Dad’s Army despite signing a bunch of veterans but they will be if they don’t start adding some young blood soon.

There is a sniff of the ill-fated South Queensland Crushers about the Dolphins after they added Jesse Bromwich to Storm teammate Felise Kaufusi as their first two representative standard signings.

They are also set to add Souths prop Mark Nicholls to their list of recruits for next season’s foundation year, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, with the Rabbitohs open to allowing the veteran forward out of his contract early to take up a two-year Dolphins deal.

Nicholls and Bromwich will be 33 next year when the Dolphins enter the big league while Kaufusi will be 30.

Most NRL rosters have a few players around this age and in the modern age of sports science, players are able to soldier on into their mid 30s, albeit with modified training programs for those who have picked up chronic injuries along the way.

Starting a roster from scratch is never easy and coach Wayne Bennett has repeatedly said the Dolphins would be patient, waiting for the right players for sustained success rather than throwing their chequebook around for short-term gain.

They’ve also added Broncos utility back Jamayne Isaako, 25, and Eels forward Ray Stone, 24, as well as some young prospects untried at NRL level – Valynce Te Whare, Michael Roberts and Harrison Graham.

Advertisement

“Young players learn from the old players, that’s how it works. They learn the good habits or bad habits, so you need the players with good habits,” Bennett told the Herald on Friday.

But the Dolphins are in danger of tilting too far towards the senior brigade.

Gold Coast, the most recent expansion side in 2007, made this mistake and paid for it after their fourth year when the main players on the roster faded into retirement and they went from a preliminary final side to wooden spooners.

It’s impossible to compare Melbourne and their instant results – finals in their first year and premiers the next – to any other expansion team. They entered the premiership in 1998 at a time when Super League clubs Hunter and Perth were being wound up so they had access to the best talent from those clubs as well as plenty of dollars to throw at established stars from other clubs like Glenn Lazarus and Tawera Nikau.

Unfortunately for the Dolphins, they seem to be heading down the path of the South Queensland Crushers unless they can attract some younger top-line talent to Redcliffe.

The Crushers were one of four teams who came into the league in 1995 and the squeeze for talent meant a lot of fringe first-graders and journeymen got handed roster spots as the competition blew out from 16 to 20 teams.

Advertisement

They made a poor strategic decision by investing heavily in Wallabies forward Garrick Morgan, who was a fine player in a rugby lineout but lacked the mobility to get up, down and across a league field.

The Crushers fielded a team with several players in the twilight of their career – captain Trevor Gillmeister, Mario Fenech, Mark Hohn and Dale Shearer. They actually signed Bob Lindner as well but he ended up retiring before the start of the season to become the coach.

It’s a much different player market in 2022. The main problem confronting the Dolphins at this early stage in the process is that there are precious few elite players who are off contract at season’s end.

There are only three players who featured in last year’s State of Origin series who are free agents next year – Dragons forward Tariq Sims, who turns 32 next month, as well as Maroons star Kalyn Ponga and Raiders five-eighth Jack Wighton, who each have options in their contracts to take up the remaining two years of their respective deals with Newcastle and Canberra.

So unless they can lure Ponga back to Queensland or prise Wighton away from the national capital with an offer they can’t refuse, the Dolphins’ hopes of landing a face of the franchise in the prime of their career are hinging on a disgruntled star getting an early release from their current deal.

Whoever they sign next, just make sure they’re at least in their 20s.

Sports opinion delivered daily 

   

Advertisement
close