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It’s silly season. We’ve gone through the finals, the World Cup and the November 1 deadline after which, NRL players who are out of contract for 2024 can discuss terms with other clubs. With that in mind, we’re launching Smart Signings, our new series on who NRL clubs should be targeting to address their biggest weaknesses, using the players that are actually available to them.
If you read the NRL news, you might have noticed a lot of chat about Mitchell Moses, the Wests Tigers, and Mitchell Moses going to the Wests Tigers.
It’s great silly season content, of course, and the Smart Signings column is nothing if not a contributor to the silly season discourse, so let’s dig into it.
The dramatic personae are pretty simple to get around. There’s the Wests Tigers, the worst team in the NRL and subject of banter years threads on Twitter. They are, if you remember, crap at rugby league.
There’s Mitchell Moses, the halfback of the team that just made the NRL Grand Final, who is in the last year of his contract and thus has been hot property since the signing deadline passed on November 1.
There’s also Luke Brooks, current halfback of the Wests Tigers, who is on stupidly large money for a man of his talents, but whose deal will end this year, plus Adam Doueihi, Moses’ halves partner at international level with Lebanon and also in a contract year.
Oh, and there’s the people who may or may not run the Wests Tigers – it’s hard to work out if anyone is running it at times – which includes Tim Sheens, who may or may not be making long-term recruitment deals, Benji Marshall, who may or may not be the coach in the long-term, CEO Justin Pascoe, who may or may not have his hands on the purse strings and chair/dealmaker Lee Hagipantelis, who may or may not be wearing a silly hat.
There are a lot of moving parts here. Moses might return to the Tigers, whom he left in 2017 because they were rubbish and yet who have also got a lot worse since then, as the draw of getting $1.4m per season – if you believe reports – will do that.
Built into his decision might be that Parramatta, his current employers, are happy to let someone else pay his salary while they invest some of his wages into the younger model, Dylan Brown. That would be ruthless but, probably, the right call.
If that move happens, then Brooks is goneskis and the Tigers probably need to sign Doueihi down for the long-term.
This is Smart Signings, however, and we don’t ask whether things will happen, but rather if they should.
Doueihi and Moses is not a bad pairing for 2024, if the Lebanese performance at the World Cup is anything to go by, and undoubtedly, Mitch Moses is an upgrade on Luke Brooks. But is he worth being close to the best-paid player in the NRL at 29 years of age? Probably not.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The question we like to ask is this: is halfback actually the problem? The stats would tell you that it isn’t. We’ll get to that, but let’s first look at who the halves options are.
The Wests Tigers cycled through several 7s last year, with Brooks, Jackson Hastings and Jock Madden all getting a go.
Hastings has now been released to Newcastle – presumably paving the way for cash for Moses – and Madden walked out, signing with Brisbane.
Brooks is a laughing stock at the moment, which I would say is unfair. He’s been in a chronically underperforming team for years and he didn’t pick his wages, the Tigers did. He’s not the 16th best halfback in the comp, that’s for sure, but he plays for 16th best team with the 16th best forward pack.
He did look a bit better when moved to 6 with Hastings at 7, but that was all relative: they won just four games last year, two of which required their opponents to have historically bad afternoons in terms of both performance and luck, one was against a Bulldogs side that had a sacked their coach that week and the fourth was their one good showing of the year, up in Brisbane.
Alright, they also played well in Townsville and the Gold Coast and were robbed, but consider that mean reversion for the Parramatta and Souths wins they jagged.
They were bottom or second bottom in the NRL for all the things that you really don’t want to be bottom of: metres made & conceded, line breaks made & conceded and, naturally, tries scored and conceded.
Their halfback metrics – line engagements, kick metres, forced dropouts, attacking kicks – were actually fine, or at least nowhere near the worst around. Solid, middle-of-the-pack stuff – which, by the standards of the Wests Tigers, is actually an overperformance.
What we can read into this is that they could sign Moses, but to be honest, they could sign Jesus and he wouldn’t be able to work enough miracles to get over the fact that they are rubbish everywhere else. Their halves were not the problem.
Some of their issues have been fixed for this year. Api Koroisau, David Klemmer and Isaiah Papali’i arrive, representing a massive upgrade on Jacob Liddle and James Tamou at hooker and prop and a decent upgrade at second row, tempered by the departure of Luke Garner – one of their best last year – and Kelma Tuilagi to Penrith and Manly respectively.
Charlie Staines is better than what was there before, too, and the likes of Asu Kepaoa and Junior Tupou will now be a year older, which helps in the outside backs. Tommy Talau and Shawn Blore return after missing all of last year through injury and should add something, too.
(Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)
The general question of offensive production, however, remains. I’m not as worried about the forwards, because the reinforcements will help in that regard. There are certainly some upgrades in there.
Klemmer is one of the most effective props in the NRL and would be playing Origin had he not fallen out with the NSW Blues staff. If they can get Joe Ofahengaue and Stefan Utoikamanu to any sort of level, get Alex Twal on the field for a consistent period and integrate Papali’i into the team, then that aspect might get going again. To my mind, these are players in a slump rather than outright bad players.
Where they do lack, however, is in the backs. Let’s play a thought experiment. We can safely say Daine Laurie is starting at 1, though by whatever metric you want to measure fullbacks, of whatever type, he’s nowhere near good enough.
I would say they should cash in on him for a trade with someone stupid enough to stump up – Newcastle, again – and put Staines there, but I doubt that will happen. It’s a problem that will probably resolve itself by Laurie getting dropped.
Last year had Kepaoa, Tupou and Junior Pauga deputising on wings, with Ken Maumola, David Nofoaluma and Starford To’a all also getting time out there. One expects Kepaoa, Maumola and Nofa to fight it out for Round 1.
Inside, however, is where the big problems lies. Brent Naden joined midseason and was a liability, Garner and Oliver Gildart had a crack but have both left, James Roberts has retired, Tommy Talau is off an ACL and new recruit Triston Reilly is straight over from rugby union.
This is the glaring hole that needs to be filled. Their centres to finish last year were Kepaoa, To’a and Garner, and if you watched a lot of them, this was obviously a big problem. Kepaoa and To’a averaged one try caused per game which is, obviously, horrendous.
So who is available? Of those at other clubs but on the outer, you might have a word with Brad Parker, in his last year and relegated to third choice behind Morgan Harper and Tolu Koula at Manly. If Parker is second choice at the Sea Eagles, ask the same question of Harper. Either would be an upgrade. For what it’s worth, Harper’s defensive starts were actually quite good, bar one unfortunate evening in the Shire.
Mawene Hiroti has been bombed out at Cronulla but tore it up for Newtown in the NSW Cup – and he kicks goals, too, which the Tigers struggled badly with – or even better, have a word with the tackle-busting, try-scoring former All Black Sevens player Will Warbrick, who would have debuted for Melbourne last year had he not picked up an injury.
If you’re speaking to Melbourne, Marion Seve spent most of the back end of last year proving that he’s a bit too good for reserve grade could be worth a crack.
It’s annoying that Adam Keighran has gone to the Catalans as he was up at 92% tackle efficiency and kicked goals. If Jarrod Croker really wants 300 games in the NRL and could be prised out of Canberra’s reserve grade, he would also solve that and, yes, I am recommending Jarrod Croker to the Wests Tigers because that’s how bad their options are.
There’s possibilities out there. I doubt many would be expensive and certainly might make a bit more sense than chucking $1.4m at a playmaker entering his thirties when you don’t make metres or stop tries.
This isn’t me saying don’t sign Mitch Moses – though, I wouldn’t, at least not at that price – but there is a very Wests Tigersy feel to signing a star a year out and burning another season while you wait for him to arrive, by which point, the coach will be in a final year, the star signing hooker will be too old and everyone else will have given up hope again.
And, as Tigers fans know too well, it’s the hope that kills you.