The Big Money

[Budgie]

Watching T-Rex last night made me wonder about clubs paying big bucks for players. Seems like a 50/50 chance of success. For every SBW and Greg Inglis, there's a Chris Sandow and a T-Rex.
I'd be interested to know who people think the worthwhile big bucks buys have been and who the total duds are.
Very glad Manly seems to only pay lots of $$$$ to our established players.
Thoughts?

 

[Kiwi Eagle]

Jamie Lyon was a big $ buy for us, and for at least the 1st 4-5 months of his time here a lot of fans said he was a waste of money as well

Inglis has worked well at Souths along with Burgess.

 

[HappilyManly]

Kitey will be at Panthers like he was for us.

Its the Recruiter's fault if a Player's value is overs

 

[Utility Player]

Kimmorley worked a treat for us

 

[bones]

Kimmorley worked a treat for us

Kimmorley never played for us.

 

[Dan]

Kite started out fairly poorly for us. His hands were terrible. It took him ab out 2 seasons to come good

 

[TokyoEagle]

Jamie Lyon was a big $ buy for us, and for at least the 1st 4-5 months of his time here a lot of fans said he was a waste of money as well

Inglis has worked well at Souths along with Burgess.

Inglis got a caning at souths until he was moved to the 1

 

[eagles2win]

Since our props are getting close to pulling up stumps and calling it a day or finishing up at another club I'd be looking at bringing some established props to the club.
Big name - Russell Packer

Cheapie - Mark Tafua

 

[The Who]

I'm old fashioned enough to believe that you should invest most in your juniors - players who have supported the club as they grew up, playing in junior rep teams etc. This should form the basis of your roster, and only import players to fill gaps. It's impossible for Easts to follow this model, and quite hard for us (and Cronulla) because the majority of locally-born kids will be lured by surfing. But it should certainly work for other clubs.
Too simplistic?

 

[Phantar]

I'm old fashioned enough to believe that you should invest most in your juniors - players who have supported the club as they grew up, playing in junior rep teams etc. This should form the basis of your roster, and only import players to fill gaps. It's impossible for Easts to follow this model, and quite hard for us (and Cronulla) because the majority of locally-born kids will be lured by surfing. But it should certainly work for other clubs.
Too simplistic?

Not at all. Throw in two generally strong rugby clubs into the mix as a distraction for local kids on the Northern Beaches. There is no doubt that you have to import big players occasionally, but I think our current recruitment/retention strategies have worked very well for several seasons now.

 

[Chip and Chase]

Ray Higgs