Newcastle ready to sign big name player if they come on the market
Newcastle coach Nathan Brown says the Knights are armed with a war chest ready to sign another marquee star, much like they did with Mitchell Pearce last year.
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THEY’VE made some of the biggest moves in the player market in the past year, but Newcastle coach Nathan Brown has warned the Knights are armed with a war chest ready to sign another marquee star.
Tim Glasby, Edrick Lee and Jesse Ramien are all set for move to Newcastle next season, a year after the Knights secured Mitchell Pearce and Kalyn Ponga.
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But the rebuild is far from over, with Brown revealing the Knights still have money to spend and are ready to pounce should a star player become available.
And it could be sooner rather than later as Brown expects the club to add to their current recruitment haul before this year’s finals.
“We want to try to come up with one or two top-line signings like we did with Mitchell, and Kalyn as well,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“I’d be surprised if we didn’t come up with another couple of signings around that next six or so weeks.
“You hope for a bit of luck don’t you? We’re in a strong position if the right player comes up. The fact we got in early with Jesse and Tim Glasby and Edrick, that’s been positive for us.
“But we certainly need to add a couple more in certain areas that we would really like to strengthen if the right people come along.”
Brown is keen to bolster is his talented, but young, forward pack.
Jacob Lillyman, 34, hangs up the boots at the end of this year, while the futures of Chris Heighington, 35, and Jamie Buhrer, 28, are undecided.
Without them, Aidan Guerra and Glasby are the only contracted Knights forwards around that 30 mark in 2019. Glasby’s future front-row teammates Daniel and Jacob Saifiti (23 next year), Herman Ese’ese (24) and Josh King (24) are all on the rise.
The recruitment is about injury cover, too.
The Knights started 2018 strong but dipped after losing Pearce in round seven, winning just two of nine games until his return last week against Parramatta.
Injury has robbed the Knights of the Saifiti brothers, Buhrer, Nathan Ross, Sione Mata’utia, Slade Griffin and Ponga for periods.
“Next year we’ve got Jesse Ramien coming and we’ve got Edrick Lee coming,” Brown said. “We feel we need another back, so we’ve got stability there.
“We’ve got Tim Glasby coming, we certainly need another couple of forwards to add to him.
“We need, like anyone, we need some luck with injury. If you add a couple more players in the right areas and have a really good pre-season, you’d like to think at this stage next year that people are going to be saying plenty of good things about you.
“We would have been significantly higher on the ladder if Mitchell didn’t get hurt. But we still would have had problems with our squad, which we need to strengthen anyway.”
The rest of this season is about building combinations in key positions so they can come out hard in 2019.
Ponga is likely to return at fullback next week, giving him six weeks to work with Connor Watson, Pearce and Danny Levi as the Knights’ likely spine for next season.
“As a whole, we’re really happy with the way the future looks now. It’s the first time next year we’ll come in with a nine, seven, six and one that have played together and are go into another year together and develop these combinations,” Brown said.
“My first couple of years here that’s changed, now we’ve got players in key positions who I believe he can help the club move forward and take the club to be a club who can do really well at the back end of the year.”