Let’s call them the Fly-By-Knights, a hypothetical NRL team with one common denominator: they have all been part of Newcastle’s system during Adam O’Brien’s tenure as head coach, only to move on for a variety of reasons.
Some, like Daniel Saifiti, were paid big dollars by the Knights to go and play for a rival club.
Others, such as Connor Watson and Josh King, felt they had a better chance of realising their potential in a new environment, under a new boss.
The vast majority, however, were simply not retained, ostensibly because the powers-that-be at Newcastle considered they were dispensable. As O’Brien has consistently stated: “You can’t keep them all.”
The issue is that basic arithmetic lends weight to the theory that perhaps Newcastle should have made more effort to retain at least some of the Fly-By-Knights, who have scored almost twice as many tries this season as O’Brien’s current squad.
Starting at fullback, the (imaginary) team is: Thomas Jenkins (Penrith, 9 tries), Grant Anderson (Melbourne, 10), Starford To’a (Wests Tigers, 9), Gehamat Shibasaki (Brisbane, 12), Jacob Kiraz (Canterbury, 4), Connor Watson (Sydney Roosters, 4), Jake Clifford (North Queensland, 4), Kurt Mann (Canterbury, 2), Beau Fermor (Gold Coast, 6), Zac Hosking (Canberra, 4), Josh King (Melbourne, 3), Chris Randall (Gold Coast, 2), Daniel Saifiti (Dolphins, 2). Bench: Simi Sasagi (Canberra, 3), Kurt Donoghoe (Dolphins, 3), Oryn Keeley (Dolphins, 2), Ben Talty (Brisbane, 1).
That’s a collective tally of 80 tries for the season. If they were playing in the NRL this year, they would be equal third on the overall team tally, level with competition leaders Canberra. Only the Dolphins (89) and Melbourne (88) have crossed the stripe more often.
O’Brien’s troops, meanwhile, have scored only 45 tries, the fewest in the competition.
It could be argued that all clubs lose players, and that there are others, such as St George Illawarra, who have been equally culpable of allowing quality talent to get away.
For the sake of this exercise, we haven’t delved too far back into history. It would have been easy to include the likes of Latrell Mitchell, Joseph Tapine, Hudson Young, Max King, Nick Meaney, Jesse Ramien and Tom Starling, all of whom passed through Newcastle’s system at some point in their formative years.
Josh King played 78 games for the Knights, mainly off the bench, before establishing himself as a regular in Melbourne’s starting team.Credit: Getty Images
Most of them, however, had moved on from the Knights before the club’s current powerbrokers were in charge.
Meanwhile, we haven’t included enforcers Mitch Barnett and David Klemmer, simply because neither has scored a try this year. Nor have we factored in the six tries Dominic Young scored for Sydney Roosters this year before he recently rejoined the Knights.
Nevertheless, the intention is to highlight an issue that long-suffering Novocastrians widely regard as their club’s greatest shortcoming - their inability to retain the right players.
As the club’s greatest player, Andrew Johns, wrote this week in his weekly Herald column: “Junior mismanagement and recruitment blunders that stretch back 20 years have Newcastle going around and around in circles, struggling from one rebuild to another – it’s one big mess on repeat.”
Thomas Jenkins played just five NRL games for Newcastle before he was released with a year to run on his contract.Credit: Getty Images
Every club, of course, has a budget to work within, but the Fly-By-Knights would surely fit into any salary cap, with change left over.
Meanwhile, Newcastle officials seem to believe Dylan Brown is value for money at $1.3 million per season for the next 10 years. At the same time, they’ll soon be parting company with Leo Thompson, Kai Pearce-Paul, Jayden Brailey, Adam Elliott, Jack Hetherington, Jackson Hastings and possibly Dane Gagai and Tyson Frizell.
Whether O’Brien survives to oversee the rebuild remains to be seen.
The bottom line is that he might not be in such a precarious position if the club had been more discerning about who they should keep, rather than embarking on a never-ending quest to replace them with players they hope will be better.
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