Hey Toddy, thanks for stopping in mate!
Taine has really had a breakout season and you’ll probably know he’s leading the player of the year standings for the entire Qcup competition, and in his rookie season - which is unheard of. He’s an interesting prospect in the sense that he was one of the Titans top juniors for a period of time (circa 2015-2019) then kind of just dropped off, played a year or two of local A grade at Burleigh and then last year something clicked - he tore that competition up, earned an NRL pre season and went back to the Bears aiming for his first start as Burleigh’s first choice fullback in Qcup. The feeling a the time was that he’d slowly build into the role but he came out of the gates hard. Apologies for rambling a bit, I just think he’s had a pretty unorthodox pathway and it pays more respect to his current feats when you see the whole picture. IMO it’s inevitable he gets an NRL gig somewhere for ‘23. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s with the Titans, given they’ve got JC, Turner, Jaylan De Groot and Keano Kini all with the NRL squad in some capacity next year. I’m personally gutted because he deserves it and I’d love to see him come on full time with the Titans but understand that roster restrictions will make it unlikely. You might have seen he’s currently doing some part-time training with the Titans NRL squad. TLDR; Taine is good enough for an NRL contract, will get one, but it’s tough to see it being with the Titans given how many young fullbacks are on the roster for 2023. Unless, of course, they see him as an option to also cover his original position as a half or 5/8.
Robson and Charlie Murray play pretty similar styles and I think both are more suitable to a modern day forward rotation than say 2-3 years ago. Smaller set, tough, agile bodies that have big engines and can ball play. In relation to the Titans signing them, the challenge is that they’ve over capitalised with middles as is, and have plenty of them coming through on development contracts full-time with NRL from 2023 (Iszac F, Isaac MB, Pahulu). In saying that, the Robson/Murray style is still something they lack. Robson probably closer to NRL given he’s cup hardened but Murray probably has the higher ceiling given he’s still U21, IMO. Both should remain on the radar in some capacity so long as they’re local but I don’t expect either to be full-time in the immediate future.
Powell is another middle in the feeder system that would do us a world of good but watch Melbourne go and sign him!
Tommy being 18th man was great and he put on an absolute clinic for the HDC side vs CQ. Crazy how far ahead of his age he plays. He’s very close to debuting in Qcup.
Vaka is a bit closer than Oskar IMO mainly because he’s physically further along. That injury really hurt Vaka’s momentum as he now tries to work his way into Qcup, as you’ll know he’s back playing HDC as of a few weeks ago.
Oskar has some incredible skill and reads the game very well, just needs to get bigger if he’s going to play in the middle against men. Vaka just needs more football under his belt. He’s still working his way back to where he was last year IMO.
Thanks for the questions Toddy and feel free to ask anything else that we might be able to share some thoughts on.