PRELIMINARY FINAL - Roosters vs Storm

[yourhero]

Roosters line-up;

1. James Tedesco
2. Daniel Tupou
3. Latrell Mitchell
4. Joseph Manu
5. Brett Morris
6. Luke Keary
7. Cooper Cronk
8. Isaac Liu
9. Sam Verrills
10. Siosiua Taukeiaho
11. Boyd Cordner
12. Mitchell Aubusson
13. Victor Radley

14. Angus Crichton
15. Zane Tetevano
16. Nat Butcher
17. Lindsay Collins

18. Sitili Tupouniua
19. Drew Hutchison
20. Jake Friend
21. Ryan Hall

[Mattpoet]

I see that Klown didn't get the other final either. Good to see the NRL stick to a punishment for once.

[yourhero]

For the Roosters, Siosiua Taukeiaho will come into the starting line-up to partner Isaac Liu at prop, as expected. Jake Friend has been named on the extended bench and will be given every chance to prove his fitness ahead of kick off. Lindsay Collins is promoted to the interchange bench.

[yourhero]

For us, Kenny Bromwich will play his 150th Storm and NRL game, joining his brother Jesse and 11 other players who have reached the same milestone for Melbourne. Bromwich has played in every game this season and has played in at least 25 games in each of his last four seasons after making his debut in 2013.

Cam Smith requires one goal on Saturday night to become the first player in finals history to kick 100 goals.

He requires another six goals to break the all-time record for most goals in a season by a forward. Former St George second-rower Harry Bath holds the record with 108, in 1958.

Smith is also closing in on Bath’s record for most points in a season by a forward. Bath’s 1958 total was 224 points. Smith’s 2019 tally stands at 214.

[yourhero]

https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/king- ... 4714bb4109

Max King bids to go from Titans reject to Storm grand finalist in three months
AAP
Laine Clark
September 25, 2019

Melbourne forward Max King is aiming to go from outside the Gold Coast top 17 to a grand final appearance with the Storm in the space of three short months.

hree months ago, Max King couldn’t make the top 17 of the NRL’s worst team.

This week the 22-year-old will play in a grand final qualifier for minor premiers, Melbourne.

No wonder his head is spinning.

King - the grandson of seven-time Dragons premiership winner Johnny - came off the bench for the Titans in the first 10 rounds this year then failed to even make the first grade cut.

Then remarkably Melbourne came calling before the June 30 mid-season player transfer deadline.

The surprises have kept coming for King who on Tuesday kept his Storm bench spot for Saturday’s grand final re-match against the Sydney Roosters at the SCG.

“I am still pinching myself that I am here, it’s crazy,” King told AAP.

“I was in a bad spot at the Titans personally. I was low in confidence, stuck in reserve grade - things just weren’t going my way.

“It was hard because the Titans first grade team was struggling and I couldn’t even make that team.

“I was beating myself up a bit. But I left with no hard feelings. Besides, you could say it has worked out pretty well.” What an understatement.

Not only was King snapped up by Melbourne on a two-year deal after 38 games in three seasons for Gold Coast, he was injected into the Storm 17 from the outset in Round 23.

Stepping up in the absence of Storm forwards Christian Welch (knee) and Albert Vete (shoulder), King hasn’t looked back.

Max King couldn’t make the Titans top 17 earlier this season.

Now he is on the verge of running out in a re-match of the 2018 season decider he watched on TV on an end of season trip to Melbourne, wondering if he would ever taste finals footy.

“We were well into our (Titans) off season by then last year. I had a boys trip to Melbourne which was the first time I had ever been there,” he said.

“I went to the AFL grand final and watched the NRL grand final on TV.

“Now I look around and see guys like Cameron Smith and all these great players - I am honoured to be there.

“So I am going to appreciate this.”

[Danger D]

I often wonder how the Storm recruiting dept finds these unwanted players. How do we know they will work in the Storm system? What are the qualities they are looking for? Pretty good success rate with a few notable exceptions.

Well done to Max King. I wasn't as smitten as some others on here when he first debuted for us but he has shown a degree of consistency which I think is more important than potential for excellent performance.

[Mattpoet]

I read something that I can't find now to post but it mentioned that we have created a piece of software that tracks the performance etc of every rl player above a certain standard in aus and nz over a rolling two year period. I'm guessing he came across the radar on that.

[Mattpoet]

Melbourne Storm sign ‘next Cooper Cronk’ from rivals’ nursery


A teenage bush sensation can be revealed as the Melbourne Storm’s long-term replacement for Cooper Cronk.

While Jahrome Hughes or Brodie Croft could lead Melbourne to a premiership wearing the No.7 this year, 17-year-old Bathurst bush footballer Noah Griffiths will move to Melbourne at the end of the season to begin a new Storm playmaking reign.


Bathurst Panthers halfback Noah Griffiths has signed with the Melbourne Storm
Signed on a four-year deal when he was 16, the Bathurst Panthers star has been earmarked by the Storm hierarchy to become the club’s future playmaker.
“We put a stamp on Noah when he was 15,’’ said Storm recruitment manager Paul Bunn.

“We recognised he was a real footy player early and went after him.’’
Born and bred in Bathurst — just 38km from Craig Bellamy’s home town of Portland — right in the Penrith Panthers’ NSW central west nursery, Griffiths spent the season playing for the Bathurst Panthers in the Under-18s Group 10 competition.

Griffiths has impressed his future full-time teammates during fly-in sessions to Melbourne throughout the year.
“It was actually one of Craig’s mates that called me,’’ Bunn said.

“He told me I had to come and check out the kid. We grabbed him pretty much straight away.’’
With Melbourne famous for turning no-names into NRL stars, Bunn declared the Storm the Harvard of rugby league.
“You can choose TAFE or you can come to Harvard,’’ Bunn said.
“This is the Harvard for football.’’

And it’s a top-secret computer program that is helping Melbourne find and sign the NRL’s next stars on bargain basement deals.
Based on NFL and English Premier League technology, the hi-tech software has already delivered the club some of their biggest names, including a Broncos reject named Cameron Munster for just $5000.
This high-level artificial intelligence system has them poised for more finals success this season.
Unofficially called the “Needle in a Haystack’’, a potentially multimillion-dollar algorithm within the program sorts through data before predicting which rugby league nobodies will become future stars.

Tui Kamikamica, Tom Eisenhuth, Marion Seve and Suliasi Vunivalu were all unwanted players who signed on to play for the Storm for free.
The computer program is so secret that “few’’ outside Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy knew of its existence until today.
“Its proper name is the Melbourne Storm Decision Making Support System,’’ Melbourne recruitment manager Paul Bunn said.
“We gave it a real boring, cumbersome name so that nobody takes notice of it. We don’t want anyone else looking at it and we have never shared it with anyone.
“Only a few people even know it exists and only a couple have seen it.’’

As part of an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Storm, the Melbourne recruitment guru revealed the secret software had delivered the Storm the likes of Munster, Ryan Papenhuyzen and Josh Addo-Carr.
“The program identifies talent for us,’’ Bunn said.
“It is a decision-making process system that picks the needle in the haystack. It helps us find that one-in-a-thousand kid.’’
Kept under military-grade encryption on just three computers, the system has taken almost a decade to develop.
Bunn said technology used by English football giants Liverpool and Manchester City had inspired the one-of-a-kind rugby league software system.

“It is something we have done ourselves,’’ Bunn said.
“We designed and developed it after several trips overseas to research what the best had.
It is based on NFL technology and Premier League. It has a bit of Liverpool and Manchester City.’’
Statistics on every representative rugby league player aged over 15 are kept on the system.
“It holds three years of data on all those players and the rest is uploaded to the cloud,’’ Bunn said.
“We have stats on everything and everyone. Everyone has access to the stats but you need to know how to read them and combine them.’’
The software uses a complex algorithm to work it all out, Bunn said.
“It is connected to edit video and gives us the names and information we need.’’

Bunn’s signing of Munster for just $5000 is the Storm’s greatest coup.
“No one wanted Cameron,’’ Bunn said. “And he came down here on a really cheap rate.
“He was what we called a T-shirt player. He was on a Broncs T-shirt squad playing the role of opposition and they even dropped him from there.
“He never made a lot of rep sides as a junior. They are the ones we like because we know they have had to fight hard to get to where they are.
“He was also playing Queensland Cup at the age of 17 and that is hard to do in a men’s comp.’’

Bunn and his three-man recruitment team — which includes his son and software co-developer Geordie — have defied the salary cap to give Melbourne yet another minor premiership-winning team.
No-names such as Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes were recruited to the team as replacements for Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk.
“We are very data-driven in the recruitment area,’’ Bunn said.
“We are also big on video. We watch 76 games a weekend between three of us.’’
The Storm tracked flyer Addo-Carr for two years before swooping to land the Tigers discard at a cut-price rate.
“That was no spur-of-the-moment decision,’’ Bunn said.
“We tracked the Fox for two years before we made a move. He wasn’t a surprise signing.
“What we do is called deliberate recruiting. Some may call it cherry picking. We don’t have a territory to defend so we track and target.’’
STORM BARGAINS
Felise Kaufusi $45,000
Cameron Munster $5,000
Tom Eisenhuth $0
Tui Kamikamica $0
Marion Seve $0

[Danger D]

I read something that I can't find now to post but it mentioned that we have created a piece of software that tracks the performance etc of every rl player above a certain standard in aus and nz over a rolling two year period. I'm guessing he came across the radar on that.

Yeah but I wonder how the software picks up on intangibles like effort, dedication, resilience, etc. I would think those components are what really makes the club (and it's players) so successful. You pick a core group of exceptional talent (Smith, Munster, JAC, etc) and everyone else (King etc) just has to do their job to support them. We don't need most of our recruits to even be that great at football in general - we just need them to be able to train hard and work within the system so that they can do their small part to an excellent level. When they can do that, it makes them look like they're great at football.

Can't speak highly enough about our recruitment dept.

[Mattpoet]

I wonder if things like support runs are measured by it?

[Danger D]

I wonder if things like support runs are measured by it?

That's a good one. Though I wonder how they measure that data in the junior leagues where they find some of these guys. The stats there would be rudimentary at best I'd think. Whatever they're doing, it's working bloody well!

[RobbieRoss]

I read something that I can't find now to post but it mentioned that we have created a piece of software that tracks the performance etc of every rl player above a certain standard in aus and nz over a rolling two year period. I'm guessing he came across the radar on that.

Yeah but I wonder how the software picks up on intangibles like effort, dedication, resilience, etc. I would think those components are what really makes the club (and it's players) so successful. You pick a core group of exceptional talent (Smith, Munster, JAC, etc) and everyone else (King etc) just has to do their job to support them. We don't need most of our recruits to even be that great at football in general - we just need them to be able to train hard and work within the system so that they can do their small part to an excellent level. When they can do that, it makes them look like they're great at football.

Can't speak highly enough about our recruitment dept.

The true measure of our success is the fact that so many players improve greatly at the Storm, go to another club for big coin, and then revert to their previous lower level at their new club. Those that keep their form when they leave ( Tohu, Cooper ) grew up in the Storm system.

[yourhero]

Roosters and Weidler pushing a story of Keary in a moon boot and not training. I hope our club are too smart to fall for more sneaky distraction tactics from the Roosters.

[shorton]

Gee playing on the SCG must be worth 6-8 points for the Roosters. Not sure how we can get up but fingers crossed

[Storm Spirit]

Gee playing on the SCG must be worth 6-8 points for the Roosters. Not sure how we can get up but fingers crossed

You had Storm missing the finals 10 weeks ago you Rooster's supporting flog....it must be killing you that your team is next to be bundled out of the 2019 Finals by Melbourne Storm...