With the third week of the 2017 pre-season nearly complete, coach Nathan Brown has provided an update on where he sees his squad sitting ahead of the new year.
“We’re quite happy that we’ve slowly added some players of experience to the squad,” he said following a field session on Thursday.
“Those guys that are at training have been contributing really well, and Rory Kostjasyn starts on Monday.”
With the likes of Kostjasyn, Jamie Buhrer, Josh Starling and Ken Sio on board, the Club has added 378 games of NRL experience to its roster since the end of the 2016 season.
Brown says there is still room for further additions down the track, although that all depends on how the current crop of youngsters continues to develop.
“We’ll certainly have the funds available to look at some marquee players in 2018,” he said.
“There’s a lot of good players off contract in 2018.
“A lot of it will also depend on how certain people develop at the Club.
“There’s definitely an improvement from all of the younger players this pre-season, which is great.”
While Brown is still settling on certain positions in the side, he says there is no lack of depth thanks to the utility value of certain players.
“Fullback is a spot that we’re definitely looking to fill,” he said.
“We’ll look at a number of options in the shorter term, but once we get around to the trials we will have nailed down something.
“Nathan Ross could play there, Dylan Phythian or Peter Mata’utia could play there.”
At hooker there is now a wealth of options as well, with Danny Levi, Kostjasyn, Tyler Randell and Jarrod Mullen all candidates.
“Mullo is doing some training both at hooker and in the halves,” Brown reported.
“Obviously the game against the Dragons when he played hooker, we though he was very, very good.
“So that does give us plenty of depth there.”
