2024 Squad - Speculation Thread

[The InnFORCEr]

Apparently Henry O'Donnell signed - TBA

Another Norths boy https://northsrugby.com.au/news/news...me-to-norths-1

[WFDom]

Another Norths boy https://northsrugby.com.au/news/news...me-to-norths-1

West boy now! 🤣

[todd4]

Apparently Henry O'Donnell signed - TBA

A young man with heaps of potential. Hope it's for a minimum of 2 years.

[andrewg]

A young man with heaps of potential. Hope it's for a minimum of 2 years.

I hope that this rumour is true.
Henry played a top game in Norths close efforts against Randwick in the Shute Shield final.
Good to have someone like him to put pressure on Sam Spinks at OC.

[Burgs]

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/sp...new-franchise/

Julian “The Bus” Savea and the Hurricanes have parted ways.

Hurricanes management confirmed after Savea’s post that he is “departing” the franchise.
...
However, in a second social media post Savea stressed he was not retiring - and has signed for another Super Rugby franchise.

“I still have plenty of more years in the tank,” he said.

“I will be joining another Super Rugby team and will be announcing that next week. Watch this space.”

[James]

I've never been a fan of Savea. Always thought he was a flat track bully. Having said that, if he was scoring tries for us my tune might change. Ardie, however, is worth his weight in gold.

[shasta]

Agree with all above. Unfortunately Oz teams have often provided the flat track.

[Burgs]

Agree with all above. Unfortunately Oz teams have often provided the flat track.

Or in the case of Savea Inc, the flattened tack(ler)...

[The InnFORCEr]

He'll go to Pasifika is my guess..

[WFDom]

Great signing

[todd4]

I can't find anywhere to say how many seasons O'Donnell has signed for.

[Burgs]

I can't find anywhere to say how many seasons O'Donnell has signed for.

I'm thinking we have to assume it is a one year deal.
With the mention of "looking at the future" perhaps there's an extension clause.

[todd4]

I'm thinking we have to assume it is a one year deal.
With the mention of "looking at the future" perhaps there's an extension clause.

I was hoping it would be for 2 years which seems to be the usual contract. If we sign a 19 y.o. he comes over here and gets to experience senior level rugby for 12 months and then returns to the east with that experience under his belt I wonder what value the Force gets out of this? There may be more to it than this but more info would be good. On facebook the Force 'like' the positive comments but ignore comments asking about the length of his contract. So it would seem one year it is.

[andrewg]

By my count, that's 34 main squad players confirmed which means more to come.
The current squad has an average age of <25yo with only 3 players >30yo.
Surprised that extensions for Sifa Amone and Henry Robertson haven't been announced - or did I miss them?
Quite excited by the additional players still to be announced.

[SNOB]

I must admit I am a little bit worried by the very young age of the players. I know there is the building for the future attitude but that’s also used as a get out of card for free when there are a few shoddy games. I suppose tho it’s a good sign that the youngsters want to be in Cronies squad and are happy to move west for it so I’m expecting them to give there all, just could do with maybe a few older heads around to help balance things.
When all’s said and done I can’t fault the youngsters that went to SA and considering that half a dozen hadn’t even played super rugby they played some great rugby. Not the result we wanted but can’t complain about the effort.