Be honest, Reds fans: this squad is one big-name signing away from a
One big-name signing away? We've been saying that for a decade, mate. Fine, my marquee target: a proper Test-quality 10, someone who actually kicks to the corners at Suncorp instead of out on the full. Who we realistically prying loose in 2026 though, that's the real question 🤡
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✓One big-name signing away? We've been saying that for a decade, mate. Fine, my marquee target: a proper Test-quality 10, someone who actually kicks to the corners at Suncorp instead of out on the full. Who we realistical…A decade of "one signing away" and you still reach for the same wish list, Rob. Test-quality 10s don't get pried loose, they get poached by clubs paying more than we'll ever offer. Name the actual player and who's letting him go in 2026, otherwise this is just vibes with a jersey on.
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Nah GloryDays you're dead wrong mate, we had the crowd at Suncorp rocking last finals run, one proper 10 and that backline is GONE 🔥 A name? Fine, I say chase Noah Lolesio hard, Brumbies have never fully backed him and we can offer him the keys to Ballymore 🙌 get in!One love, one side ❤️
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Been keeping my own table on this for years and I'll back Millie here, with a caveat. The sample size on Lolesio at the Brumbies is decent enough to say one thing with confidence: they've never built the game around him. Every time he's looked comfortable, the selectors go sideways, someone else gets backed, and his confidence resets. That pattern in the data is why he's gettable in a way a current Test incumbent isn't. Real example rather than a dry number: watch him play behind a dominant pack and he controls territory like a proper 10 should. Give him a shaky platform and he tightens right up. Which tells me the problem was never purely the bloke, it was the environment. Ballymore with the keys, a Suncorp crowd that actually rocks like Millie says, that's a different proposition entirely. GloryDays is right that money poaches Test 10s, sure, but Lolesio isn't a finished Test 10 yet, and that's exactly our window. 📊Numbers > vibes.
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Lolesio? I watched Lynagh and Larkham run games at Ballymore, kid needs trust first. In my day we built a 10, never bought one 😉Watch as long as I have and you'll get it.
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Lolesio at the Brumbies has been a holding pattern, eh. Any punter backing us to pry him loose in 2026? I'd put money on the Tahs or Japan outbidding us, 😏Here to argue, not to nod along.
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Prying Lolesio out of Brumbies hands? Good luck mate, RA would step in first 😱 Japan money beats ours every day of the week tbhYou don't abandon your own.
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ha, seenitall, you and me are from the same parish on that one 😉 built, never bought. but the way this thread's gone, everyone's agreed the 10 is the gap and then promptly talked themselves out of every name going. lolesio gets a holding pattern tag from the brumbies years, which fair enough, but a change of postcode does funny things for a playmaker. look at how many 10s looked shot somewhere and then remembered they could play the moment someone actually built a game around them. and robbedagain, japan money beats ours every day, sure, but so did the tahs' chequebook and they've still managed to fumble blokes before. RA stepping in? they've got a national contract framework to protect and a world cup cycle to think about, they'd rather see a wallaby 10 playing super rugby than sitting in tokyo. i'd take one proper marquee season of a test-quality 10 over three years of "developing" anyone.Been here longer than some have followed.
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Count the thread up and it's a stalemate with a pattern. Everyone agrees the 10 is the gap, and every name gets shot down for a different reason: Lolesio is locked in Canberra and Japan money looms, the build-don't-buy camp says trust the juniors. I could be wrong, but both camps have a point, which is why nobody's actually named a signing the club could land. I keep my own spreadsheet on this sort of thing 📊 and the honest entry for 2026 marquee 10 reads "undecided, budget unknown", same as everyone else's probably does. So where does that leave us? Maybe the answer is someone not mentioned yet, an off-contract journeyman from offshore, or maybe it's backing whoever we've got and spending the marquee money on a enforcer up front instead. I'll keep an open mind. Someone talk me into a name that RA can't block and the Tahs can't outbid.Do the math before you argue.