Life after Drinkwater

Looks like Drinky is set to sign with the Dragons. And I’m moderately certain he’s make the move at the end of 2026 (he’s contract thru 2027, but it’s a rarity that something wouldn’t be negotiated around a earlier release). So I think we now need to be thinking about life after Drinkwater.

I do think we’re rather well served in terms of fullback coverage – Purdue is a natural fullback he can drop back from centre (and our centre stocks are solid with Chester, Laybutt & Vailea), and we’ve also got Mason Barber & Ethan King in the pipeline. Drinkwater is also just about to turn 29 – still in his prime, but certainly no longer a kid. I do understand the logic.

 I still though don’t think it a great decision.

Thing is Drinkwater is so much more than a fullback. He’s basically the nexus of our attack. In 2026, he’s 2^nd in the comp for Linebreak assists. 5^th for try assists. So not only is he a massive threat himself, but he creates for the players around him.

And while out defence hasn’t been great for the last few years, our attack has been strong. And that’s due to Drinkwater. Look at 2025 – 4^th for line break assists, 2^nd for try assists. 2024 – 2^nd for line break assists, 2^nd for try assists. He’s a phenomenal attacking weapon.

 And yes, his defence isn’t great. But that’s the nature of fullbacks. Drinkwater has 72% tackle efficiency this season. But Trbojevic only averages 66% tackle efficiency. Reece Walsh 85%. Tedesco 64%. The Hammer 80%. Faalogo 54%. Tracey 77%. Even Dylan Edwards only manages 88%. And considering Drinkwater offers so much high octane attack……

 I also come back to the coaching situation. Todd is obviously OK with the decision to let Drinky walk. But Todd’s current contract only runs the rest of season. I could imagine many coaches would be horrified at the prospect of letting Drinkwater leave. Another reason we need to have the coaching situation resolved sooner rather than later.

 I’ll miss Drinky though. He was a bloody exciting player who provided many a highlight. He also struck me as entirely good human being. I think he’ll excel at the Dragons. They have the best go forward in the comp in 2026, which means Drinky will have time and space running at a back-pedalling defence.

So what of Todd?

 So Todd Payten is out of contract as our coach come the end of 2026.

 I don’t think uncertainty regarding our coach serves the club well from a recruitment & retention perspective. Given there’s quite a few players coming off contract and I feel we need to be quite active on the recruitment front, it’s better we sort this sooner rather than later.

 So let’s look over Todd’s history at the club (and the years prior to his joining):

 Season               Finish    Wins     Coach

2018                    13^th        8            Paul Green

2019                    14^th        9            Paul Green

2020                    14^th        5            Paul Green/Josh Hannay

2021                    15^th        7            Todd Payten

2022                    3^rd          17          Todd Payten

2023                    11^th        12          Todd Payten

2024                    5^th          15          Todd Payten

2025                    12^th        9 (1)      Todd Payten

2026*                  11^th        4            Todd Payten

 *Thru 7 rounds

 

Winning % by coaches

Paul Green                       52.4%

Todd Payten                     50.4%

Graham Murray               49.8%

Neil Henry                        46.8%

Tim Sheens                       29.4%

Graham Lowe                  28.6%

Murray Hust                     22.4%

Josh Hannay                     20%

Ian Millward                     14.3%

Grant Bell                          8.7%

 

I think a few things are pretty clear from this

• Todd walked into a struggling club – 3 years on the bounce with no final footy. In his 5 full seasons with the club, he’s taken us to the finals twice. That’s a massive positive
• 2022 was a high point that we’ve struggled to reproduce since. That’s a negative
• Todd is our second most successful coach ever  (by winning % at least)

So there’s lots of good things here. Two finals runs (and they were good finals runs – wins in both campaigns, 1 prelim, 1 semi). Turning around a club that was on the doldrums. A winning % of over 50%

 There is though a question mark over Todd’s coaching since 2022. Since then though we’ve kind of struggled – 36 wins, 35 losses, 1 draw. So the win/loss looks OK, but at no point over the last 3 seasons has there really been a feeling that we’re building toward something, setting up for a push in the next season or two. Rather we’re treading water. And yes we made the finals in 2024, but it was a scrambling campaign, and at no point did you feel we were ever truly premiership contenders.

 A 4-3 start sounds like more of the same in 2026. We’ve shown flashes of real quality but equally moments of mediocrity. I’d have argued the trajectory had real promise until the dumpster fire  that was the Manly game.

Now personally, I think our recruitment and retention has been poor over the last few years, and that’s limited our growth and development.  Tom Gilbert, Kulikefu Finefuiaki, Reece Robson, Val Holmes and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow all left in their prime. Meanwhile Jordan McLean, Kyle Feldt & Chad Townsend all came off the salary cap. Granted we did pick up Tommy Dearden (keeping in mind he only player 32 games for Brisbane, and arrived an unpolished gem) and Reed Mahoney was added this year. Other than that we’ve largely been recruiting journeymen, who have pinged between a few clubs having never really found a home – Burns, Paulo, Bateman, Lodge, McIntyre, O’Donnell, Mikaele. Now I’m not saying these guys aren’t capable of some solid footy, but rather they don’t walk in the door as established first grade regulars. I’m sure they were fairly cheap to recruit for exactly that reason. Not all will prove to be diamonds, and many will in fact prove to be rocks.

I am though wondering why we haven’t been able to recruit a few more high profile players during this period? Yes we had to upgrade contracts for Dearden, Cotter, Luki & Nanai, but Val was on massive dollars. As was Chad. Surely between them and the others who left there would have been salary cap room to bring in a couple more quality established first graders?

Hence me thinking recruitment & retention is broken. A lack of quality coming in, too much quality seeping out.

The question is though how much of that can be put down to Todd? I think the coach is a significant factor in decisions around players choosing to join and which players to chase. But equally dollars, location, family issues & the likelihood of onfield glory are major factors in any contract decsisions. And going to the out-of-sight out-of-mind Cowboys, 2000+ kilometers away, and running south of mid-table, probably isn’t high on the radar of too many players.

The other factor in all of this – who exactly do we bring in as coach if we do sack Todd? Willie Peters had a strong CV, but has joined PNG, Hannay seemed a logical fit, but is now entrenched at the Gold Coast. There’s been some good noise around Dean Young for a while (and he spent time up here during a good spell for the club) but it’s not a great time to be associated with the Dragons. Walters would be there and about. Maybe we could lure Slater into the role? We’d want to have someone good in the frame before we go swinging axes. And Dean Young is unlikely given he's the interim at Saints.

So long story short: It’s complex. Todd has done some good things during his time, and has carved out a solid record. But equally the team really doesn’t have a clear trajectory and seems to be stuck in a groove of mediocrity. 

Decisions need to be made. And I think it something of a coin toss.

Manly loss - the correction we had to have?

So after a great run of 4 wins (vs Gold Coast, Melbourne, St George & the Broncos) the wheels came off last night against Manly. The Cowboys were flogged 38-6 at home. And it was ugly as sin: we only completed at 58% (and a rather pathetic 42% in the first half) and lost the contact battle. That's a guatanteed losing combination that - poor ball control and a loss of control of ruck speed.

There weren't a lot of strong perforamnces out there. One of the worst came from Chester, who racked up 6 handling errors. It wasn't just down to Tom though - I don't think anyone covered themselves in glory.

We seemed to really stray away from what has been the core of our recent success - good ball control, kicking to corners, defending hard.

In that sense maybe this was a loss we needed to have. So it's crystal clear that we need to stick to our game plan - run hard, tackle hard, ensure we don't give away set restarts & yardage penalties, control the ball and kick to corners. There's always a temptation to skip the hard stuff and go wide early, but last night proved the folly of such an approach.

And it's also good to remind ourselves a few things:

(1) Improvement isn't always neat and linear. In fact quite the contrary

And if you want the football version of this, look at the Bulldogs. They've had Phil Gould, Cameron Ciraldo, a massive war chest, and have brought in Crighton, Kikau & Galvin. And they are still yet to win a finals game since 2015 and have made a patchy start to season 2026. 

Another club that's proving improvement is neither neat or linear - Parramatta. Late last year theey seemed to be heading somewhere. Last week the Goal Coast put 50 on them. At home. 

So as much as last night was disappointing, it's not realistic to expect us to flatten all comers, and it's quite certain there will be speed bumps on the way. Consider last night a speed bump. 

(2) Our team is still very green. Chester hasn't played 20 NRL games yet (18 to be precise). Laybutt only a handful more (21). Purdue (38), Luke (30), O'Donnell (27). Even Luki only has some 64 NRL games under his belt. These guys are still learning their craft.

(3) We're not the only team that's striving to improve out there. And Manly are on their own hot streak after the Seibold sacking. 

So let's not punch the panic button after one bad game. Keep the team settled. We're in a significantly better position that we were after Round 2, and hopefully we've learnt some valuable lessons this weekend.

The difference a week makes

Been letting the dust settle on the Storm result, and to be honest, I'm still kinda floating.

Penrith have had an epic last few years, but for mine the Storm remain the gold standard in the NRL. Over the last 10 seasons, they've twice been premiers, 4 times been runner up, lost 3 prelims, and their worst year in the last 10 was losing at the elmination final stage. 

So knocking off the Storm is a big deal. Especially with them coming off a loss the week prior. 

I think more pleasing than the win was the way we played. There was a crispness to our footy that we hadn't seen for quite a while (as in since 2022 crisp). I most noticed it on our shifts wide. Everyone was hitting the ball at pace and the Storm were always under pressure as a result.

It's a result that gives real hope to our season. If we can play at close to that level consistantly, we'll win a bunch of games.

Clifford had his best game since the Canberra game in 2024. In the buildup Payten had told him to run. And he was a real handful as a result. Maybe that's the secret sauce for Clifford - he needs to run rather than distribute. Drinky effectively plays like a five eighth in attack when we go wide anyway.

Re: Drinky. He did come up with a couple of bad misses, but he also came up with 5 line break & try assists. That's gold, especially when you're playing someone with a strong defence like the Storm. The ability to create is such a rare skill in footy.

It's also worth looking at the stats of some of the the fullbacks in the NRL last weekend (I only put up games I watched). Drinky's stats actually look pretty solid.

Tom Trbojevic:    33% tackle effeciency, 2 handling errors

James Tedesco:    33% tackle effeciency, 1 error

Reece Walsh:        100% tackle effeciency, 3 errors

The Hammer:        80% Tackle efficiency, 3 handling errors

Dylan Edwards:    100% tackle effeciency, 2 errors

Isaish Iongi:          75% tackle effeciency, 2 errors (in 43 mins)

Scott Drinkwater:   75% tackle effeciency, 1 handling error

Sualavi Faalogo:     80% tackle effeciency, 1 handling error

And keep in mind none of the fullbacks (other than Drinkwater) contributed more than 3 line break & try assists (most only managed 1 or 2)