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Message: [QUOTE="Big Pete, post: 2791839, member: 1899"] St. George Illawarra Dragons Oh boy, the poor Dragons. You know I don't think they'll win the spoon but I can say with plenty of confidence they're no hope of winning a premiership in 2017. The side is just completely listless and while their forward pack is serviceable they're simply outclassed by the better teams. I've been saying this for awhile now, but the Dragons need to promote players from within. That has always been the Dragons bread and butter whenever they've been successful and for whatever reason they've steered away from it. If they can promote the likes of Matt Dufty, Reece Robson, Jacob Host, Luciano Leilua and Josh Kerr instead of promoting their scraps, they could build to something down the line. If they fail to promote these young talents, they'll just continue to wallow in irrelevance. South Sydney Rabbitohs When they re-signed Sam Burgess it seemed like Souths would be a shoe-in for the finals. But then reality set in and all the positions that were left vacant in order to sign Burgess bit Souths in the arse and they never recovered. Something was going on at Souths and there were times where they challenged Newcastle as the worst team in the competition. A year on and it appears they've addressed those deficiencies. Players like Nathan Brown, Paul Carter and Kirisome Auva'a - the bad vibe players have been shown the door and in their place is Robbie Farah and a host of promising up and comers who could be anything. I think 2017 is going to be the year most fans thought 2016 would be. The class players will step up and help guide Souths into becoming a more consistent unit. Sydney Roosters This is another team on the up. If there is one consistensy in the league, it's that there's always the one successful team from the previous year that eliminates themselves in January and February. In 2015 it was Manly, in 2014 it was Cronulla and in 2013 it was the Bulldogs. Last year it was the Roosters turn and didn't they absolutely stink. Fortunately they've come out the other side, they still have a lot of gun talent and have the benefit of a fresh season ahead of them. In conjunction with some smart signings in Michael Gordon and Luke Keary they could find themselves as the 2017 darkhorses and should be an entertaining team to watch. The only gripe with the Roosters is how their rocks and diamonds players go. I'm talking about players like Daniel Tupou, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Aidan Guerra and their bad-vibe signings like Carter and Knight. I'm not sure if the Roosters can continue to support these players much longer and they need to find alternatives if they really want to give this competition a run for it's money. Warriors The NRL is designed for the Warriors to win every year. They have the least amount of representative duties, have the biggest nursaries to choose from and a healthy population to convert into fans... ...and yet I'm not confident they'll even make it to the finals in 2017. Maybe now that everyone has written them off, they'll come into their own, now is finally their time but it just seems like the same song and dance. They've brought in a Kiwi coach with a checkered coaching background, signed a Kiwi international with a checkered background and have failed to address the deficiencies in their squad. A lot of people take umbridge with their backs and their halves, but it's in the middle where they have the biggest issues. They lack the command there and continue to prioritise plays like offloads over more vital aspects like tackle technique and the value of a quick play the ball. As I said, the Warriors should be in the premiership mix but given their past few seasons and the way they've ignored their issues I can't tip them to make the finals. Wests Tigers Remember in 2014 how promising they looked and how if they played their cards right they could be in the mix? What the hell happened to that? Two seasons later and they've stagnated with very little to look forward to. Most troubling is their inability to promote talent from within. The Tigers are known as a development club and in recent years have had plenty of success in SG Ball and they're a constant fixture in the NYC finals. Despite all this success, they haven't produced many players. In fact the only player to emerge last season was JJ Felise and he was merely a bench forward learning the ropes. They need to be better in this regard and back the likes of Jacob Liddle and Esan Marsters. Most importantly, they need to fix their defence in the outside backs. It's far too easy to target their fringes and score out-wide against the Tigers. The backs need to be addressed and Taylor can't keep putting his head in the sand when the likes of Naiqama give up easy tries. Same as it ever was for Wests. Every now and then they'll score some big upset and get tongues wagging only to get spanked a week later by somebody else. The club desperately needs leadership and I'm not sure if Taylor is up to task. [/QUOTE]

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