And who better than your good self to exemplify that adjective?

We all have to be honest he deserves a chance to join a club which gives him a chance to show his true talent. We have had season after season of struggles on the field and the opposition knew to target him because he and Fifita are our main strike players.

Quote ="phe13"But is the alleged approach to his agent or the club?'" DRAGONS CHASE WAKEFIELD STAR e.leeds-live.co.uk/_act/link.php ... Id=6043825

Quote ="phe13"But is the alleged approach to his agent or the club?'" DRAGONS CHASE WAKEFIELD STAR e.leeds-live.co.uk/_act/link.php ... Id=6043825

Out in a limb here… but here goes anyway…

I don’t think Bill Tupou will return to full action before his contract runs out and in the best interests of the club we have to find a way to let him and the club move on…

Tom Johnstone is out of contract and his value could be used to benefit now…

Catalans are reported to be interested… they have Kasiano and Dudson out of contact this year and both look like being available…

Johnstone swap for Kasiano and Dudson for the rest of the season would significantly bulk our forwards and give (along with Butler) some forward dominance to allow the halves to play…

If Kershaw were available I’d just about go with that.

However a point of note. Two of our three victories this season were created by one man, Tom Johnstone. Probably a similar statistic for a fair few other seasons. The word match winner was made for Tom.

If ever there was a player worth breaking the bank for it Tom and the club know it. It’s also a terrible signal to send out. I know that if he wants out he wants out but let’s not pretend, there is a silver lining to this one, there simply isn’t, it would be a disaster.

This

Well i'm not a clairvoyant so I've no idea if it would be a disaster. It would be sad to see him go, he's one of the best wingers I've ever seen in my 30 odd years of watching the game, some of his tries are beyond belief and I've loved watching him, but I suppose it was inevitable. He would be the latest 'homegrown' talent to have left in the last 20 years, Ellis, Westwood, Brough to name but 3. At least we got over a 100 appearances out of him and some amazing memories.

For me. We do our best to keep him.
If we want to get crowds we need players like him. And there aren't many around.

You don't need to be clairvoyant IMHO. At the moment he is quite literally the difference between 2 points for 6 and 6 is pretty poor. So short term at least it would be a disaster, long term I suppose we'd get over it so long as the team improves. It all boils down to whether the 2023 team we put together is as a unit better than the one we have with TJ in.

The tragedy is that we should be looking for both, the dream is to put together a team that will allow TJ the opportunities he needs and we seem miles off that at the moment



One point, this is a completely different scenario to Ellis and Westwood whilst Brough sacked himself. In those days the club was a selling club and the club always wanted the money thus the players were happy to go. This is far closer to a call and I'm absolutely certain the club wants to keep him. But it's not about money IMHO, this is one of those rare occasions where it's about success or that lack of.

I’d never begrudge if he left for more money/chasing silverware as I don’t think we’ll be challenging any time soon. It is a short career and as Johnstone has known through injury it can be cut short with injury. I’d really like to keep him, as he is one of the best wingers in SL. I think it shows where we are as a team if we’re relying on 1 winger to keep us afloat, though that shows the class above he is from the rest of the team

Sadly … the chances are… if we had had some success … he would probably have missed the big games through injury.

That’s a fair old leap.

I could just as easily say he probably wouldn’t have got injured if he didn’t have to do so much graft!

Disappointed he'll be going but he's got to think of himself and his career prospects and salary. The thing for me we've never used his strengths correctly so he's never given any space so has needed to score the spectacular acrobatic tries we've seen. Rarely seen us kick to his aerial strength or use a chip over. Or playing outside a centre who needs his own ball. Look at the strike rates of for example Eden & Solomona or even Clare at Castleford similar or better strike rates but no where near TJ ability wise. If and when he goes invest in the players we're lacking and give Lewis Murphy the chance.

It’s a pity he did not play when Solomona was playing for us, just think how many 4 points he would have scored.

Not to mention Domic.
He's wasted with us half the time, sick of seeing him driving it out of his own 10 and getting no ball out wide in space.
Hope he doesn't leave, but part of me will love seeing him play in a better team (as long as it's not Leeds, Wigan, Cas, Hull, Catalans, Huddersfield, Salford, KR, Saints or Wire). Shiit, maybe i'm not ready for this afterall...
...

Just imagine if he’d played outside Foxy….

The perfect centre for TJ was Dean Collis, a genuine centre who knew how to draw his man and get the ball to his winger in space. Missed each other by a season, what a shame.

Much as I like Tupes he’s not a wingers centre he’s a yardage maker capable of scoring. It’s funny really, he’s helped Tom score some spectacular tries yet at the same time he’s buggered up some really simple ones. Typical winger made centre imo, never quite knew when to let the ball go.

Yeah ‘Bare’ was a quality centre …. Liked him at Wests and when he came to the Sharks…

I appreciate we're not a 'selling club' any more, and I'm fully behind our process of producing our own players - and there's a fine crop coming through it seems- but as a realist I know that unless we win some silverware, other players we produce like Tom, will drift away. It's a shame but that's how it is.

Collins was class but I seem to remember he missed a lot of games too?

Yes. The odds on he and Tom being on the field at the same time are worse than the Euromillions.

There is no doubt that the centres named are great, but the service to Tom hasn't been poor from the centres he's had.
Hall will end up a top class centre. Arundel gave him good service and Tupou, although done with slip balls rather than graceful passes has done him well.
His try rate is pretty good and better than most.
I seem to remember he's one of if not the fastest to get to one hundred tries at Wakefield.
His stats suffer because he's missed so many games. His try per game rate would have him competing for top try scorer every year if he played every game.
Not his fault but it's just how it's been for him.
It will be even harder at Catalan or Wigan because there are more players scoring tries in those teams. Not just him.

Yes but he will be given more space to show his abilities because the opposition have more attack and skilful players to cover than they do against us. To lose TJ is not just the loss of one of our most box office players but also what message it send to others about our ambitions. I understand he is out of contract but we have had quite sometime to tie him down, so either our offer was not good enough or he believes his future would be better served away from Wakefield. I suppose whichever way you look at it either scenario does not put the club’s prospects in a good place.
He may of course sign a new contract we shall see.

You said the same last year about Batch.
Just because they haven't resigned by the deadline to talk to other clubs doesn't mean they won't, nor does it mean they don't want to.

Don’t really agree. Arundel was the best but Tupou is not a natural provider just like Lyne. Their style has its merits but they are not classic centres. This is why so many of Toms tries come from kicks, long cut out passes and individual brilliance.

Watch his highlights on YouTube Tupou rarely makes him space and then releases the ball to him.

A better argument imho is that the ball takes so long to reach the centres especially since Finn retired that the decision making time for the centres is limited. Even Gene Miles the best playmaking centre I’ve seen would struggle with us.

Toms value to us is above all else his ability to make tries from nothing and we will miss that should he go.

We agree. I just said that Tupou's service is different. He busts tge line and slips the ball instead of making space and passing. Still gave him good enough service to score a lot of tries.

As for the the other point, that is exactly the issue for me. It isn't the centre that is the problem.