Every club in the NRL at one point or another has bought a player with the best of intentions, hoping they have a long and positive impact on their team.
No club buys a player thinking, yep in a year’s time we’re going to look back and say; “What were we thinking?”.
Supporters also look at the player hoping he will work out and become a fan favourite.
This week I’m going to look at some players the Penrith Panthers have bought, but for whatever reason, after they left, had club officials and supporters alike all saying collectively; “What were we thinking?”.
Looking back over the years there are some obvious candidates.
Top of the list would have to be Arana Taumata who came to the club on a one-year deal in 2011after having already been let go by the Broncos, Roosters, Bulldogs, Storm and Cowboys.
Now that’s quite an exit resume.
In the end Taumata played two first grade games for Penrith before being dropped to feeder club St Marys and finally being let go in 2012 after numerous opportunities afforded to him.
Over the years Taumata has had several run-ins with the law and will always be looked at as a wasted prodigious football talent.
Daine Laurie (2010) – not the current player – and Yileen Gordon (2011) were both signed by Penrith because they showed enormous potential at their previous clubs.
Potential the Panthers hoped would be realised at the foot of the Mountains.
Unfortunately, both departed after 12 months, playing a combined total of only six first grade games between them. Laurie was released due to disciplinary reasons.
However, it must be pointed out that not every player has failed due to the club being a ‘last chance saloon’ destination. An expression which means the player is on their final opportunity after a series of failures, to achieve success.
Penrith had high hopes when they signed hugely talented rugby league and rugby union star Timana Tahu in 2011 after he had been released by the Parramatta Eels the previous season.
Tahu was viewed by many as a marquee signing for the club but instead, he struggled with multiple injuries and played unconvincingly in a variety of positions including lock for a total of only seven games before leaving the club at the end of the 2011 season.
I don’t know what anyone was thinking with this next signing though.
Announced at a Panthers supporters forum as a ‘major signing’ in 2012, Wes Naiqama was anything but.
By then Naiqama was well past his best and this was reflected in the fact that Newcastle released him from the final two years of his contract to play with Penrith.
Naiqama, well he just struggled and was then released by the Panthers at the end of the 2013 season having played only eight first grade games for the club.
Finally let’s finish with one of the biggest head-scratching signings of the decade when UK Super League sensation Zac Hardaker came to Penrith with much fanfare for a brief 11 game stint in 2016.
Hardaker struggled to make any impact, scoring just one try. To this day he was so awful each week that I’m convinced he had it written in his contract that he had to play first grade.
With the passing of time, we can all now, club and supporters alike, look back on all these player signings with a wry smile.
It’s only now, years later, that we can finally say “What were we thinking?”.
Peter Lang
Peter Lang is an experienced sports writer, who has been covering rugby league for several decades. He first wrote Lang on League for the Weekender in the 1990s, and worked for Panthers on its famous Panthers Magazine for several years.