The NRL season may be over, but there's never a quiet moment in rugby league with The Repeat Set delivering your weekly dose of insight.
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Bringing Gutho home
Manly have been linked with any number of five-eighths in recent times, but the one they really want was right under their nose for years.
The Sea Eagles cut local junior Clint Gutherson loose in 2015 shortly after heralding him and the Trbojevic brothers as the future of the club.
Coach Trent Barrett admits he wishes he could have his time over.
“It was a tough one because Gutho wanted to play fullback and we had Snake here and Tommy (Trbojevic) coming through,” he said.
“Gutho is a player we unfortunately had to let go but one day I would love to get him back.
“He is a quality player.”
Gutherson has played all over the backline at Parramatta but really found a home at five-eighth late last season before a knee injury ended his campaign.
It’s believed he is open to a return to Manly but Eels coach Brad Arthur is in no hurry to let him go.
How an NRL friendship died
Don’t expect Paul Gallen and Nathan Brown to swap Christmas cards this year.
Gal was fine with the Newcastle coach having a go at him over Mitchell Pearce – the Sharks skipper wrote on Sporting News that the No.7’s career could suffer by moving to the Knights – but was filthy Brown brought up Cronulla’s drug past.
“There was no need for Brown to go there. He was perfectly entitled to express his opinion over Pearce but what did the ASADA situation have to do with it?” one source close to Gallen told The Repeat Set.
“Gal and Browny had a pretty good relationship before this but you’d have to think the friendship is over now.”
Is Rona's NRL return really on?
Even rugby union types believe Curtis Rona will head back to the NRL.
"Curtis Rona is one of two current Wallabies, and former Force players, who conspicuously hasn’t declared his next move," the official Wallabies site reported.
"The longer things go on, the stronger the whispers become that the utility back will head back to the NRL in 2018."
So the question is: To which club?
The Warriors Stokes connection
Talk about a sliding doors moment.
Below is a picture of a flame-haired, 12-year-old Ben Stokes proudly supporting his beloved Warriors at an NRL game in Wellington.
Ben’s father, Gerard, played and coached rugby league in New Zealand, making one Test appearance for the Kiwis in 1982.
Stokes moved his family to England later that year to take up a job as coach at one of his former clubs, Workington Town.
Ben Stokes could just easily have followed his father’s path into rugby league had he not ‘discovered’ cricket upon the family’s return to England.
Given his aggressive in-your-face nature, Ben would have been right at home in rugby league.