Samoan international Mason Lino looks like becoming a casualty of the push to blood the rookies up at Newcastle for the 2020 season, according to WWOS.
Lino, 25, played 12 games for the Knights this past season after joining the club after spending the first four years of his career with the Warriors.
Reports are circling that numerous English Super League teams are interested in the Knights halfback.
Rookies such as Bradman Best, Phoenix Crossland and Starford To'a are all tipped to join the top squad for next season.
If the Knights want to fit all three in their NRL salary cap then they will have to let go of a few players and Lino is at the top of the list.
May seem odd, but I’d swap Blake Green for Mason Lino.
Green was pretty bad for us last season. Lino would play his best ball here in NZ, whereas Green will most likely only get worse. It would save us some salary to go after a big name hopefully and Green would give knights fans hope of doing well
+1 I think at the very least a handy backup player incase of injury or bad form from Nikorima and CHT. The only problem with this is the warriors wouldn’t take him because it would be the logical thing to do.
Yeah I know Blake Green is an amazing half, almost a NSW rep player. Lays a great platform for our running halves to thrive plus his kicking game is elite. What a Joke.
Mason Lino was one of the best half’s in the NSW cup year after year with the Warriors. Had one of the best kicking games in that comp. atleast if he came back he would be more than handy as a back up. Would rather him over Keirghan and Green
Only things I rate Green on is his Grubber for repeat sets and his scramble tackling on the line but that is it. Everything else about him isn’t even NSW Cup Level.
Even though I said his scramble defence is good everywhere defensively he is unbelievably bad. if it wasn’t fullbacks running around him it was Second rowers running straight through him and even though he got no help from Blair(also a dreadful defender) there were times were he looked like he got out of the way just to avoid contact.
His offensive efforts were just as bad. his “great kicking game” and “great game management” was non existent, his long kicking game is sad to to watch. When the warriors could get past the 40(Nearly every set) Green could barely get it past the 30 and when it did was nearly always caught on the full.
he had one of the true threats in the air in David Fusitu’a yet you could count on one hand how many times he tried that option. While we are on wingers David Fusitu’a was the leading try scorer last year with 23 tries when Shaun Johnson was His halfback, Ken Maumalo in the same year got 5 when Blake Green was down his edge in attack this year Blake Green changed sides of the field and what happened Ken gets winger of the year and 17 tries and Fusitu’a after scoring 23 the year before scores 5. That’s not a coincidence that shows how far below Blake green is to Shaun Johnson’s quality. Not only is he in career worse form the stats of the players around him show that he is making everyone around him worse and he has to go.