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- Breaking news throughout the day.
- James Fisher Harris three time Premiership front rower.
- Golden boot from last year.
- He's moving from the Panthers to the Warriors next season on a four year deal, Kenzie.
- Massive news.
- Yeah, look.
- Shocked everyone too, Bray.
- For a club like Penrith, who have just built so much of their pack around what he does, to let him go.
- I understand that Penrith has been quite kind and he's done it partly for compassionate reasons.
- Tell you what, it's a big loss for Penrith and the Warriors are really shaping up.
- I mean, you broke the story today.
- What have you got for us on this?
- Yeah, massive news today.
- And it's all sort of moved over the weekend.
- James Fisher Harris approached the Penrith officials on Sunday and told them, look, I want to leave the club at the end of the season.
- I need to return home.
- I want to return home to New Zealand and raise my family in Auckland.
- And to the Penrith's credit, as Kenty alluded to, Penrith were
- quite kind and receptive.
- Obviously, they're a little bit surprised and shocked by it, but we've seen this situation play out so many times where there's a fallout between the club and the player and the club tries to hold the player to ransom a little bit.
- That didn't happen in this situation.
- It's a clean cut break.
- They haven't asked for a transfer fee.
- They didn't engage for a player swap.
- They didn't ask for anything like that from the Warriors.
- They just said, James Fitzgerald,
- Thank you for your service and good luck.
- Did it shock the Panthers?
- So this has only happened over the past few weeks or has it been kind of there for a while?
- I think it's been sitting with James for the last couple of weeks, if not months.
- He's very close to Stacey Jones, the assistant coach at the Warriors and the New Zealand test coach where James Fisher Harris is a skipper and is also close with Andrew Webster, the Warriors coach.
- There's no doubt there's been informal talks between those sort of guys to get the lay of the land.
- You don't have to be Einstein to work out that the Warriors have money because of Adam Fenua Blake's contract that it's still vacant there.
- But it only evolved on Sunday when Cameron George's, the Warriors CEO's phone rang and he was told this could be a chance of happening.
- And it moved so fast that Cameron George flew out to Sydney today, met James Fisher Harris for the first time, signed the papers, jumped back on the plane to Auckland, job done with a marquee signing for the next four years.
- Awesome for the Warriors hoops losing Adam Fenua Blake and thinking, well, where to now?
- And they pick up arguably the best front rower in the game in Fisher Harris.
- It's worked out pretty well for them.
- Well, they're on the upward trajectory, aren't they?
- And in the recruitment space, the Warriors have been very astute over the course of the last eighteen months.
- To add Roger Toole versus Sheck, Kurt Capewell in the back row this season.
- And now to pick this bloke up as the ideal replacement, like for like, with Faneuil Blake now leaving the club to go to Cronauer.
- It's smart recruitment and they've really sharpened up in that space.
- When they were drawing up that short list for Adam Fenua Blake, they asked Penrith, would you swap him for James Fisher Harris all those months ago, and Penrith laughed it off a little bit, as you would have back then, because they had no intention of leaving or letting James Fisher Harris go.
- But when they were drawing up that list, that's the type of player they were after, because it's very rare that you lose a player of Adam Fenua Blake's caliber that you're replacing with someone arguably
- better than Adam Fennell or Blake and the Warriors have been patient.
- They went for Braden Hamlin and Welly from the Sharks and they offered him a bumper deal.
- It was around seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year for four years.
- He knocked them back and lucky he did because if he didn't they wouldn't have had this money sitting there for James Fisher Harris now.
- You think of the great modern day front row combinations and this is where Penrith have now got a real life challenge on their hands.
- What Liotta, Moses Liotta and James Fisher Harris have been able to do at that Panthers side break, that's up there with all the best front rowers who've ever played the game.
- The way they can intimidate and enforce and win big games, you go back to that grand final against Parramatta, you go back to the grand final last year, it's a big void that the Panthers are going to have to draw in.
- Well they lost Man U too.
- Man U to the Roosters and they've got the best
- ...half in the game in Cleary, but that's big.
- A lot of that is because, I mean, he's a genius, he'll only get better, but a lot of it is based on their forward pack, and their forward pack is better than any other pack in the game, and there's no coincidence why they are so good, and they've won so many premierships.
- They'd have to regret, though, not doing that player swap.
- Well, I don't think it was ever real, right?
- The Warriors wanted to let... But if Fischer Harris had in his mind, at some point, that he would want to go back home... Well, retrospectively, you would regret it, right?
- But I don't think it was ever a real... It's not their fault.
- No, no, yeah.
- If you could rewind back time, of course you'd do it if you were the Penrith Panthers.
- But realistically, at that time, I think it was more of an informal, hey, would you look at it, rather than let's pursue it.
- Because the Panthers, naturally, as you would, have laughed it off.
- Why haven't the integrity unit got involved in this?
- Integrity unit?
- Why would they?
- Well, he had two years to run at Penrith.
- He's not allowed to negotiate under any of the rules.
- And suddenly he goes to Penrith and says he's got a deal with New Zealand and he wants to go.
- No, I think he asked for the release on Sunday.
- And that evolved from there and it was only done today.
- So he's just out of the blue, asked for a release, and suddenly the Warriors are there two days later?
- Well, you know, he knew that the Warriors had the money.
- He knew the Warriors had the money there, Kenty.
- Yeah, right.
- You knew.
- Everyone knew.
- It's not hard to work out.
- We know how this is, Kenty.
- We know how this is.
- Look, why have it in place, though?
- Why have it in place if we've got to sit there and cop all this rubbish?
- Like seriously, I just don't understand.
- What do you want them to do though?
- What do you want the... Well, just find a club.
- Just find a club.
- So you know what?
- You're actually not allowed to go out, negotiate with a player, convince him to leave a club.
- With two years after this year still remaining on his contract.
- And we're just going to sting you for a bit.
- Because you know what?
- There's a rule in place that nobody pays attention to.
- It's dead set.
- Everyone's doing a sixty five and a sixty zone.
- That's all it is.
- I think you're right, but I don't think this is the right instance for it, Kenty.
- I think you're right, generally right, but I don't think in this instance that's fair enough for Sharon.
- Yeah, we'll see.
- So you're saying he's wrong.
- I'm not brave enough to say that.
- Back yourself up or me.
- Tell me I'm wrong.
- Take him on.
- The premiership window here for the Warriors is unbelievable.
- I mean, they've got a chance this year.
- Many believe they can win the comp this year.
- I think they've got a chance of that.
- And then you add to that, this band here, they are willing, truly.
- Start the competition for us next year.
- Is that what you believe they will be?
- A hundred percent.
- They'll be competition favourites.
- Look, I think they'll go deep this year.
- As long as they don't sort of, you know, drop their lollies.
- But next year, you put Fisher Harris back in that side with what they're already doing.
- Okay.
- They are playing a really attractive style of football.
- They're playing a disciplined style of football which has been... Everyone's been waiting for so long to see out of the Warriors.
- They're going to have...
- Among the best forward pack, if not the best forward pack next season.
- And then they've got blokes in the back line like Sean Johnson and Roger Tull versus Sheck running around.
- They are white hot.
- That's going to be the question, is the Haas, right?
- Because Sean Johnson's out of contract at the end of this season, but he's going to take a look around at that forward pack and go, I want to go again, right?
- He's playing good enough to go again.
- Of course, why wouldn't he go again?
- And Luke Metcalf has got injured, so that's probably the one.
- I think they'll be a top four side next year, no doubt.
- But that's the one area where you go, the only area of uncertainty is probably around that halves.
- Wade Egan at Hooker continues to go to a next level.
- Probably the most improved player in the competition in the past twenty four months.
- Wade Egan.
- And you look at this signing and you look at the Warriors greatest ever signings and
- You know, he might finish it.
- We've been talking Roger Tulevarsashek in his prime when he left the Roosters.
- You know, Reuben Wickey, Steve Price, Tohu Harris.
- These signings that they made.
- But James Fisher Harris is arguably the best prop in the game at twenty eight.
- The Kiwi test captain.
- So, not only the impact it's going to have for the Warriors on the field, but what it's going to do for them off it.
- You saw in Times, for the Warriors,
