There were a lot of questions raised about how the Dolphins would fair in their debut NRL season.
There was no star-studded signing to make headlines, but what they did do is recruit players who had been to the top of the mountain, and seen a lot of the game.
On top of that, they secured the services of arguably the greatest rugby league coach of all time in Wayne Bennett.
With that came an excellent recruitment strategy that focused on experienced players to help gel a whole new team.
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One of the players who has benefitted from the strategy, is winger Jamayne Isaako who has made an astounding start to the season with eight tries in nine games.
Ahead of the Dolphins’ debut Magic Round, the 26-year-old spoke to SPORTbible about how the NRL’s newest side came together as one.
He said: “The morale within the club and the way we’ve come together since the start has been formed has been great.
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“We went into an army camp about five-six weeks before the season, and I think that sort of moulded and brought the team together as one.
“We all came from different clubs and the way our recruitment has gone about it has been great.
“They’ve gone for blokes that have been there and done that, the likes of the Bromwich brothers, [Felise] Kaufusi, these senior players who have come from the Storm, and even Mark Nicholls.
“The way recruitment has gone after these older blokes has been great for the club.”
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Young players such as Isaako, Isaiya Katoa, and Hamiso Tabua-Fidow have certainly flourished having experienced heads around them, where they’ve been allowed to just focus on footy.
Isaako says: “You see a lot of the young clubs at the moment, they’ve got young experienced players in their leadership group, where they probably haven’t been put in situations that these blokes have been put in before.
“It’s been a release point for a lot of us young players because all we have to do is worry about playing our best football and leave the rest to our senior playing group.”
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They made a fantastic start to the season and won over a lot of fans, who may have otherwise perhaps had low expectations for the side.
It’s something that the team spoke about ahead of the season.
Isaako said: “I only really thought about it when it was spoken within our team meetings, where we were told that people didn’t think we were going as well as what we have been lately.
“But in saying that, we’re still only a third of the way through the season, we’ve still got a lot of football ahead of us, and we’re just hoping to build on every performance and hopefully make our first finals appearance.”
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Every game of Magic Round this week is LIVE in HD, with no ad-breaks during play on Fox League.
Topics: NRL, Australia, Rugby League
Jayden Collins