Controversial former Young halfback Ray Talimalie has found a new home.
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Fresh from a landmark Group 10 premier league local derby win the high-flying Orange Hawks have brought Talimalie on board.
Talimalie has been named at halfback by Albury premiership star Willie Heta for the top of the table clash against Oberon on Sunday.
With gun pivot Brodie Christopherson still sidelined the two blues will debut the former Cherrypicker who spent time in the Melbourne Storm and New Zealand Warriors’ systems.
Although Talimalie has had a tumultuous 12 months that ended with him being punted by the Cherrypickers, Heta says he can’t wait to see what the livewire half can bring to the already scintillating Hawks backline.
“Ray’s from the same suburb as I am back in Auckland and when I saw he was playing over here I couldn’t wait to try and bring him in,” Heta said.
“He’s trained really well this week, been cleared to play and we’ve named at halfback. All the boys are excited to have in the group and we’re looking forward to seeing what he brings to our side.”
Talimalie was leading the Weissel Medal count before being suspended for the last four rounds of the competition.
He was then let go by Young before being charged over an alleged brawl in October which is still going through the courts.
Talimalie’s recruitment creates what Heta called “a good problem to have” in that his favoured position is halfback, a position Christopherson has made his own this season.
Of course it won’t be an issue until the latter returns, but Heta said he will look at giving Talimalie time at dummy-half as well, potentially in a potentially dangerous rotation with incumbent rake Liam Brodrick.
“It’s nice to have more depth and have a few options at different positions,” Heta said.
“Obviously with Brodes out it isn’t creating an issue yet but once he does come back we’ll have a look at it, Ray plays some dummy-half as well and we might work him in there too.”
Heta also said he’s confident his side won’t have any issues getting up for such a huge clash, it’s no secret teams can at times suffer mental hangovers after wins of the magnitude of the Hawks’ last weekend.
“I’d like to think we’ve come through that phase now, we did that a lot last year but I think we’re past it,” Heta said.
“It’s going to really tough over there, Oberon are still trying to find their feet and they have a lot of danger players like Luke (Branighan) and Ben (McAlpine).
“We’ll try not to focus on individual players too much though because they’re pretty balanced across the paddock.
“It’s mainly about attitude for us. We’ve trained really well this week which is a great sign and we’ve worked a lot on our edge defence, we were patchy and leaked a few too many points there last week.
“Hopefully we can improve in that aspect, for the whole 80 minutes over at Oberon.”