Daejarn Asi scout report: Castleford Tigers target ‘perfect’ for Super League and a huge coup for the club

Normally, the usual procedure is that NRL players exhaust all options in Australia before turning their gaze on the Super League.

It’s an unfortunate reality of the financial disparities between the competitions and the unwillingness of players to accept that their lifelong dream of being an NRL player is, for now, over.

In the case of Daejarn Asi, however, those elements aren’t really there. Unless Castleford are smashing apart their wage structure, Asi could almost certainly still get more in Australia.

Given his performances over the last two years, it would be very surprising if he didn’t at least have offers for his services in Australia or his native New Zealand too.

It might, in this case, be that the half, now aged 24, sees this as a perfect time to expand his horizons and still have time to come back stronger.

Guys like Jackson Hastings and Jake Clifford have seen that happen in recent years, so the pathway is now established. If that is the case, this is a great deal for Cas, because they’re getting a player with an established NRL level skillset and still space to grow.

Asi has had a strange time of it so far in first grade.

He has had three clubs across five years in the NRL, but has never been trusted with a starting spot at any of them. Yet he’s also played a fair bit of footy, not least in the last two years at Parramatta, so clearly coaches rate his ability to come in and do a job.

He’s an archetypal back-up player, which might explain the willingness to go to Super League, command a starting spot and come back with that experience behind him. It’s that responsibility as a playmaker that he currently lacks and, if he can improve that aspect of his game, plenty of other bits are there.

Asi is first and foremost a running half, with most of his time in the 6 jumper. At lower levels he was sometimes the 7, where he has also played for Samoa.

In most of the last year, he’s worn the 6 jumper but played more like a 7 with Mitch Moses out injured and Dylan Brown ostensibly playing as halfback but, in practice, mostly playing like Dylan Brown.

Asi kicked at twice the rate of Moses this year and with relative success, finding the floor regularly and achieving decent distance. Moses is the best at that in the world and anyone looks poor by comparison, but Asi did a decent impression nonetheless.

The Kiwi international is now injured and a fair few Parra fans would have been happy to see Asi go around again as a fill-in, but clearly the player himself thinks otherwise.

In 2022, we saw that with Brown suspended and Asi very much taking second fiddle to Moses. He is listed as 6’1 and 97 kgs, which is a huge body in the halves, and has shown that he can use that size with ball in hand. Speed, however, is not a strong point and might preclude a long career as a 6 in the NRL.

Several coaches have seen fit to play him at centre or fullback, which shows the strength of his running game, however, and if Asi can establish that from the halfback role, he can flourish in Super League.

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Defensively, he’s not the best – which is why he was less trusted in the centres – but that has to be seen in the context of a Parramatta team who lost the middle every week.

Most of their backs looked like they couldn’t tackle most of the time. Asi was often stationed next to rookie Blaize Talagi, essentially painting a big red arrow on the field with a sign saying ‘attack here’. A better coach might have split them up, but Trent Barrett is not that.

The trick for Craig Lingard will be getting the conditions in around Asi to help him make the most of his time in Castleford.

What the player needs is game time at a high level to smoothe off the edges that have been exploited in the NRL. As it stands, he’s a back-up in Australia, albeit one who has had limited opportunity to take on a leadership role.

Asi is too good for NSW Cup and not quite good enough for week-to-week NRL, which makes him perfect for Super League. If Cas can provide space, they’re getting someone who can grow into it.

If they give him the reins, tell him to be a big-bodied halfback who runs a bit and kicks a lot, they’ve got a guy with potential to be one of the better halves in the comp. At 24, he’s done a good apprenticeship and now needs to own a team every week. That team could be Castleford.

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