Onitoni Large

When watching Onitoni’s past performances in league and union, it’s quite clear he’s at his best with room to move and doesn’t seem to back his exceptional running game enough when having the extra playmaking responsibility playing 5/8.
Will be interesting to see if that changes throughout the upcoming Harold Matthews season.
Keep a close watch on Heamasi Makasini, he has formed a great on field partnership with Onitoni in league and union and is a big, strong and fast genetic freak that every NRL team is looking for.
 
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balmain boy said:
Right, so rather than secure the best junior we've possibly ever had(including Benji and Teddy) you'd rather just stick with the toa's and nadens because your 'over' something we haven't even done for a decade now (focus on junior development)?! How can you be over something we've only just begun, especially when it's something all the elite clubs do exceptional well?

How many 16 year olds do you think train with NRL squads? You'd be hard pressed finding any.
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I didn’t interpret that it that way at all. The club should be doing everything possible to invest in the best juniors. Us as supporters though should be taking all of them with a grain of salt. How many juniors have lived up to expectations over the years? Tedesco? Woods (in his early days)? There aren’t many more that have lived up to the hype. Look at the players that have been talked up (to varying degrees) that have fallen by the wayside

Lovett
Mikaele
Hoeter
Santi
Cherrington
Liolevave
Graham
Felise
Liddle
Marsters
McIntyre
Dylan Smith

Those are players just between 2015-18.
 
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GNR4LIFE said:
I didn’t interpret that it that way at all. The club should be doing everything possible to invest in the best juniors. Us as supporters though should be taking all of them with a grain of salt. How many juniors have lived up to expectations over the years? Tedesco? Woods (in his early days)? There aren’t many more that have lived up to the hype. Look at the players that have been talked up (to varying degrees) that have fallen by the wayside

Lovett
Mikaele
Hoeter
Santi
Cherrington
Liolevave
Graham
Felise
Liddle
Marsters
McIntyre
Dylan Smith

Those are players just between 2015-18.
Click to expand...
In all seriousness none of the players in that list ever had massive expectation.
They were mainly considered good standard young players who could develop into NRL players, but none were considered to be prodigy’s who could become NRL rep standard superstars.
There is a few on our current list of emerging players that are considered potential NRL superstars, not just your standard run of the mill type players.
 
GNR4LIFE said:
I didn’t interpret that it that way at all. The club should be doing everything possible to invest in the best juniors. Us as supporters though should be taking all of them with a grain of salt. How many juniors have lived up to expectations over the years? Tedesco? Woods (in his early days)? There aren’t many more that have lived up to the hype. Look at the players that have been talked up (to varying degrees) that have fallen by the wayside

Lovett
Mikaele
Hoeter
Santi
Cherrington
Liolevave
Graham
Felise
Liddle
Marsters
McIntyre
Dylan Smith

Those are players just between 2015-18.
Click to expand...
While I agree with your original point to let the kids prove themselves before placing massive expectations on kids, none of those players were had the same junior pedigree and didn't have the same expectation. Maybe Liddle is the outlier as he also dominated as a junior.

The likes of Large, Fainu, and Galvin should come with the same level of expectation as Brooks, Moses, Tedesco, Woods, Fifita.

A couple lived up to the hype, some didn't.
 
GNR4LIFE said:
Easy to say that now. This kid is 16. Give him a chance to prove himself.
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Yes we all should be realistic enough to know plenty of highly talented 16 year olds have fallen off a cliff and never reached their potential.
The point myself and many others are making is Onitoni appears to have attributes that not many others possess such as his elite speed and balance when running the ball, an athletic physique with a high level of skill, a good kicking game and strong defence.
Although it’s a big gap between Harold Matthews (u17’s) and NRL, there is every reason to believe he is physically developed enough and has the right attributes to be a solid chance of making the jump very quickly,
 
GNR4LIFE said:
I didn’t interpret that it that way at all. The club should be doing everything possible to invest in the best juniors. Us as supporters though should be taking all of them with a grain of salt. How many juniors have lived up to expectations over the years? Tedesco? Woods (in his early days)? There aren’t many more that have lived up to the hype. Look at the players that have been talked up (to varying degrees) that have fallen by the wayside

Lovett
Mikaele
Hoeter
Santi
Cherrington
Liolevave
Graham
Felise
Liddle
Marsters
McIntyre
Dylan Smith

Those are players just between 2015-18.
Click to expand...
Some of these players were some young promising players, some not even, but Aussie schoolboys or junior Kiwis is a good junior level to recruit at.

Still most of those players were unknown to anyone outside the Tigers. We potentially have several generational talents in the current golden generation. Some of them won't kick on to become stars sure. Some may even struggle in first grade. But hopefully a few of them do go on to become superstars.
 
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balmain boy said:
But again, the only players we've ever had with anywhere near the same level hype as him are Benji, brooks, Moses and Teddy. Even then he's higher rated than they were.
And we haven't had any really promising juniors since the big 4. The first wave have only just started becoming part of the system, Galvin, laulilii, miller, Fainu etc
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Blake Lazarus... Dene Caldwell
 
balmain boy said:
Two absolute nobodies, who had no or very limited reputation in league circles outside of WT.
You can't compare players like this with the players we currently have in our system.
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I hope they go well. I really do.

You can see they are a cut above the rest of their peers in their grade. There is objective proof of that.

What happens after remains to be seen. I look forward to the day when an objective opinion can be formed based on NRL performances.
 
balmain boy said:
Two absolute nobodies, who had no or very limited reputation in league circles outside of WT.
You can't compare players like this with the players we currently have in our system.
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You're talking about the same hype that benji had... Those two had it.. But couldn't convert.

I doubt anybody really gives a shit about the young blokes of today with the exception of Galvin who's copped a few.mentions.in the.media...much like Lazarus did

It's OK to be incorrect sometimes just say 'yeah, you're right'
 
innsaneink said:
You're talking about the same hype that benji had... Those two had it.. But couldn't convert.

I doubt anybody really gives a shit about the young blokes of today with the exception of Galvin who's copped a few.mentions.in the.media...much like Lazarus did

It's OK to be incorrect sometimes just say 'yeah, you're right'
Click to expand...
Galvin has received a few mentions in the media because his very well connected avoricious self interested manager sees his own pathway to his highest commission being potentially blocked by Luai
If hes good enuff,theres room for Galvin on very good $$ at WTs somewhere
 
I think what we need to remember is that there’s lots of talented players out there - yes, talent id is important but what’s the most important thing is the development environment. Penrith have showed this, and the tigers have to potential to copy it.

Gavin, large, da Silva etc are all good talents, but without the right development they won’t be regular first graders.
 
GNR4LIFE said:
I didn’t interpret that it that way at all. The club should be doing everything possible to invest in the best juniors. Us as supporters though should be taking all of them with a grain of salt. How many juniors have lived up to expectations over the years? Tedesco? Woods (in his early days)? There aren’t many more that have lived up to the hype. Look at the players that have been talked up (to varying degrees) that have fallen by the wayside

Lovett
Mikaele
Hoeter
Santi
Cherrington
Liolevave
Graham
Felise
Liddle
Marsters
McIntyre
Dylan Smith

Those are players just between 2015-18.
Click to expand...
How dare you leave out the great Nathan Milone, even if the timeframe does not match
 
Bigscreentv said:
I think what we need to remember is that there’s lots of talented players out there - yes, talent id is important but what’s the most important thing is the development environment. Penrith have showed this, and the tigers have to potential to copy it.

Gavin, large, da Silva etc are all good talents, but without the right development they won’t be regular first graders.
Click to expand...
Totally agreed but also look at what we have done.

Hired Junior talent consistently.
Often had 1 senior player among a group of Juniors. I.e.
J Tamou among a very young forward pack.
Corey Thompson among a very raw backline. (and I struggle to think of other experienced backs we have hired recently. Naden is probably the closest.).

I have to ask, why did Penrith make that development environment work? We literally hired Tamou across to mentor the forward pack and here it just floundered. If you argue Tamou did not live up to his performance, then why did it work at Penrith?


I think our attitude is totally wrong. We have thrown far too heavy expectations at:

Marshall as a Coach. The board should have a really good 1:1 relationship with him and that if he doesn't perform this time around, can go to Britain and coach there for a few years and come back.

Too many players are expected to "be the pack" or "be the half". Heck we threw NR1 at a Basketball player this year and Miraciously it worked!

Our players aren't solid and hence players can't learn the game while the people next to them are learning the game. Melbourne did great with Munster, as they had the team support him learning the game and insulated him a fair bit. We won't develop Galvin or Large unless we can get people who are developed for them to play with.

We need First graders not fringe graders or "Next Big things"
 
crazycat said:
Totally agreed but also look at what we have done.

Hired Junior talent consistently.
Often had 1 senior player among a group of Juniors. I.e.
J Tamou among a very young forward pack.
Corey Thompson among a very raw backline. (and I struggle to think of other experienced backs we have hired recently. Naden is probably the closest.).

I have to ask, why did Penrith make that development environment work? We literally hired Tamou across to mentor the forward pack and here it just floundered. If you argue Tamou did not live up to his performance, then why did it work at Penrith?


I think our attitude is totally wrong. We have thrown far too heavy expectations at:

Marshall as a Coach. The board should have a really good 1:1 relationship with him and that if he doesn't perform this time around, can go to Britain and coach there for a few years and come back.

Too many players are expected to "be the pack" or "be the half". Heck we threw NR1 at a Basketball player this year and Miraciously it worked!

Our players aren't solid and hence players can't learn the game while the people next to them are learning the game. Melbourne did great with Munster, as they had the team support him learning the game and insulated him a fair bit. We won't develop Galvin or Large unless we can get people who are developed for them to play with.

We need First graders not fringe graders or "Next Big things"
Click to expand...
It’s not just about senior players, it’s about administration, having a clear direction / plan that they don’t change when the wind changes or pressure builds, they need consistency and continuity.

They also need an environment that encourages players to continually improve. The coaches. And make the decisions on the field for the players, so some of the onus needs to be on the player to develop. It’s tough to explain, but essentially you need to create an environment that players love coming to and working hard at, without making it burden for them - make it not seem like a job, which can happen with professional players. You drive them, without driving them.
The reason it didn’t work with Madge was because the environment was wrong.
 
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