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.
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"
