Fair points.
But we do produce a number of talented players. We have, for whatever reason, had issues retaining them once they hit their prime- but some of that should be attributed to wanting out due to other factors such as money, manager influence, Tigers coaches & their ideas/ideals etc.
It's not wholly due to financial support of the pathways.
And for a few years lately our Flegg & SG Ball sides have been fairly good. This year's Flegg is a pretty strong chance to win it.
Development of players comes down to coaching. I would argue, outside of Tim Sheens (and briefly Cleary) we haven't had coaches renown for junior development. That's not finances. That's poor hiring.
Our Top 30 squad right now has a number of players that either progressed through our junior pathways or were introduced to the club in their development years. I think you could argue that adding players at 17, 18 or even 19 into our systems is still bringing players through our pathway setup.
If you want to storm the castle & wave a fist at our emperor's for failure at the NRL level- fill your boots. But I would argue that being angry about the club's ability/inability to develop players being duly held back by our board of mini-demons isn't their big failing.
Which players have we produced in the last decade that are talented?
Development of players does indeed come down to coaching, but not the NRL coach. They only take the near finished product and try take them to the elite level. It's the coaches and assistant coaches at Matt's, ball, Daley, Johns, flegg and Cup that develop players. They're working with the players in their developmental years where the players are honing their skills. These are the coaches that we simply do not have.
We have had one such coach, Sultana, who almost made the finals with a weak Balmain side and has been doing very well with Flegg for the past 12 months. Imagine if we had another 5-6 coaches like Sultana. We might actually have developed a team of talented players by now.
And your last point is extremely incorrect. The club's complete failure to develop any players is one of, if not the biggest, failure from the board. If we could develop players we'd have more success across all grades. If we had more success and had better players moving up through the grades our first grade side would be more successful, attract more sponsors, more members, more profits etc.
So yes, our lack of success under HBG can be directly linked back to a lack of focus on development. We're not a glamour club that can sign superstars, we have to grow them. But yet we've been actively choosing not to. It's madness. There's no guarantees with juniors, but the more talented juniors you have, the better your chances for success is.