Building a premiership team in a draft-free league

[jirskyr]

It is fortunate the Camroux case did come to his attention that quickly. A good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard. A good wake up call to the club.

One single event it not an indication - you can't have a trend with one.

There must be hundreds of junior kids going around in every grade, and undoubtedly fielding phone calls from other clubs all the time. The good side of this story is that Knights phoned Tigers up to be clear on their interest, which is a highly professional and commendable thing to have done. And then obviously the family history, they spoke to the Tigers and expressed their desire to remain at the club.

But if you haven't identified the star of Balmain's SG Ball side as a potential player of the future and chatted to him about our plans for him over the coming years then that's an extremely amateur and naive way to handle or juniors!

It's not Zane has come from nowhere, he was the captain of one of our feeder clubs!

If his dad wasn't a Balmain stalwart we would have lost him, without even offering him a contract. This is simply not good enough. Great that Hartigan is in and can stop the rot with our juniors. Hopefully he can help the Magpies both recruit and retain the top juniors from the south-west because currently the magpies simply don't get ANY of the top local juniors which is embarrassing.

I refuse to believe that nobody at Tigers ever spoke to Zane or earmarked him as a player of the future, just because Adam Hartigan says some other clubs came sniffing around. I am not aware of any evidence that says Zane was overlooked or ignored. Even to the point where he was selected as a representative of the new Wests Tigers pathways branding media event - how would this be possible if Tigers almost overlooked him a year or so earlier?

If it is in fact the case, if nobody at Tigers had him down in the books or nobody ever had a conversation with him or his family, then yes, that's horrible junior management. But is there anything apart from these non-specific comments from Hartigan? Hartigan does not say they ignored or overlooked the kid, he just says something to the effect that they hadn't locked him down yet.

 

[jirskyr]

It is fortunate the Camroux case did come to his attention that quickly. A good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard. A good wake up call to the club.

One single event it not an indication - you can't have a trend with one.

There must be hundreds of junior kids going around in every grade, and undoubtedly fielding phone calls from other clubs all the time. The good side of this story is that Knights phoned Tigers up to be clear on their interest, which is a highly professional and commendable thing to have done. And then obviously the family history, they spoke to the Tigers and expressed their desire to remain at the club.

But if you haven't identified the star of Balmain's SG Ball side as a potential player of the future and chatted to him about our plans for him over the coming years then that's an extremely amateur and naive way to handle or juniors!

It's not Zane has come from nowhere, he was the captain of one of our feeder clubs!

If his dad wasn't a Balmain stalwart we would have lost him, without even offering him a contract. This is simply not good enough. Great that Hartigan is in and can stop the rot with our juniors. Hopefully he can help the Magpies both recruit and retain the top juniors from the south-west because currently the magpies simply don't get ANY of the top local juniors which is embarrassing.

Spot on BB. A club's success is defined by its identification and retention of its best juniors. To date, ours has been poor. It is simply not good enough to hope the loyalty of the family is enough to keep them at WTs. I wrote that there appears to be a massive disconnect between Balmain and WTs insofar as the identification and retention of talent. This needs to change right now.

I want to investigate this more - where is the disconnect? Are there loads and loads of Balmain kids being "missed" by the Tigers, overlooked? You reckon WT isn't aware who is running around in Balmain juniors?

Literally, are you just going off a handful of articles or do you actually know better, do you actually have inside information? If so, please share.

But if your proof is solely horse trade; if you are going to list the names of a handful of junior players who ended up at other clubs, then I'll stop you right there and spare you the wasted time of doing that. Don't say Ryan Papenhuyzen is proof!!!

 

[balmain boy]

It is fortunate the Camroux case did come to his attention that quickly. A good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard. A good wake up call to the club.

One single event it not an indication - you can't have a trend with one.

There must be hundreds of junior kids going around in every grade, and undoubtedly fielding phone calls from other clubs all the time. The good side of this story is that Knights phoned Tigers up to be clear on their interest, which is a highly professional and commendable thing to have done. And then obviously the family history, they spoke to the Tigers and expressed their desire to remain at the club.

But if you haven't identified the star of Balmain's SG Ball side as a potential player of the future and chatted to him about our plans for him over the coming years then that's an extremely amateur and naive way to handle or juniors!

It's not Zane has come from nowhere, he was the captain of one of our feeder clubs!

If his dad wasn't a Balmain stalwart we would have lost him, without even offering him a contract. This is simply not good enough. Great that Hartigan is in and can stop the rot with our juniors. Hopefully he can help the Magpies both recruit and retain the top juniors from the south-west because currently the magpies simply don't get ANY of the top local juniors which is embarrassing.

I refuse to believe that nobody at Tigers ever spoke to Zane or earmarked him as a player of the future, just because Adam Hartigan says some other clubs came sniffing around. I am not aware of any evidence that says Zane was overlooked or ignored. Even to the point where he was selected as a representative of the new Wests Tigers pathways branding media event - how would this be possible if Tigers almost overlooked him a year or so earlier?

If it is in fact the case, if nobody at Tigers had him down in the books or nobody ever had a conversation with him or his family, then yes, that's horrible junior management. But is there anything apart from these non-specific comments from Hartigan? Hartigan does not say they ignored or overlooked the kid, he just says something to the effect that they hadn't locked him down yet.

Obviously none of us know the exact inner workings of the recruitment side of things with juniors at WT and Balmain/Wests.

Hartigan's quote of the Camroux's "they didn’t want to leave the club - but other clubs had shown interest and for whatever reason we had been slow to act" cleary shows that other clubs had made an offer to Zane, but his parents had to come into our office, explain they didn't want him to move (but would if no offer was forthcoming). If we had already offered him a contract and had the chat about his future they wouldn't have needed to come in and say that. His family got the ball rolling for him re-signing with us, not WT!

Whether this was due to Hartigan being about to join and therefore there was a void in the office for a while until he arrived and Zane slipped through the cracks, who knows.

We need to be better.

 

[pawsandclaws1]

It is fortunate the Camroux case did come to his attention that quickly. A good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard. A good wake up call to the club.

One single event it not an indication - you can't have a trend with one.

There must be hundreds of junior kids going around in every grade, and undoubtedly fielding phone calls from other clubs all the time. The good side of this story is that Knights phoned Tigers up to be clear on their interest, which is a highly professional and commendable thing to have done. And then obviously the family history, they spoke to the Tigers and expressed their desire to remain at the club.

But if you haven't identified the star of Balmain's SG Ball side as a potential player of the future and chatted to him about our plans for him over the coming years then that's an extremely amateur and naive way to handle or juniors!

It's not Zane has come from nowhere, he was the captain of one of our feeder clubs!

If his dad wasn't a Balmain stalwart we would have lost him, without even offering him a contract. This is simply not good enough. Great that Hartigan is in and can stop the rot with our juniors. Hopefully he can help the Magpies both recruit and retain the top juniors from the south-west because currently the magpies simply don't get ANY of the top local juniors which is embarrassing.

Spot on BB. A club's success is defined by its identification and retention of its best juniors. To date, ours has been poor. It is simply not good enough to hope the loyalty of the family is enough to keep them at WTs. I wrote that there appears to be a massive disconnect between Balmain and WTs insofar as the identification and retention of talent. This needs to change right now.

I want to investigate this more - where is the disconnect? Are there loads and loads of Balmain kids being "missed" by the Tigers, overlooked? You reckon WT isn't aware who is running around in Balmain juniors?

Literally, are you just going off a handful of articles or do you actually know better, do you actually have inside information? If so, please share.

But if your proof is solely horse trade; if you are going to list the names of a handful of junior players who ended up at other clubs, then I'll stop you right there and spare you the wasted time of doing that. Don't say Ryan Papenhuyzen is proof!!!

If you want to investigate it more take it up with the club.

Hartigan's comment that it is an important case to learn about how we operate and how this scenario happened is illuminating. To me a suggestion Houston we have a problem. The fact his parents initiated discussions is further proof. Whether you choose to believe this is a matter for you.

Do our results and the quality of our NRL team reflect the size of our junior district? I think not but run a poll to canvas views.

 

[jirskyr]

One comment, you both go off one comment in an isolated context.

 

[jirskyr]

Do our results and the quality of our NRL team reflect the size of our junior district? I think not but run a poll to canvas views.

Illogical! The two most successful clubs of the past decade have the League's smallest junior districts.

 

[Telltails]

It is fortunate the Camroux case did come to his attention that quickly. A good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard. A good wake up call to the club.

One single event it not an indication - you can't have a trend with one.

There must be hundreds of junior kids going around in every grade, and undoubtedly fielding phone calls from other clubs all the time. The good side of this story is that Knights phoned Tigers up to be clear on their interest, which is a highly professional and commendable thing to have done. And then obviously the family history, they spoke to the Tigers and expressed their desire to remain at the club.

But if you haven't identified the star of Balmain's SG Ball side as a potential player of the future and chatted to him about our plans for him over the coming years then that's an extremely amateur and naive way to handle or juniors!

It's not Zane has come from nowhere, he was the captain of one of our feeder clubs!

If his dad wasn't a Balmain stalwart we would have lost him, without even offering him a contract. This is simply not good enough. Great that Hartigan is in and can stop the rot with our juniors. Hopefully he can help the Magpies both recruit and retain the top juniors from the south-west because currently the magpies simply don't get ANY of the top local juniors which is embarrassing.

I refuse to believe that nobody at Tigers ever spoke to Zane or earmarked him as a player of the future, just because Adam Hartigan says some other clubs came sniffing around. I am not aware of any evidence that says Zane was overlooked or ignored. Even to the point where he was selected as a representative of the new Wests Tigers pathways branding media event - how would this be possible if Tigers almost overlooked him a year or so earlier?

If it is in fact the case, if nobody at Tigers had him down in the books or nobody ever had a conversation with him or his family, then yes, that's horrible junior management. But is there anything apart from these non-specific comments from Hartigan? Hartigan does not say they ignored or overlooked the kid, he just says something to the effect that they hadn't locked him down yet.

Obviously none of us know the exact inner workings of the recruitment side of things with juniors at WT and Balmain/Wests.

Hartigan's quote of the Camroux's "they didn’t want to leave the club - but other clubs had shown interest and for whatever reason we had been slow to act" cleary shows that other clubs had made an offer to Zane, but his parents had to come into our office, explain they didn't want him to move (but would if no offer was forthcoming). If we had already offered him a contract and had the chat about his future they wouldn't have needed to come in and say that. His family got the ball rolling for him re-signing with us, not WT!

Whether this was due to Hartigan being about to join and therefore there was a void in the office for a while until he arrived and Zane slipped through the cracks, who knows.

We need to be better.

That's exactly what happened. And we could have easily lost them.

 

[pawsandclaws1]

Do our results and the quality of our NRL team reflect the size of our junior district? I think not but run a poll to canvas views.

Illogical! The two most successful clubs of the past decade have the League's smallest junior districts.

But you fail to recognise the better identification/recruitment/retention and development programmes at these clubs.

Do you believe Camroux would have been left waiting for his parents to approach the Storm? I think not.

"Elite kids, under-valued players, buy at the point end when necessary and great coaching," O’Sullivan said when asked to outline the keys to building a successful team.

With our large junior base and adopting the lessons learnt from the successful programmes of the Storm and the Roosters, we should be at their level.

 

[Harvey]

All the identification in the world is not worth a pinch of salt if you are not prepared to outbids rivals to keep a youngster. You should not overpay just because the player is your local junior if there are better juniors with other clubs for a similar price.

In saying that, the identification in the south west is terrible. As alluded to in previous posts, junior rep selections are based on cronyism, nepotism and the club you choose to play for. There is also no loyalty from the juniors in that area as they have seen their peers have more opportunity signing with a different club.

If the club wants to know why, their first point of call should be asking Ryan Hoffman and his family why he made the decisions he did.

 

[jirskyr]

Do you believe Camroux would have been left waiting for his parents to approach the Storm? I think not.

I'm not going to start trying to second guess the recruitment ins and outs of junior footballers when I don't have the facts.

That's the whole point I'm making. You are criticising people without the facts, just bits and pieces from the odd article here or there.

Who said Camroux was left waiting? All the article says is 2 other clubs came sniffing around and we hadn't locked the kid in yet for a longer term. Says nothing about where he was in the pecking order, whether or not they planned to offer him a deal, whether they had spoken to him or his parents before etc.

I, again, refuse to believe that nobody at Tigers was having conversations with Camroux about his future when he's running around captaining junior rep sides and his Dad used to be an old Balmain player.

Can Tigers do better? I am sure they can. In what manner can they do better? No idea, I don't have access to the detail. As far as I can tell, past few seasons, junior recruitment has been pretty good, some really good young kids on the books.

Is Hartigan the messiah and do I take him at his word, as representative of the real situation with junior recruitment? No idea, don't know the bloke and he's been here 5 minutes.

 

[pawsandclaws1]

Do you believe Camroux would have been left waiting for his parents to approach the Storm? I think not.

I'm not going to start trying to second guess the recruitment ins and outs of junior footballers when I don't have the facts.

That's the whole point I'm making. You are criticising people without the facts, just bits and pieces from the odd article here or there.

Who said Camroux was left waiting? All the article says is 2 other clubs came sniffing around and we hadn't locked the kid in yet for a longer term. Says nothing about where he was in the pecking order, whether or not they planned to offer him a deal, whether they had spoken to him or his parents before etc.

I, again, refuse to believe that nobody at Tigers was having conversations with Camroux about his future when he's running around captaining junior rep sides and his Dad used to be an old Balmain player.

Can Tigers do better? I am sure they can. In what manner can they do better? No idea, I don't have access to the detail. As far as I can tell, past few seasons, junior recruitment has been pretty good, some really good young kids on the books.

Is Hartigan the messiah and do I take him at his word, as representative of the real situation with junior recruitment? No idea, don't know the bloke and he's been here 5 minutes.

"The Camrouxs are no different, dad played for the club, coached at the club. Mum and dad came in and we had a chat and their point of view was very strong - they didn’t want to leave the club - but other clubs had shown interest and f****or whatever reason we had been slow to act.****

Pretty clear to most. Why are you still arguing?

 

[jirskyr]

Pretty clear to most. Why are you still arguing?

Why am I arguing?

1) You take this specific example and are extrapolating it to all-Tigers junior recruitment performance. Your comments weren't simply about Camroux, your comments were about Tigers recruitment and how we have to do better in general. I quote you: "a good indication that junior identification and retention even a year after Maguire commenced was not up to standard".

2) Hartigan, one man, says "whatever reason we were slow to act". Slow in what manner? Slow to speak to him, slow to sign him, slow to identify him, slow to speak to his parents, slow to make an offer? Slow to speak to his manager? Hartigan doesn't even / can't even identify the reason.

I put it again, all Hartigan confirms is we did not have the kid signed up long term when other clubs came around calling. But that doesn't mean anyone failed at their job - they may have been waiting intentionally. They may not have wanted to over-commit to Camroux. They may not have made their minds up. The coach may not have made a decision or they may have been waiting on some other recruitment outcome before they committed to Camroux. Maybe Hartigan himself came in and decided to escalate on Camroux, because he personally thought there was more potential there. It may simply be a matter of opinion.

You take one comment in one article and expand that to be representative of junior recruitment failures. It's lazy, it lacks detail, it lacks data and does not display any actual grasp of what is going on behind the scenes.

If you had instead personal knowledge of regular and consistent failures in junior development, that's something else entirely. If you can see multiple kids in multiple positions not being signed up and said players being poached or almost poached by other clubs, then fine, that's a strong position.

But Zane Camroux is it, in an off-handed comment from The New Guy. Zane Camroux may end up being a footnote in future conversations and may disappear in the manner of Blake Lazarus.

 

[Harvey]

Can we come back to this thread in 8 years when he has won 2 premierships, played a dozen origin games and is being offered $1m by half a dozen clubs?

Until then he is just another kid that has showed some potential, lets not hammer the club for not matching other desperate offers.

 

[pawsandclaws1]

Can we come back to this thread in 8 years when he has won 2 premierships, played a dozen origin games and is being offered $1m by half a dozen clubs?

Until then he is just another kid that has showed some potential, lets not hammer the club for not matching other desperate offers.

The other clubs wanted to recruit Camroux because he is a good young talent in a position which is always in demand. Hartigan admits we were slow to act. We want our club to do better so we do consistently play finals football. No doubt one of the reasons Hartigan is at the club is to improve the oversight of the juniors and bring with him his experience from the Roosters.

 

[JD Tiger]

Why do we expect Hartigan is good at keeping an eye on our own juniors when he is from the Roosters? Arent they notorious for having no juniors?

All jokes aside, his efficacy is hard to judge, as it will be determined in a few years time.