OFFICIAL Harold Matthews Cup

Rock Hopper Steve said:
With the junior catchment so large now what effect happens if you cut the teams in half though, do they get disgruntled and look for other opportunities?
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No.
Those that make the teams make them and those that dont can recieve some sort of accademy tuition to bring them up to speed. Ime sure there are also kids vying for HM or SG Ball honours who are young enough to play Andrew Johns or Laurie Daley should they qualify age wise. Im not sure there'd be too many who miss out completely and if there is, they still have schoolboys comps and local comps to play in and improve.
We cant be consistently competitive at NRL level if we arent at Jersey Flegg and KOE Cup levels and they are fed from these junior competitions.
The quality always rises.
 
batboy said:
How many of their kids are in the top 30, Or Eligible?
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Luke Laulili'i was the fullback and captain of this side in Harold Matts in 2023. we're missing him pretty badly right now. there's no one else that's eligible.

the biggest issue is that Alex Isdale, Onitoni Large, and Cooper Black have gone to other clubs because of the logjam in the higher grades. that was our first choice pairing and first drop two years ago.

Junior Fagalele and Sam Lynch were recruited externally and have both gotten a game at 6. from what I've seen they don't have the skillset required. Edwards-Moeke, the halfback, kicks well but doesn't have much else in attack. defensively he's a traffic cone. Ty Bursill's been a great find at 9 but he's still learning his trade. he can't do it all on his own.

two weeks have passed and we've failed to bring our biggest weapon (Makasini) onto the ball correctly, which speaks to the issues we're having. they look rudderless in the red zone. if you have a look at the tries scored this week, one was off some nice second phase and a beautiful pass from Godinet, the other was from the opposition ballwatching.
 
Tucker said:
No.
Those that make the teams make them and those that dont can recieve some sort of accademy tuition to bring them up to speed. Ime sure there are also kids vying for HM or SG Ball honours who are young enough to play Andrew Johns or Laurie Daley should they qualify age wise. Im not sure there'd be too many who miss out completely and if there is, they still have schoolboys comps and local comps to play in and improve.
We cant be consistently competitive at NRL level if we arent at Jersey Flegg and KOE Cup levels and they are fed from these junior competitions.
The quality always rises.
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For those concerned about geographical location to not inconvenience either our Wests or Balmain junior base, I would propose a training split between a Wests base in either Campbelltown or possibly Liverpool and the Balmain base which should ideally be at Concord to give our young players some exposure to our COE.
 
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ancient_magpie said:
Balmain boy looking for the negative as usual.
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I was talking about our junior rep sides. Wests SG Ball are a very poor side. Balmain SG Ball have a could of class players but otherwise are small and slow.
Wests Matts side are very strong. Balmain matts aren't overly talented but try hard at least.
Not looking for negatives just reviewing our teams. There's a handful of players with first grade potential, with our junior base we should be doing better. We've lost talent who couldn't see a pathway with us to clubs which equally block their pathway. The state of Wests SG Ball should be a massive concern for the club. We should be aiming to win that comp every season
 
jrtiger said:
Wests SG are directionless. lack the class and poise in the spine required at that level. compare it with Balmain and their spine and you can see the differrence.
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Im not really up on the juniors - are most of the Wests SG playing at the same age or a year behind.
 
Tucker said:
I don’t get the negativity on this…
The u/16’s team won well in yesterday’s opening round.
The u/17’s have an unbeaten side after two rounds
The u/18’s won their opening round game yesterday 38-0
The u/19’s have an unbeaten side after two rounds.

I thoroughly agree with Vicious that we could be table topping all 4 divisions with a United Wests Tigers team in each.
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I agree with what you say but its just the logistics of combining juniors from inner city and outer south west. And then again I live in Port Macquarie and i know of kids who live in the area and are in the Newcastle Jets system and travel to Newcastle 3 times a week for training. So i suppose if you want it bad enough you go for it. The club needs to prioritise a solution to combining the juniors.
 
I doubt Balmain juniors would be allowed to play in the Laurie Daley or Andrew Johns comps as it’s considered a ‘rural’ competition. I’d say wests only qualify because of the group 6 aspect. It’s made clear at trials that players for LD and AJ cups must play in the wests tigers Macarthur competitions while HM and SG Ball trials are open to players from other junior competitions too.
 
Iron Fist said:
How would I know? Maybe Leichhardt Oval was already booked when the draw was drafted. Don't women's soccer play there in summer? There's obviously a reason, and they needed to find an alternative, and it's played at another Wests Tigers venue. The Balmain teams will play their remaining home games at Leichhardt Oval.
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Is there a reason why junior rep games cannot be played at Concord COE ?
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
Here is my attempt at POY points for last weekend's Harold Matts game after a couple of watches.

Wests
7 - Lakeman
6 - Havea Jr
5 - Gaffney
4 - Ali Jida
3 - Lanyon
2 - Lele
1 - Goodfield

Balmain
5 - Bickhoff
4 - Perkins
3 - Arovan
2 - Mascarenas
1 - Vella

IMO Lakeman, Havea Jr & Gaffney were the standouts in a very good side. Extremely impressed with centre Ali Jida who made some crucial plays who shows good speed & strength as well as his winger Lanyon who has already received plenty of plaudits.

In a well beaten side thought newcomer Harry Bickhoff (lock) was best with his workrate in A & D, link play and try assist, captain Isaac Perkins for his workrate, fullback Arovan showed promising signs in attack and the halves tried all game in trying to organise their team.
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Due to time constraints, I'm not going to be able to watch all junior rep matches on Bar TV through the week so will just focus on SG Ball for POY points.

I did see a fair bit of the Wests Harold Matts game and thought Josh Vella on the wing was outstanding, & Curtis Lakeman has the makings of being high in our club pathways chart for halfback. I'd say he sits 3rd behind Latu Fainu & Marc Tannous from players aged 20 or younger in our pathways for halfback now. Brock Achurch has also had a very good start to the year at dummyhalf.

And boy oh boy this Siotame Havea Jr, would not be surprised if he lands a Development deal next season once we clear spots. His defence is bone rattling, always leading the boys around, effort after effort and ball skills very good. Made some handling errors on Saturday but his effort & defence more than made it for it.

And this Ali Jida at centre, fantastic start to the season! Don't know much on his background but what a find he's turning out to be.
 
4 all at half time Wests and Souths. Wests have had some bad calls against them. 2 tries disallowed. 1 was a beautiful pass called forward. Then a dubious penalty late in the count against Wests and Souths scored next set. Hopefully get some luck in the 2nd half!
 
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