Juniors - Pathways General Discussion

BlackWhiteGold said:
A positive out of the pathways looking forward is we should have a very strong Wests Magpies team in SG Ball next year as a number of our squad were bottom-agers this year (i.e. turning 18 this year) plus will be topped up by our better performers in our GF Laurie Daley Cup team.

Turning 18 this year - Taupau-Moors, Godinet, Makasini, Ta'ai, Glassie, Karnib, Ransom & Cosgrave.

And hopefully Alex Isdale returns from the Sharks to add to our halves depth.
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True, but I reckon they will lose Makasini and Taupau-Moors to Flegg or higher by that time.
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
A positive out of the pathways looking forward is we should have a very strong Wests Magpies team in SG Ball next year as a number of our squad were bottom-agers this year (i.e. turning 18 this year) plus will be topped up by our better performers in our GF Laurie Daley Cup team.

Turning 18 this year - Taupau-Moors, Godinet, Makasini, Ta'ai, Glassie, Karnib, Ransom & Cosgrave.

And hopefully Alex Isdale returns from the Sharks to add to our halves depth.
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The MWT is proving dividends as a step stone for talent to get more time in their age division and additional depth for the junior reps. Do we have an Inner West equivalent for the Balmain Junior reps?
 
Weekend results and standings after the final rounds:

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Lisa Fiaola
Playing week 1 of finals after finishing 5th for the regular season. They play the Raiders @ Leichhardt on Saturday @ 2.30pm.

Tarsha Gale
Playing week 1 of finals after finishing 3rd for the regular season. They play the Bulldogs @ Leichhardt on Saturday @ 1.00pm.

Harrold Mathews
Wests had a poor campaign with just the 3 wins from 8 games. The losing streak of 5 in a row sunk what was a promising start. They played the GF last year and only managed 11th place in 2025. Lots of work to do for the coaching saff ahead of 2026. The Andrew Johns Cup boys had a pretty good season, so maybe some prospects in there.
Balmain had a better season than 2024 where they were winless spooners, however 2 wins from 8 starts is still very poor and they came 16th as a result. Not a spoon, but still a hell of a lot of work required to become competitive.

SG Ball
Wests had a poor campaign, returning a worse result than in 2024 where they came 8th. Their 11th place finish in 25 included 4 wins from 8 games, which after the start they had, showed a bit of fight but too little too late.
Balmain were useless in 24 copping a winless spoon as per the Harrold Mathews team. In 25 they showed marked improvement and a lot of fight, winning 5 from 8 to just miss the finals in 9th spot. Plenty to work on, but plenty to work with for 26.

Good luck to the girls this Saturday, flying the flag for the club as the finals commence!
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
A positive out of the pathways looking forward is we should have a very strong Wests Magpies team in SG Ball next year as a number of our squad were bottom-agers this year (i.e. turning 18 this year) plus will be topped up by our better performers in our GF Laurie Daley Cup team.

Turning 18 this year - Taupau-Moors, Godinet, Makasini, Ta'ai, Glassie, Karnib, Ransom & Cosgrave.

And hopefully Alex Isdale returns from the Sharks to add to our halves depth.
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If godinet, TM or makasini play more then a couple of SG Ball matches as a warm up to the Flegg season then they've really fallen away
 
After another afternoon of losses in our upper pathways (Cup & Flegg), something has to give sooner or later in our club.

We can't just keep doing the same thing week after week and expect a different result. I watch most lower grade games in the hope something will click one week and that will be the turning point.

It would be great to do a deep dive into this but unless we have access under the hood to see how our coaching & pathways are structured and compare to more successful clubs like the Bulldogs & Panthers, it's hard to offer an objective analysis.

What I will say is I feel our performances are not reflective of the ability of our players. Through the grades we don't seem to maximise our players strengths so I'm getting very close to conceding our whole coaching & player development blueprint through our grades is just not adequate.

Surely Richo sees this! I personally think we need an experienced Head Of Football (a separate role to the one Betsey is doing) who implements the coaching, style, defence/tackling focus, development through the grades ... someone with the experience & nous to do this from external to our club.

That is about as diplomatic as I can say it although I know @balmain boy will put it more bluntly.
 
BlackWhiteGold said:
After another afternoon of losses in our upper pathways (Cup & Flegg), something has to give sooner or later in our club.

We can't just keep doing the same thing week after week and expect a different result. I watch most lower grade games in the hope something will click one week and that will be the turning point.

It would be great to do a deep dive into this but unless we have access under the hood to see how our coaching & pathways are structured and compare to more successful clubs like the Bulldogs & Panthers, it's hard to offer an objective analysis.

What I will say is I feel our performances are not reflective of the ability of our players. Through the grades we don't seem to maximise our players strengths so I'm getting very close to conceding our whole coaching & player development blueprint through our grades is just not adequate.

Surely Richo sees this! I personally think we need an experienced Head Of Football (a separate role to the one Betsey is doing) who implements the coaching, style, defence/tackling focus, development through the grades ... someone with the experience & nous to do this from external to our club.

That is about as diplomatic as I can say it although I know @balmain boy will put it more bluntly.
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I haven't watched any of this weekend's games and probably won't catch any of the next couple of months as I've got a lot going on and am heading overseas for a bit.

But yes, something's is wrong. Players don't improve. Are we overestimating our juniors and signing players with limited potential? Are we recruiting promising players but unable to unlock the talent here? Are our training methods of a high enough standard? Do our coaches have the skillset to get the best out of our players.

As is known, i often feel we're constantly searching for the diamond in the rough, looking for a player without the standard attributes for a position in the NRL rather than playing the odds. We need to recruit more athletes in lower grades and teach them the game. Where are our exciting players to watch? Every team needs a few.

While results aren't the bee all and end all, we want to create a culture of success, development and teamwork. While also bringing along a few elite talents as the cherry on top. Richo must see the flaws in our setup, and hopefully has a plan in mind
 
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BlackWhiteGold said:
After another afternoon of losses in our upper pathways (Cup & Flegg), something has to give sooner or later in our club.

We can't just keep doing the same thing week after week and expect a different result. I watch most lower grade games in the hope something will click one week and that will be the turning point.

It would be great to do a deep dive into this but unless we have access under the hood to see how our coaching & pathways are structured and compare to more successful clubs like the Bulldogs & Panthers, it's hard to offer an objective analysis.

What I will say is I feel our performances are not reflective of the ability of our players. Through the grades we don't seem to maximise our players strengths so I'm getting very close to conceding our whole coaching & player development blueprint through our grades is just not adequate.

Surely Richo sees this! I personally think we need an experienced Head Of Football (a separate role to the one Betsey is doing) who implements the coaching, style, defence/tackling focus, development through the grades ... someone with the experience & nous to do this from external to our club.

That is about as diplomatic as I can say it although I know @balmain boy will put it more bluntly.
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💯 spot on BlackWhiteGold.
The body language of our better Flegg players is not good and the overall lack of structure and lack of quality in our attack is extremely poor in both grades.
The tries we score are generally individual brilliance or luck, very few are from good structured play or good line running leading to line breaks etc,
I’m fairly confident you would know a lot more about the strengths and weaknesses of our lower grades than what Betsey would.
That being said Benji should know a lot about it also, but I get the feeling he takes very minimal interest in the lower grades.
 
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Vicious said:
💯 spot on BlackWhiteGold.
The body language of our better Flegg players is not good and the overall lack of structure and lack of quality in our attack is extremely poor in both grades.
The tries we score are generally individual brilliance or luck, very few are from good structured play or good line running leading to line breaks etc,
I’m fairly confident you would know a lot more about the strengths and weaknesses of our lower grades than what Betsey would.
That being said Benji should know a lot about it also, but I get the feeling he takes very minimal interest in the lower grades.
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I've never seen anyone from WT at junior rep matches, flegg or cup. No Benji, Richo, even Betsey haven't seen him. They could be hiding anonymous somewhere but why bother?

Again a sign that something is wrong . How is the club monitoring our players' development and scouting the rest of the comp?
 
Christian Taupau-Moors playing for Patrician Brothers Blacktown against Matraville in the Peter Mulholland Cup today.

Thomas Goodfield, Aidan Richards, Tyson Walker, Curtis Lakeman, Lorima Cosgrave, Brock Achurch, Ryan Mackander, Ashton Chan-Sau, Ruben Toga & Jake Gaffney in the St Gregorys team against Westfields (no team list yet).
 
Looks like the following Balmain & Wests players have made the City & Country junior rep squads for 2025 ...

City U16 - Thomas Aroyan (Balmain - fullback), Zephaniah Finau (Wests - prop)
Country U16 - Sonny Mills (Macarthur WT - backrow), Ashton Dewanto (MWT - hooker), Sebastian Taylor (MWT - wing), Noah Vaotangi (MWT - prop)
City U18 - Pheonix Godinet (Wests - backrow), Heamasi Maksini (Wests - centre), Christian Taupau-Moors (Wests - prop)
Country U18 - Glassie Glassie (Macarthur WT - centre), Tomasi Tavui (MWT - 18), Leviticus Tovia (MWT - 18)

Selection predominantly for those turning 16 & 18yo this year.
 
Hope you are right. We missing the brotherhood. We seem to have sold ourselves to evil. Money. Greed. Religion. Gould. I mean. Gold. Algorithm will choose my words. Like it knows what I think.
 
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