It's interesting that Gus said last night on 100% Footy that he thinks Bulldogs are 3-4 years behind Tigers in Pathways development. As originally quoted to me by bathursttiger.
I also honestly don't think you need great junior sides across the board, of course though it doesn't hurt, but that having a great SG Ball or Flegg side is only a fraction of the story, if most of those boys don't go on to first grade. In other words the lower grade results are not necessarily an indicator of the quality of candidates coming through that actually will play first grade.
E.g. even within our own juniors, the 2012 and 2013 SG Ball back-to-back premiers, most of them didn't go anywhere near first grade
2012
1 Mason Farrell, 2 Max Dimarco, 3 Leva Li, 4 Nathan Milone, 5 Paul Simona, 6 Mitchell Moses ( C ), 7 Mark Daoud, 8 Leki Taumalolo, 9 Manaia Cherrington, 10 Fosio Tatola, 11 Salesi Funaki (Junior's bro), 12 Daniel Rakvin, 13 Andrew Kazzi, Interchange 14 Jason Vikilani, 15 Rhys Armstrong, 16 Matthew Woods, 17 Lolo Funaki
There's one legitimate career first-grader there
2013
1 Camden SUTTON, 2 Jayden WHEELHOUSE, 3 Tom SATTERTHWAITE, 4 Jaleel SEVE-DERBAS, 5 John TOHI, 6 Rhys ARMSTRONG, 7 Jeremy MARSHALL-KING, 8 Fosio TATOLA (c), 9 Jack WHEELHOUSE, 10 Dwayne LEMAFA, 11 Junior TATOLA, 12 Matthew WOODS (c), 13 Peter TA’AUSO, 14 Pio SOKOBALAVU, 15 Tyler CASSEL, 16 Adam SPICER, 17 Chris MOANA
1 decent first-grade here (Junior Tatola) and a respectable bloke recently eking out a career (JMK)
So let's call it 2.5 career first graders from two premiership junior teams, and both of these teams went on to win the U18s National Championship
I'm not saying you are wrong, I am just noting that Gould himself says Tigers are ahead in pathways development and commented that Bulldogs should have started the same process 6-7 years ago.