jirskyr
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2009
- Messages
- 13,956
I agree with that. But the fundamental point is most of those Roosters guys, for example, are not from the Roosters junior catchment.I think you’ll find the Roosters have relied on their ‘juniors’ a lot more than it seems. Sure they buy the best to play for them but only if there isn’t a kid within their system capable of doing the job better than a recruit. They may not necessarily be local to the area but Manu, Butcher brothers, Collins, Tupou and the back up forward pack, Wong, White, Baker (Broncos) have all been recruited as young players and brought up in the Roosters system.
Same as we are doing with Feledy, Faagatu, Pole.
Also it’s worth mentioning that the retained core at Penrith i.e the group on the big dollars and longest serving players were all recruited into the club. By chance prehaps? But JFH was picked up from NZ and brought into the Penrith system. Yeo, Edwards and Martin were of the benefit of the Panthers expanding their reach out to Bathurst and the western regions.
And finally the prodigal Cleary only came to Penrith because his Dad was recruited as a coach.
The players that have been offered modest contracts and all left for greener pastures including the soon to be Tiger Luai were all ‘from the area’ a term developed for the local boys that have progressed from the local schools into first grade. This is the important part as it seems that the the local boys are now providing the depth that has become an important part of the panthers remaining competitive despite losing nearly a whole first 17 over the past 3 years.
The best of best get. Identified and developed further by being included into the Penrith panthers JETs program (Junior Elite Training Scheme).
“Panthers established the JETS program in 2013 as a tool to 'fast track' select players with specialist coaching, mentoring and physical development.
The players, aged between 16 and 18, have been identified as standout performers in the club's Harold Matts, SG Ball and development squads.”
Note# Apologies I had to re-edit after reviewing this post as I got some of my points a bit muddled.
Roy Masters, his whole article was about exploiting the Macarthur junior catchment, rather than bringing the best kids into the club's feeder system. I think Tigers are actually going about things in very much the right way, and I think Roy's article is too simple, too outdated with the way modern clubs operate.
I didn't really raise Manly as an argument, but they've done exactly the same thing with the core of their team, using the best local juniors with select talent from other regions, brought in young and through the Manly system to first grade.