innsaneink
Well-known member
There's really only been Ryan Hoffman who Sheens is on record often as saying he's one he regrets letting go.... There's a few that ended up at Cabra two blues, very strong junior club and very attractive to the best kids running around... Inu I think and Hayne are two... I'm sure there's moreFirst of all did you just respond to yourself?
Secondly I don't buy into all this "keep all your juniors" stuff. Or at least buy into the idea that clubs are not doing it or are indifferent to their junior bases. Of course clubs with decent junior bases should and will try to develop those regions. It's not as if Tigers don't do it and it's not as if Tigers lose tonnes of Macarthur juniors to other clubs.
I don't believe Penrith did anything magic in development to build a 3-peat team. They had the fortune of having a bunch of top-tier junior talent all come through together, all at once, having played in junior teams together. But what they did do was manage to bond all those players together, keep them going through the system with a clear pathway from juniors to seniors. It's not that they developed more juniors, it's that they were able to keep so many of them in a single and clearly-defined system - something Tigers have been replicating the past few years.
But Penrith also specifically unearthed some generational talent - they don't win the 2023 GF without Cleary.
Penrith also happen to sit on the biggest league base in the country, much bigger participation than Macarthur, so if any club is going to see a wide number of juniors it's them.
So if the argument was simply "teams get good by investing in their juniors and develop their talent" then teams like Roosters would never do well, which is clearly not true. There's a delicate balance with the larger junior bases and the funding is not infinite.
Even look at Tigers - got a good crop coming through Macarthur like Da Silva, Galvin, Miller, Large brothers, Laulli'i bros etc. But some of the most prominent juniors we have we headhunted - Faagutu from QLD and Fainu brothers from Parra juniors via Manly. Josh Feledy is from Manly.
So to me it's pretty clear Tigers have been consistently mining Macarthur for players for many years, but that top-level talent does not always eventuate. Some of that will be the general lack of talent, some will be Tigers inability to coach those kids to the next level. But I can barely think of a Macarthur junior who didn't end up in the Tigers juniors system, even if he was eventually headhunted by another club; I don't think it's so dire and I don't think we needed any part of the independent review to look at juniors (it wasn't part of their remit and it makes sense they didn't issue regional recommendations).
I was going to ask Gal or someone with an ear to the ground re: the juniors at Cambo what's being done different... I like you tend to think the stars have aligned a bit for us much like they did around 02 with the Magpies SG Ball team producing some great players like Fulton Gibbs De gois Collis, Hoffman Ben Roberts and others...
We had a Balmain SG ball team in 2012 I think Brooks. Moses. Nat milone, and a few others names escape me
But the pathways term.has been mentioned a lot and it seems a lot more effort is being put into us being a "development club"
Listening to the recent behind the roar poddy I think featuring kit Laulilli he made mention of how all these young Magpies players now have come thru playing with and against each other... It does seem like another of these special times where we having quite a few good young players coming all at once... Hopefully we get it right with them
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