Struggling in every grade - what's going on?

[851]

If our Reserve Grade players where actually playing ISP, we would be top of the table?!

As Homer would say, it is funny cause it's true

 

[ALX22]

I would also be interested to hear from anyone involved in junior league, particularly Harold Matthews level and up.

A cursory glance suggests we're way currently way underrepresented compared to other Sydney clubs when it comes to rep teams.

The Balmain HM side will be much stronger next year, but may have lost 3 or so to the Rabbitohs/Roosters.

 

[balmain boy]

We've been a finals team in both grades for a while now and that hasn't really helped us in the long run. We're one of the most successful sides in nyc history. Hasn't impacted club culture at all. Culture starts from the top and works it's way down.
Recruitment was just severely lacking this year. And we've had a lot of injuries on top

 

[snowleopard]

Some years ago and mainly due to salary cap constraints they decided to build a team around 4 juniors. Basically put 13 average footballers around these kids and in time we will be just like Melbourne. In the process we let Austen,TMM,Tapau,Koro,JAC,Farah and Siro all walk so we could have enough cap space to keep the 4.

Well it is history now, three have them have bolted or about to bolt, they were not half as good as we were led to believe they were and now its back to square one with a completely different approach

Exactly what happened in 4 simple lines. Well said!

 

[Winnipeg]

Some years ago and mainly due to salary cap constraints they decided to build a team around 4 juniors. Basically put 13 average footballers around these kids and in time we will be just like Melbourne. In the process we let Austen,TMM,Tapau,Koro,JAC,Farah and Siro all walk so we could have enough cap space to keep the 4.

Well it is history now, three have them have bolted or about to bolt, they were not half as good as we were led to believe they were and now its back to square one with a completely different approach

Exactly what happened in 4 simple lines. Well said!

I think there's a bit of extra pain because the WT have been about building from the juniors for most of our history. It largely worked in 05 and everyone's been hoping it would work again.

And that's always been a plan that appealed to our underdog status, let's face it Balmain and Wests have both been batting for a while.

Then when the next batch of juniors are coming good, they pretty much all flee elsewhere. And we look in the junior cupboard and it's pretty much bare.

So that hurts, but we seem to be going in a new direction now, recruiting proven players. I just worry that the cash we have to pay to entice talent leaves us in a tight spot if any of them get injured or play below par.

 

[supercoach]

Anyway what we have now is a new Coach who actually has cap space and plenty of gaps to fill. We are not over burdened with players we would like to show the door but still have big contracts to fulfil. So things are looking okay although I still think we are from out of the woods yet.

As for the lower grades, back in the old days the top teams were always strong right through the grades, now at is not unusual for the top teams to be weak in the lower grades but still very strong in the NRL. Lower grades are really more a sign of junior strength, teams like Penrith.

Change takes time and the change we are having is worth the wait

 

[andrew 474]

I think one of the reasons we are down in all grades is we have been paying overs for players , our salary cap was just a mess , when you pay for players to go to other teams it must have an impact on your current players , some of these players may be on peanuts and looking at the likes of Farah $ 700 k to not be hear that's a lot of cash , we also paid Sirro to,leave , the Gibbs and Fifita deal , players would look at this and think Tigers offered me $ 300 k I can get $ 350 k from another club so they take it $ 50 k is a nice chunk of money to get , so the ones who are here think similar , I should be on more and it will affect them knowing the amounts of money that should have been spread around is going else where , then the younger guys see what's going on and go else where or just don't take up offers we make , this year will be a major turning point for this club as its a chance to have a full salary cap to use , this year will be all about keeping any quality we have that push on and give there all and also to run the broom through the place , the list of players going to be moved on will be the largest ever I think , so fresh Blood will come in across all grades , if a player wants to stay he will put in , if not you won't get to stay it's that simple , Cleary has a big job to do in keeping our team going and not get belted each game but also to make a hit list of new and a hit list of thanks but see you later

 

[2041]

Our recruitment and retention is crap.

Last year, the club was so focused on keeping Moses/Brooks it didn't look elsewhere. We have been so focused on retaining our juniors it has cost us big time.

This is the first time in a while the club has actually seemed to look externally at non fringe players.

NYC, we had a time where a lot of juniors were coming through and looked impressive, especially the time we won the grand final with Miller, Koroibete, Nofa, Lovett, Sue, Mulcahy, etc.

That hasn't been the case recently, it's a shame.

I think that list of players shows how unimportant it is to have a good U20s team. Don't get me wrong, lots of good players have come through the youth comp. But I must admit I often make the mistake of assuming our crop of supposed superstar young players came from the team that won the U20s, and it simply isn't the case.

From that 2012 grand final side we got some first grade value out of Nofo, Koroibete, Sue and Lovett. Meanwhile the Raiders team we beat has graduated Shannon Boyd and that's about it (honourable mention to Anthony Milford!)

None of which is to be sniffed at - for their first year or two on super cheap contracts you'd be happy to take almost all of those. But there can still be good first-grade players in bad U20s sides. It's hard to find squad lists for old U20s comps but as just one example the Titans, who ran last in U20s the same season, had Kane Elgey at half.

 

[Spartan117]

I dare say the attitude of the club will change moving forward.

We invested in the Big four and paid the price.

Step 1 - Get a decent coach
Step 2 - Get a decent training base / Facilities
Step 3 - Get players that want to play first grade as apposed to expect to play 1st grade

Attitude is everything

 

[earl]

We've been a finals team in both grades for a while now and that hasn't really helped us in the long run. We're one of the most successful sides in nyc history. Hasn't impacted club culture at all. Culture starts from the top and works it's way down.
Recruitment was just severely lacking this year. And we've had a lot of injuries on top

People forget that we've been successful in the lower grades. I also think we've recruited pretty well. Blair was a poor recruit. Richards was a poor recruit on his 2nd time at the club. We've had though had a lot of really good recruits and bought on a lot of players/

Our real problem has been retention. We've lost Austin, Taupau, Koro, JAC, Fifita and more. We lost a lot of those players in order to keep or recruit other players that aren't as good or were always going to move on.

I think it's just some poor decisions in hindsight but 80% of the problem has been overhyping and overpaying the big 4\. We've lost 3 of them and at the moment the only loss I can see is Tedesco who is probably not worth what he is getting paid at the Roosters.

I just hope we learn from this. I also think we can turn this around pretty quickly.

 

[ALX22]

Our recruitment and retention is crap.

Last year, the club was so focused on keeping Moses/Brooks it didn't look elsewhere. We have been so focused on retaining our juniors it has cost us big time.

This is the first time in a while the club has actually seemed to look externally at non fringe players.

NYC, we had a time where a lot of juniors were coming through and looked impressive, especially the time we won the grand final with Miller, Koroibete, Nofa, Lovett, Sue, Mulcahy, etc.

That hasn't been the case recently, it's a shame.

I think that list of players shows how unimportant it is to have a good U20s team. Don't get me wrong, lots of good players have come through the youth comp. But I must admit I often make the mistake of assuming our crop of supposed superstar young players came from the team that won the U20s, and it simply isn't the case.

From that 2012 grand final side we got some first grade value out of Nofo, Koroibete, Sue and Lovett. Meanwhile the Raiders team we beat has graduated Shannon Boyd and that's about it (honourable mention to Anthony Milford!)

None of which is to be sniffed at - for their first year or two on super cheap contracts you'd be happy to take almost all of those. But there can still be good first-grade players in bad U20s sides. It's hard to find squad lists for old U20s comps but as just one example the Titans, who ran last in U20s the same season, had Kane Elgey at half.

Here you go: https://nycdatabase.org/seasons/

 

[2041]

Our recruitment and retention is crap.

Last year, the club was so focused on keeping Moses/Brooks it didn't look elsewhere. We have been so focused on retaining our juniors it has cost us big time.

This is the first time in a while the club has actually seemed to look externally at non fringe players.

NYC, we had a time where a lot of juniors were coming through and looked impressive, especially the time we won the grand final with Miller, Koroibete, Nofa, Lovett, Sue, Mulcahy, etc.

That hasn't been the case recently, it's a shame.

I think that list of players shows how unimportant it is to have a good U20s team. Don't get me wrong, lots of good players have come through the youth comp. But I must admit I often make the mistake of assuming our crop of supposed superstar young players came from the team that won the U20s, and it simply isn't the case.

From that 2012 grand final side we got some first grade value out of Nofo, Koroibete, Sue and Lovett. Meanwhile the Raiders team we beat has graduated Shannon Boyd and that's about it (honourable mention to Anthony Milford!)

None of which is to be sniffed at - for their first year or two on super cheap contracts you'd be happy to take almost all of those. But there can still be good first-grade players in bad U20s sides. It's hard to find squad lists for old U20s comps but as just one example the Titans, who ran last in U20s the same season, had Kane Elgey at half.

Here you go: https://nycdatabase.org/seasons/

There you go. In the 2012 season that the Tigers won the comp the Cowboys came 13th. The Cowboys team included Kyle Feldt, Chris Grevsmuhl, Felise and Patrick Kaufusi… and Jason Taumaolo.

 

[Tap_Twist_Snap]

Not one player in either the NSW or QLD 20's is pretty disappointing. I can't remember this ever being the case before. For all the criticism Warren McDonnell copped we always had some young player knocking on the door for first grade. It's pretty hard to just buy a new first grade squad that can compete unless you also have some undervalued junior talent coming through on lower contracts to support them.

As solid as recruitment has been so far we could sign 4 more high quality players and we will still be miles behind the top clubs.

 

[jirskyr]

Not one player in either the NSW or QLD 20's is pretty disappointing. I can't remember this ever being the case before. For all the criticism Warren McDonnell copped we always had some young player knocking on the door for first grade. It's pretty hard to just buy a new first grade squad that can compete unless you also have some undervalued junior talent coming through on lower contracts to support them.

As solid as recruitment has been so far we could sign 4 more high quality players and we will still be miles behind the top clubs.

Haven't lots of people been advocating moving away from over-reliance on juniors, because our strike rate isn't great of recent years?

Just look through that U20s Origin list, pick out the best kids and try to sign them up now. There are clubs like Roosters, they have Nat Butcher tied up I believe but they can't keep the FG side they currently have plus all the kids they get into youth rep sides.

 

[balmain boy]

Not one player in either the NSW or QLD 20's is pretty disappointing. I can't remember this ever being the case before. For all the criticism Warren McDonnell copped we always had some young player knocking on the door for first grade. It's pretty hard to just buy a new first grade squad that can compete unless you also have some undervalued junior talent coming through on lower contracts to support them.

As solid as recruitment has been so far we could sign 4 more high quality players and we will still be miles behind the top clubs.

As has been mentioned, we would have at least one in each side but they're both injured. Unlucky timing.

 

[WTDiehard]

Our salary cap has been a mess for years…paying the majority of Farah's & Siro's salary this year while they are playing for other clubs is just an example of our past problems. ATM we are clean for next year onwards and that possibly explains why we have been so active in the market over the past 4-6 weeks.
We cleaned out the club of the likes Taupau, Austin, TMM and probably another 3-4 quality players to accommodate......
POTENTIAL??? And that has really backfired on us...Woods, Teddy & Moses found out that they really loved the money & opportunities elsewhere more than they did the Tigers, but lets be honest apart from Teddy not one of these players has really really delivered on their potential...even Brooksy who has stayed and I'm glad he did, has not delivered on his potential YET....maybe he will playing behind a decent pack for a change......but lets be honest with Brooks as well - the Tigers offered him more than any other club did. It was a no brainer for him to stay on that basis.......but he has always said he wanted to stay with the Tigers so on that basis I'm more than happy to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway under Cleary we may develop a better culture which will in turn bring better results....because it can't be any worse than what the last 4-5 years have been.

 

[earl]

WTDiehard - I keep stating that the bad decisions were all based on retaining the big 4 who have been overpaid and overrated.

I don't think Brooks tested himself in the market to the degree the other 3 did. They were playing a game with us. I think Brooks wanted to stay.

 

[Tweed_Tiger]

Friday we go bottom of the table as the Knights have a bye, maybe a chance against the Sharks on Saturday as both teams will be missing key players…

 

[Furious1]

Haven't bothered reading all the posts, but without research to back it up, I don't really care if the lower grades are not as strong. The problem has been the strong from lower grades has not transferred to the top grade. Usually if the lower grades have weakened it's because players have transitioned into firsts and most times that translates to strength in the top grade and not so strong in lower grades.
It occurred on JTs watch so I hold him responsible. Things are about to change though. Club has opened up outside the circle for recruitment.

 

[larrycorowa]

Taking 8 reserve graders and using them in first grade wouldn't be helping