The poaching of players at Penrith is highlighting the most painful truth of this so called sport.
It is time for the players developed through a clubs junior system to have a salary cap benifit ,say, 50% of their contract value added to their salary cap.The longer that player stays at their junior club the lower the deduction of their contract to the salary cap gets down to 15% of their contract value.
There has to be a financial benifit to the football club to develope players. I say good on the Riff.
I know players move clubs for one reason or another but a juniours club has to have the financial means to counter the offers from rival clubs
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Or you could also take funds away from Clubs that' aren't doing a very good job in this area and incentivise all clubs to do this. For example, the club grant each year is 14m I think? You could tie up 2m of that in KPIs for clubs to hit for junior development in order to get the extra 2m. Either way something needs to be done about grassroots rugby league
The carrot and stick approach rarely works. Besides, how do you judge success ? And don't say based on how many juniors the club develops, because again, how do you determine if a club has developed a player or not. They may have put millions into developing 1000's of kids but only get a small handful of viable potential NRL players. They may have a targeted youth development system the Storm & Roosters do that wouldn't meet standard volume based criteria. They might recruit a kid at age 17 and say we developed him but the kids former club did all the work.
On top of all that, you can bet that a bunch of clubs, particularly the ones that run on fumes, would find a way to fudge the books to make it looked like they'd spent the money on development but didn't. So then it either becomes a farce or then the NRL has to enforce it which means more bureaucracy which requires more staff at League Central.
I think you all fail to recognise the true situation.
Not every club has the ability to develop juniors. Ie. Storm source their juniors primarily out of QueeRZland - to be completely involved in junior pathways they would need to establish a base inQueeRZland - you cannot develop plyaer by remote control.
Other clubs, Eels and Panthers in particular, do have the nursery areas to bring juniors through and be "hands on" because it is all in their immediate back yard.
OK, so I am putting this down to ORF SEEZUN MALADY & MADNESS, but I find myself agreeing with Brett yet again.
The only viable answer is centrally funded youth development.
This could be a co-operative of all clubs as I cannot imagine the NRL being able to successfully undertake such a task.
I am very well aware of the inequities in NRL club sponsored youth development, which only illustrates the value and importance of a centralised youth development system
I disagree, carrots always work provided they are attainable. I think a number of different KPIs would have different loading. Junior participation would have a heavy loading in my opinion and every club would have to be treated differently. For example if Parramatta were able to have 2000 kids between 6-12 kids play in 2021, up by 100 kids from 2020 that would be a great result. If Melbourne was able to have a Melbourne base competition where 200 kids more kids were playing, than again this is an improved result. This is just an alternative idea to what you have discussed. I just think it's bullshit to say you can't get kids playing in Melbourne because the AFL have done a great job in getting kids to play AFL from Rugby League heartland. They just can't rely on Parra, Penrith and Brisbane areas for ever. There is a whole country out there to work with
I never said you couldn't get kids playing in Melbourne, in fact I have pointed out that participation in Victoria has exploded in the 20 odd years of the Storm's existence.
But that's not the point.
KPI's have to be both definable & unambiguous for them to be effective. It would be far too easy for clubs to fudge their numbers to get that development money. If they can get around the salary cap they could certainly figure a way around your idea.
But to me the underlying principle is that youth development is not part of an NRL club's core business. Winning premierships is their core business, not youth development. That's the core business of junior & pathways clubs.
Poaching of players happens everywhere. Tough luck Penrith, and do not worry Barrett may struggle again. Clubs will always look for juniors anywhere, that is how it goes. As Squiz said Manly have pilfered us, as one of the lower grade coaches from memory works at Pats or somewhere. Smart move by Manly but we do not have the $$$ to cover this.
Parra need a country area to work with like the Panthers....its not difficult.
I get your view Brett, but the NRL struggle to run the NRL properly, and get more involved in politics. Don't start me on them again.
Provide transfer fees (large ones) for clubs who develop these kids from certain ages. This will help go towards compensating them. You have to keep junior systems going, as the NRL would stuff it up, like most other things.
We all seem to forget that managers can stuff up clubs and their cap!
Get rid of the cap fullstop. Allow clubs to sink or swim.
Job Done.
Every business needs a budget, the NRL is no different. It guarantees the players a certain percentage of the game's revenues, and that is how the cap is calculated.
BTW, if there was no cap the Eels would go under within about 3 years, and the Broncos would have the best player at every position, such is its financial advantage.
I think if a club devolps a junior and he leaves the junior club should get a financial reward if the player plays hits benchmark like 100 1st grade games, rep footy then its a little carrot to continue development
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