I'm not sure whats going on with our junior recruitment, but for mine in the past 20 years our most successful juniors came through when we had Brian Smith and Noel Cleal. I'm not talking about Matthews Cup or SG Ball winning sides full of islanders twice as big as their opponents that cant step up to first grade... this era we developed kids who were genuine first grade, origin and international talent.. many of them from the bush.
Hindmarsh brothers, Jamie Lyon, Andrew Ryan, Ben Smith to name a few complemented with some smart recruitment and some juniors from the local area. What have we been doing in this area the last decade? Someone might be able to help me out.
Penrith have 175 juniors from the central west in the Western Cubs program and are absolutely reaping the benefits of this in first grade at the moment. What is doing? I genuinely don't know if our club has dropped the ball and concentrated on recruiting mainly from our local area and topping up from other squads rejects or what is going on.. but I feel like there is something wrong with our pathway at the moment. We've had VERY minimal first grade talent come through our system and don't really have any young depth we can call upon should injuries, suspensions, form warrant it this season. Who is in charge of this area and what are we doing?
I know the usual suspects will say our juniors have been fine and point to such club greats as Bevan French, Haze Dunster, Ethan Parry and co.. but for mine Dylan Brown is lengths ahead of any younster we've had in the BA era with only Oregon and Mahoney earnign honorable mentions... Mahoney was a Bulldogs reject too. Can't figure it out.
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I don't think we've built too bad . We lack an experienced leader and a decent strike centre . Today exposed more mental than talent deficiencies for me .
Our recruitment and pathways have been rebuilt over the past few years. We have done a good job in recruiting from not just in our own backyard, but also elsewhere.
Dylan Brown and Marata Niukore we grabbed from New Zealand, Reed we nabbed off Cantebury, Ray Stone from the Tigers, David Hollis Wauchope, Wiremu Greig from New Zealand via Townsville.
Our junior pathways are actually doing a great job. In the recent City v Country matches for lower grades, we were the most represented club.
Our juniors though, are at the stage where they are probably a year away from regular NRL ability. Many of them would have been playing Flegg last year and obviously lost that season due to COVID.
It's really been the last three years. In 2018, following the end of season review, our entire pathways system was rebuilt. We take in hundreds of players each year from about 13 years old and up. We not only have the usual SG Ball and Harold Matts, we also have off-season camps of high schoolers to introduce them to our pathways and begin talent ID. Our junior coaches also receive coaching from our NRL staff. Everything is also taught top down. If it's being done in first grade, then some version of it is being taught in the lower grades.
Thanks mate, appreciate the answer as it's not something i'm familar with.
Super, lets not forget that the whole of the Jnr and recruitment drive over the past 3 years has been severelly affected by the closing down of the Jnr comp under the NRL comp, the number of teams in the comp including the Canterbury Cup, Now the NSW knock on effect cup was a total loss in talent and training, only some of the main schools had interschool competitions going.
One other big thing is the aspect of the number of players we had in our junior comps that ended up elsewhere, sure we picked up a few from other clubs, and Stone as an example played in our team early on and played for NSW against QLD in a GF type game leading up to a higher comp, Stone played well and came to the EELS as a result. The other problem is the number of players who are now playing for other clubs, in particular Manly as many of the players running around in the Blacktown area, are now sponsored by Manly, Sean Keppie who had a big game against us today was high on our keep list until Manly opened their wallets. There are several others from the area now at Manly as well.
I see improvements but I also see the affect on last year's lower comps having a standard that was/is still going on today.
The way our junior system works is, we are going to lose players. I wasn't sad about losing Keppie. We had to choose between him and Kaufusi really, and Kaufusi was easily ahead of him at the time.
We've also poached Ky Rodwell from Souths and he's playing NSW Cup.
Last year has definitely impacted some of our development. I reckon Haze Dunster would be in a much better position to challenge for first grade had he been able to play all of last year.
Never heard of Kyle Rodwell Super but found him listed on the eels webb site.
I have little doubt that Dunster is an NRL standard player. His work when called up last year when Fergs was out and MJ had gone on leave, showed me a young player who has talent, I had seen him in at least 4 other games and did not let the team down.
The loss of the reserves comp and others last year set him and some others back as a consequence, he should get some more time this year as the season goes on.
Thanks for the insight Super, good to hear.
I'm with you Girth, we had a few amazing years with our junior development from "99 to "07. We had an amazing run with talent, from the Hindmarsh Bro's, the 2005 team, and even the Hayne, Inu, Mateo era where we almost won rookie of the year 3 years in a row!
Hopefully we get back to that soon.