NRL & NSW Cup Team
So for the purpose of this blog I am going to assume our full strength NRL and NSW Cup side is something like this.
Firstly, before I name the Jersey Flegg team the following players; Sam Tuivita (20), Joash Papalii (21), Richie Penisni(20) and Charlie Guymer(21) are the only 4 from these two lineups that could play in Jersey Flegg. Obviously with injuries many more players under 21 have/will be given the chance to play NSW Cup. Twiddle, Lewis, Nanva, Hunter, & Lokeni have all played a few games of cup this year already. Alamadine, Lynn, Brown, Neemia, De Stradis & Spence have played NSW Cup last year or played one game this year.
Jersey Flegg Team
The Jersey Flegg team is very hard to pick. The coaches have a key decision to make on developing vs winning the competition. The players listed beyond 18 are ordered by position and pecking order if spots become vacant in Jersey Flegg due to injuries/suspensions/promotions of first choice players. So this also gives you a good idea of players pushing to be a part of the playing 17 in their relevant position. However this was difficult to order 100% accurately as the team has been rotated around a lot due to injuries/suspension/form/giving younger players a go. I tried making the extended team list as small as possible so I refrained from adding any SG Ball players who have not made their Jersey Flegg debut.
Player Analysis
As you can see there is an influx of talent coming through the grades. Lot of these players are 21 years old so will not be eligible for Jersey Flegg next year. It is a make or break year for many of these players if they want to have a future at this club. So I hope the club has a strong focus on this development by pushing these players through the grades and giving them more chances in the NSW cup. This means players who have already reached their ceiling need to be moved on whilst having experienced heads to guide these players on their journey in becoming better players. In the current Jersey Flegg team the 21 year olds that we should persist with are Twiddle, Lewis, Nanva, Hunter, Brown, Neemia and De Stradis. Give them an NRL pre-season on train and trial contracts so they can fight for a spot in NSW Cup. Need to remember that there are 30 players on Top 30 contracts and 6 on development contracts. Thats 36 players and only 34 spots in NSW cup and NRL playing 17. Obviously injuries and suspensions happen but the main point is that there is not much space in developing players over 21 years old when there is no guarantee of them being good enough for the NRL. So it is critical that we choose the players to develop as some of the names listed above in this paragraph actually have good potential.
Replies
That was a good midnight read before bed
We could have a ready made forward pack in a few years entirely dependent on juniors like the dragons currently do now. Just need to lock the good ones up long term
100% our forward depth coming through is very strong from jersey flegg down to HM with some of the best talent in the country
Great blog EA and sonic boom! Great to get a read on playerscoming through!
Watching Twiddle in cup yesterday, he looks to have something special about him. He seems to have some class about him. He made some errors but there seems to be something about him
Yep Twiddle is a good player. He is so versatile with his qualities that I believe he could be developed into a fullback, centre, 5/8, lock or utlity (like Watson & Walker). Very interested to see his future because as the blog said, not sure what it looks like or even if its at this club.
Question EA If Lorenzo is that talented why not next year? Plenty of players debut at 19. Katoa, Talagi, Stange, Mam. Why does JR need to be patient? Why not give him a crack?
Great question. I did suggest this when SG Ball finished but I have got colder on that idea purely on how the season has played out and what JR has said about Papalii. I would not rule it out though after a pre-season. In Jersey Flegg you can so easily tell his class but he still has errors around him and I would partly say its because he lacks cohesion and combinations with the constant changes in the team plus he never did a preseason with the JF team.
It is why I want us to sign TMM or Douheli until Lorenzo is ready. Not a fan of Papalii at 6.
I just notice with a lot of your assessments you're quite conservative with players not being ready etc etc. Who really is ever ready for 1st grade? Sometimes the really talented ones you have to blood them and let them sink or swim, sometimes they just thrive especially having better players around them all the time
Yep thats fair. From my point of view for this exercise i assumed the players will be given the opportunity to work through the development pathway rather than be thrust into NRL.
A lot of the players on this list could debut early and may sink or swim, but ideally youd want them to work their way through the grades.
I also think with halves the risk reward of throwing them in too early is great. For every sucess there are alot more failures.
In my view we have Moses + a lot of depth in the halves so theres no need to risk ruining Lorenzo becuase we were impatient and debuted him before his game has fully developed.
By all means let him compete for the jersey during the pre-season but given we have Hawkins, Volkman, Hunter, Joash as well we dont need to risk him if hes not ready.
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