Eels Blogs

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.