Does anyone know the Eels Junior pool in absolute numbers or estimated and how this compares to the other sydney teams(West tigers, Penrith, Manly, Bulldogs, Souths, Roosters, Cronulla), regional teams(St George, Newcastle, Canberra), interstate teams(Cows, Broncos, Dolphins,Titans, Melbourne) and finally New Zealand.
Might be a difficult question but be interesting to know how we compare and to what baseline pool we draw from for our elite Junior pathways (Harold Mathews etc...)
Further do we have arrangements with elite sporting schools Westfield Sports High/St Pats Blacktown including Rugby schools like say Joeys/Kings?? Are we ahead of the curve do we have more numbers then say Penrith ,Dogs and West Tigers ? no point developing Jnr Pathways and have an elite centre in Kellyville if our pool is small and its being erroded by the Dogs Penrith and Wests and even the rest for that matter...
We used to bang on about our pathways and enourmous Jr league but how true is it, and is local teams becoming less of a pool and its more our scouts that have the key to success watching talent all over the country.
Nice to know anyones thoughts?
Replies
Don't want this to come across the wrong way but quite a lot of this info is online so if you Google something like 'parramatta junior pathway participation numbers' there's some good stuff. I googled it myself and had a poke around
Our pool is massive and we actually operate 2 regions within the Parramatta district to ensure our rep juniors have access to facilities.
We have 27 clubs and over 5,000 players in our PJRL which stretches from Bonnyrigg in the south, to Homebush in the east and north to Kellyville. We're larger than both Tigers and Bulldogs. Penrith are bigger than us, but they also have a larger geographical area.
We have 300+ players actually in our junior rep system. Our juniors operate out of both Granville and Kellyville. Granville, because it's a more central location and easier to access by public transport, and Kellyville because it's our facility.
Parra have some v good junior areas now, but must keep pushing and developing the kids; there is a large Indian area around Kellyville which is not conducive to league; therefore I believe in the future the area will be slowly drop in terms of league. Hope I am wrong but you only need to look at areas of Liverpool / Denham Court now in Syd Sth west; there is a huge influx of Middle Eastern families hence these kids do not generally play league, and areas for Wests / Canterbury will need to look elsewhere into the future too.
I firmly believe QLD areas will continue to build over the next 10-20 years and this is where Parra need to also look at and invest in; along with broader country areas.
I contend Ryles biggest achievement in lower grades was convincing Ryda Talagi to stay. Penrith tried to get him over with Blaize. That was their appeal to getting Blaize, as told by a person who is involved with Penrith who was doing a clinic at my work. They said they wanted Blaize and another 6 but went hard for Blaize as well with the hope of getting Ryda. They really wanted Ryda and he wanted to stay instead.
Ryda looks the goods.