I should know by now not to let myself get riled up by silly, little off-handed comments but one of Guru Jnr’s tweets tonight has particularly annoyed me.
The tweet said: “Parra juniors need to be heard. Juniors must have every possible opportunity to play their best footy for NRL Eels. It's not brain surgery.”
It annoys me when people talk about junior football, they only seem to do it through this incredibly narrow lens of Eels juniors in the NRL. We debate ad nauseum a list of all the players we lost, and so on and so on. When we all know the reality is, that the NRL operates under a salary cap with no concessions for developing your own juniors and subsequently we will always have many Eels juniors playing at other clubs.
However, it’s really important to remember that this upcoming election is for the Parramatta District Rugby League Club. As things stand this does not even include our junior representative squads. What we’re talking about is the thousands of kids running around on a Saturday playing a game they love with their mates. And while every one of those kids will dream of playing NRL, a minute fraction will ever make it.
That doesn’t make that level of the game any less important. And certainly the PDRLC board shouldn’t be viewed as “insignificant” nor does it deserve to be treated as a political pawn that gets used every couple of years as a stepping stone to controlling the NRL club.
On Monday afternoon, for instance, the Wentworthville Junior Rugby League club held its Annual Junior Coaching Clinic. I reckon there were around 100 kids there, many of whom had never played Rugby League before and were there to get a taste for the game. I know a few of the other clubs like the Parramatta City Titans also put on similar clinics during the off-season. They’re tremendous initiatives. I took my son down there as he wanted to introduce one of his mates to the game (and yes, we racked up another recruit) and I also helped out as one of the coaches. And it’s only when you get involved with the game down at these grassroots that you begin to appreciate that there is so much more to Rugby League then what we see in the NRL.
You also come to realise what Rugby League means to many of these boys (and girls these days) because for a lot of kids footy is their primary social activity. Every time they pull on those jerseys they have the opportunity to take out so much more than just how to play better footy - confidence, team work, leadership, humility and friendship are all there for the taking.
And for me, those are the type of things I’d like to really promote as a PDRLC board member. We’ve always done a pretty good job with our junior programs from a football perspective, but I’d like to see as a core part of our junior programs initiatives that promote these life skills and teach respect and develop our youngsters into leaders from the moment they start playing the game. If you drill those values into your district football right down there at a grass-roots level, eventually that becomes the foundation of your club culture.
Within ParraFirst we’ve had a number of discussions about areas we potentially see room for improvements and we’ve involved junior football officials and we’ll make it an immediate goal to bring all of the stakeholders together to get everyone going in the same direction and under a central plan.
For example, given my background it probably doesn’t surprise that I can see a lot of opportunity to use online to make better coaching resources more accessible and enhance engagement with the game. And we definitely want to start feeding back to the membership what goals the club are shooting for from a District Football perspective and provide on-going and detailed progress reports via the AGMs, annual reports and websites. As a PDRLC member, I’ve been to the last AGM, I’ve read two annual reports and I still have no visibility as to what we’re trying to achieve at this district level.
To get back to Guru Jnr’s tweet and I have to agree with him, “it’s not brain surgery”. Which kind of makes me question, what’s actually gone on for the four years prior.
It's a really easy platitude to roll out - let's look after the juniors. It's another thing altogether to have lived that mantra for decades as someone like Peter Serrao has done. Quite frankly to start throwing "junior football" around as political currency a week before an election is an insult to all of those amazing volunteers who selflessly put in so much of their time to run Junior Rugby League clubs and teams.
Replies
As a point about junior rugby league i notice 1eyed you made the comment that one of your sons is the only member of his friends who plays rugby league the rest play soccer, g**fl.
I'm 23 and when i use to play in the parra district along time ago it was about 100 dollars to register. My little brothers play in the souths district and dont pay anything. Registration is free and provided by souths juniors along with jersey and shorts. In there circle of friends i would say out of the kids who play sport most would be playing rugby league. I guarantee that this is becuase of the free registration if parents have three kids who want to play sport and they have the option of having them play league for free (excluding boots, mouth guard) or soccer for about 300 dollars a year it would be an easy decision for a family who dont have alot of money. There is alot of families who would be living in the parramatta district in the same circumstances.
Is this something you can see our district working towards if so i think it would go along way for the so called battle of the west?
Also i really like the Parrafirst ticket i wish you guys all the best my two cents would be try and avoid being dragged into jnr's bullshit he is clearly talking out of his arse and hoping for a reaction from you..
Mack, that's the same experience I had - Rugby League much cheaper than soccer.
That said, the more you can do to reduce the cost obviously it's going to make the game more attractive. I think that's where one of the initiatives we've talked about in terms of a district-wide business engagement program. A lot of local businesses may not be able to afford a corporate sponsorship but if you ask them for $1000 to sponsor a district team that reduces the registration process down to a minor sum like $20.
Ultimately, you'd like to think that the NRL starts to pay its own way and more of the Leagues club funding can go towards the grassroots. The Leagues Club grant to the District Football actually dropped from a million last year to $818000 this year according to the Annual Report.
For myself to register this season, even with a discount due to long service for my club, it cost my parents nearly $300 just for rego. Although it did come with 2 named jerseys, shorts, socks and club polo as well as match fees. As usual my parents paid for my keeping gloves, boots and shin pads which added up to about $200, and I don't necessarily buy the expensive stuff.
I think the main reason soccer is more expensive than RL is because of the investment the A-League makes into the junior system. The A-League has minimal investment into the District competition. My district has only one paid official in it. The rest are volunteers. My club Board addressed the rise in rego fees. The main things were, rise in field contracts from the council, rise in insurance fees and the number of players were dropping, meaning other players were having to take up the slack to keep the club financial. Also, sponsorship of junior clubs isn't big in soccer. Most clubs in my area have 1 or 2 jersey sponsors, that's it. That's opposed with Club Marconi Mustangs that have their entire training jersey and shorts covered in sponsorship logos. Not to mention the fact that they are backed by Club Marconi.
I don't think Parramatta will get to the same stage Souths are at in the near future, mainly due to the financial expenditure needed to fund everyone's registration. When compared with soccer, RL can be up to $300 cheaper.
Free copies of Shinobi's album when they register with their local rugby league club...
Probably the only way they'll get shifted out of the warehouse! LOL!
It amazes me that they have included Eric Grothe Jnr on their ticket. Here is a bloke who has always maintained footy was his job and music was his passion. He is also the bloke who when given the ultimatum of training his guts out or giving the game away chose the easy option and walked leaving us in a perilous postion in regards to our outside backs. I loved Guru as a footballer but seriously he isnt the type of bloke i want helping to run our club.
There r different perspectives relating to Juniors. In respect to developing the game for the long term, I think the NRL should encourage kids as much as possible by subsidising all junior registrations by say $50 out of the TV rights before reviewing the new salary cap levels. Another inititive would be to try & get kids to come to the games regularly with an NRL wide policy of $2 admission for kids & a more generous package for families.
In respect to Parra's NRL focus concerning juniors, we need to be very objective & clear. For Parra to survive long term, it much achieve regular success on the paddock otherwise fans will drift, No one likes to follow a loser. I am not talking about the diehards here & whilst they form the core they alone cannot provide the financial capacity to fund Parra's ongoing NRL participation.
Parra will always need to recruit the best talent available regardless of where it is developed. If we focus too much on our juniors, IMO we will never win a premiership. Yes, like most fans I really get a kick out of seeing a talented junior in the Blue & Gold but we must ensure that any junior is really up to the required NRL level before contract obligations r undertaken. We need to encourage our juniors by way of training camps, comps, prizes etc etc however we also need to have the processes in pace to quickly ascertain if a player has the talent & attitude to achieve NRL standards otherwise Parra will drift as we done in the past.
I agree Michael, Parra have proven in the last decade that we perform best when we have a good group of Jnrs complimented by a handpicked group of talented recruits.
I only thought about this for 2 mins and already came up with Tony T Rex Williams, Paul Gallen.
Surely there are more ? Now l know they`re with other clubs, but they`re Parra jnrs nonetheless. Ever since Brian Smith left us, our juniors have been neglected. Now Kearney created the Parra Juniors Acedemy, we will have many more Rep players again. And it`s started already. The entire Australian schoolboys 2nd row were Parra jnrs. And Tanginoa and co were chosen to participate in the NSW Origin Pathways Camp recently.
PS, Is that how you write nonetheless ? lol. Or do you write it like this - none the less ? hehehe.
Let`s see who`s good at English.