Gus hit the nail on the head about Parra lack of development through juniors and choose to buy players outside the club that only play for money. This has been a major issue the past 10 seasons when's the club going to get their shit together? Manaise Fainau, John fonua (future star), Haumole Olakautu, Stefano Uitokamanu to list a few recent ones that come to mind, we all know the list goes on and on. Why isn't the club blooding juniors? We've had problems in our backline all year but stick with the same crap. We actually have a lot of backline options in our juniors that are massive prospects - Sean Russell, Solomone Naiduki, Matthew Komolafe. In the forwards - David Hollis, Eli El zahkem.
Maybe if we did use our juniors from 10 years ago we would be in a much better position then what we are now signing overpaid duds from other clubs
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That's the reason I supported parra all those years ago, they would give there juniors a go and not try to buy a premiership like other clubs.
Gordon they sure did just ask Manly. In fact they looked else where too. Watmough and Menzies got lucky.
This has always been BAs issue. He won't bring in juniors until his hand is forced usually by half a season of poor performance by older players. At that point the pressure is all on the junior to come in and fix the issues. Very rarely does he use the bench to give the junior players a string of consistent games at the top level with less pressure as they come on later in the game.
Spot on.
I'm not sure if Gould is 100% accurate. There are some NRL clubs without junior development programs in place that still remain successful. I think the Storm, Roosters, Manly, Canberra all don't have strong junior systems but rather recruit from outside their region and from other clubs. I think Gould just likes to think he knows what he's talking about but sometimes its just blah, blah, blah.
Parramatta completely refreshed its junior system at the end of 2018. Gus is full of shit on this front because Parramatta are a development club once again. We have a system that begins around 14 years old in both girls and boys. During summer we run multiple camps in both our north and south region to both identify talent and have these players in Parramatta jerseys from an early age. They usually play a couple of off-season games against Penrith.
We then go into the usual SG Ball and Harold Matts system for the boys and Tarsha Gale for the girls alongside a couple of Harvey Norman Women's Premiership teams in our area which then feed into our NRLW side.
Our Jersey Flegg team is almost entirely juniors. Our NSW Cup side is also almost entirely juniors. The only outside talent in our NSW Cup squad is Oldfield, Lussick, Roache, Perham, Rodwell, Hipgrave and Greig. And in the cases of Rodwell and Greig, they're fairly young players we've recruited from other teams to develop.
Sean Russell is okay. But he's a fullback we're trying to turn into a winger. Solomone Naiduki is a talent but he's still eligible for Jersey Flegg and raw as hell. None of the players you mention there would make our NRL side better.
Utoikamanu's case is well-documented. The Tigers threw a lot of money at him to move.
And I've said this before, you cannot keep every player in your system.
The Olakau'atu thing is crap. Just because a guy is born in the local area doesn't mean he's ever in the system. He was a winger at the time, not a backrower, and played for Wenty.
If you actually look at our 30 man squad, 13 of them are Eels juniors. Throw in Matterson and Moses and it's 15, which is 50% and it's growing. In all likelihood there will be a couple of others added next season. This season, when we announced the squad, only one player on a development contract wasn't a junior and that was Nathaniel Roache.
Haha, that's totally bs Super. All this bs about refreshing is absolute crap excuses for Arthur and his staff who are total failures 8n development.
When Arthur arrived at the club, the eels were champions and grand finalists in the 20s. The club was in a good position.
The only two regular BA developed starting players are Mahoney & Brown who is going backwards fast. Is 2 starting players in 8 years acceptable.
Chief, go and look at our junior system before you think what I'm saying is BS. We never won the Under 20s, we played one grand final and that was in 2017 with Mahoney and Brown in the side. In 2017 we won SG Ball. In 2016 we won Harold Matts. We haven't won a Jersey Flegg title since 1990. We haven't won NSW Cup since 2017. So please tell me where this golden era of champions was when Arthur arrived.
Arthur has little to do with the structure of the junior system so it's not an excuse for him. Junior Paulo is a junior in the starting side, or is he invisible or something? Marata Niukore is a junior. Oregon Kaufusi is a junior.
And this idea that a junior plays harder for you or something? Well, last I checked Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater and Cameron Smith weren't Storm juniors and they gave everything they had.
We also had six players in the City-Country NSW rep sides this year which replaced the junior Origin matches due to COVID. It was the most players of any side to play in those games.
Super, don't let the truth get in the way of a good story...we all know Chiefy likes to exaggerate his stories to create a bit of drama.
Super we're not talking solely on locally developed players. BA can sign and nurture a Qld Junior and develop him. But he hasn't because the system is a total failure.
Like I said the only two consistant starters ba has in the team are Mahoney & brown. What a disaster of a system.
Also, BA would rather purchase depth than develope as development requires risks until the player reaches 30-50 games. BA would rather purchase an Oldfield, Hipgrave, Evan's or some no hope depth player, as ba would rather keep his contract safe rather than debut Juniors.
Arthur has always been a selfish coach. Its always buy depth over development .
Why are you bringing up locally developed players. Did I mention local players???
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