This is a slightly different tack to the same old questions, but at the same time, I think it identifies with Parra's need to be more visionary with our development squads and recruitment.
Last night I was at the annual presentation of a senior district club. I am a life member and a past president of it, but not hands-on anymore.
I could not help but note that their minor grades, the under 19's and even the first-grade side are getting crap results.
In asking why are we not winning anything, the answer I got was we were struggling to find the "cattle" but I said what about the juniors and they said the quality in our pathways is not working, why aren't you recruiting outside of your pathways (this club has a huge junior base). I said that if you get some talent from outside of our natural pathways and blend it with the locals, you will see big changes. Well, they are developing the girls grades, doing a 1 1/2 million ground-up grade, better facilities and so on. But, they have lost track of performing on the field.
Has Parramata RLDC fallen for the same tactical problem? We obviously have a second-grade Cup team with limited ability to play first-grade. I was not concerned 3 years ago when Jordan Rankin came into captain and mentor the side. I think he was a specific reason JA developed so fast. I watch JA at that time when he first came into Cup and he was getting the wraps, but really it was set up by Rankin. JA's subsequent development is irrelevant, as many will not make it. There is no need to argue whether he specifically will or not: he is no superstar young half-back that is being identified in a lot of other clubs. The Titans absolutely have some outstanding juniors coming through and that means some/ many will miss out. We need to be looking at these kids from the get-go.
Quiet simply, if I was a Parra talent scout I would have a dossier on every junior club, country, state and national teams. And sure, yes, continue to develop our pathways but create scholarships into some other teams from other area's. We are missing a lot of talent, and if I was a board member, I would want to know why and what are we doing about it.
The leagues is exceptionally successful now, application of such riches needs to be spent on all sorts of feeders, the club will prosper in the long run......i.e can we have a secondary NSW cup side playing, if Blacktown workers can have one, why not us talking to them and identifying them with our Kellyville programmes, the same with Wenty and maybe a country team as well.
This is fine, but 3 years later Rankin is still actually playing and I don't think we can afford this, compared to 3 years ago when our reserve grade was a mess.
Now I believe that our Reserve Grade side needs to be young players especially chosen with the potential to be playing first grade within 3 years of arriving, not guys who are not progressing that way, we need to be ruthless and send out the message to young players, especially country kids, islanders, rugby sevens and anywhere else we can find talent.
We have seen in recent weeks that guys like Hands, Greig, Doory etc are much more capable than originally conceived.
Likewise, for some others as well and they are being held back because our coaches are not opening the opportunities when they present. We should never have had to wait this long for Hands to be identified.
Worryingly, if the game that just passed us by this last Thursday is any indication, BA has learnt nothing from his revelation the week before. Leaving Hodgson on (not JH's fault) was a huge tactical blunder after he worked through the period of the first sin bin. Hands should have been on as soon as that player ran back on the field. Then Hodgson would not have had to struggle through the next sin-binning.
Talent needs to be supported by the coaching staff and we all know now that BA is letting a lot pass through to the keeper.
Christ, we are flat out finding anyone that can run fast. Dumpster and Russell have been identified, but to be frank the pair are not anything special (yes the best we have) but not standouts.
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I agree , let's get a coach who's won a comp , look how good Sheens is going. We should target Hagan or Sticky. Or we should go after a young upcoming superstar coach like Payten , wasn't he the flavour of the month last year? His teams spluttering along against the bottom of the table challengers.
What a shame Canterbury beat us to securing the autograph of that bloke I can't even remember his name who's been handed the 15 million dollar squad and playing like bums. They have the Great Gus Gould overseeing things and the best young flash coach going.
Don't get me wrong , our coach has his faults , I for one don't like his matey mates loyalty to certain players , including our senior players. I don't like his interchanges either , but he's the best available and he has improved the result year on year. His ability to develop run of the mill players into genuine good players is also without doubt one of the best in the business, and this season he has obviously developed his own approach and is hunting to fill a void early in the season. Anything short of prelims barring key injuries this year however is a solid fail and we should draw the line in the sand and start our hunt. The next 6 weeks is the telltale for me.
Careful Wiz, you have been an automatic entry into the asylum for a while now and your starting to make some sense. I might have to qualify you with a ticket to enter if you keep this up.
PS Sleep over Friday night?
Realist you make your job so much harder by being a fcyk wit, be as negative as you like but talking trash, gets you no where in the credibility stakes.
Actually you talk so much shit, your avater makes you look like "hitler" to boot.
We should stop wasting money on developing juniors.
It seems to work well for the Roosters and Storm.
Great conversation....no one has the answers but critising all and sundry usually doesn't get you anywhere.
It seems to me that a business model needs to be created that is original and suits the incumbent club, After all then are many clubs out there worse than us,,,,,I never accepted in any planning session just the same the "age old argument: that we are no worse than anyone else", so yes we have to be beligerent but we are only fans with an opinion. It too easy to fly in and shit and then fly off again.
The questions needs to be asked at a board level "what can we do to improve" and then a plan of how we implement it, These type of blogs are venting and we can only hope that some one that matters may read it and say "what are we doing".
There is nothing wrong with sharing a corporate plan within strategic reasoning.
Every one needs to say and give their opinions but how practical they are needs to be addressed by the appropriate personal. We can criticise the coach but doing so constructively is the only way you can be successful.
A lot of the input in this blog is constructive, how do we communicate it so anyone can take notice?
Have been saying for a few years with BA as coach, for several years we've had a squad with plenty of talent, but a lack of consistency.
I think this inconsistency comes from a lack of accountability. BA has a real issue with acting quickly to essentially punish players for garbage efforts. Same team is picked week in week out, barring injury or suspension.
Reserve grade players would know this as well, why try hard if you're never a shot at first grade, and the trickle down effect through grades from there.
I think there's bulk talent in all grades at parra, but this lack of accountability is leading to a stunted consistent motivation for our whole club.
I've been told we don't have much coming thru of any quality untill about 2025
I'm not with the club but know one or two who are, and common thread seems to be too much chop and change with coaching and who's running it. To me we need one good person to oversee the rep coaching / and another person such as Matt Cameron who's with Penrith to oversee the management of it. He's proven this with Penrith and he coached with us yrs ago.
I don't know if Parra or who Parra aligned with in terms of schools etc and I'm sure they are out there somewhere and tbh our juniors this season have done well thus far with Matts and Ball making semis, but this is what should happen most seasons.
I hope the changes made from the review prove fruitful. We will see.
I also add that since BA has come in he's made the team competitive to where it is now, and I don't agree with some of the decisions made but hey I didn't always agree with B Smith too.
The club also has gone from training at Richie Benaud to Saleyards to Kellyville now. That is also partly due to BA and of course the club.
Mitchy, I sort of see where you are but the management is always subjective, the system needs to be in place or a piece or part of the subjective management has to create or recreate the system......I would prefer to enhance it. The senior level of the club i.e. what we see every week with Parra should be a piece of piss to organise compared to the junior development programmes.
Bem says we should not worry about juniors as its not an issue for Easts and Storm, but that is because of their circumstances.
People like me are rusted on because when you start following a club when you are 10 years old and keep in mind in those days, you really couldn't start earlier, these days you could follow them from about 4 (Tech & TV) and have as much knowledge of the wits we have on here. I was in primary school at the time and immediately signed up for the 4 stone 7's when I became aware of the game, I played soccer from about under 8's.
So what I am trying to say is that I developed a love of the game, and started following my team.....keeping your juniors and fostering them was part of that love and I would be dissapointed if that changed for Parramatta. Why leagues clubs grew in that time frame was mainly from a social development programme and your Leagues club would more than likely have all sorts of junior sports encouragement, down to Xmas fun and games that all kids could not afford in those days. I looked forward to my Xmas present from the football club every year as the present was inevitably better than my parents could afford.
Diverting again, the club and juniors provides me with those memories and it will pobably always be my biases when it comes to junior development.
I'm too bloody old to do things now but I would love to go down there and show them how to organise their shit. I did something similar with Junior Cricket in Qld and understand the principles and road blocks that emerge in a process involving volunteers and well meaning people and their need to be harnessed to make things work.
But I hope like hell that we can find a Matt Cameron, there must be plenty out there, but I guess political correctness becomes a hassle now.....benevolent dictatorship as a form of management was a lot easier in my day.
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