Someone tell Lynne that the comp is not like it used to be. It is a lot more advanced and professional then it was in the 80 and 90s.... if they are rebuilding and using the 80s and 90s as a foundation then they need to get off the crack. You can not rebuild a premiership team with players all from lower grades.
I’ve said this a million times if the club thinks by neutering and developing younger players is the way to go then we won’t see a premiership for centuries. By the time these kids come good and not all will. They will demand big money and other clubs will just throw big bucks at them. Most will need experienced heads and marquee players to play along and learn the fine tuning of grade football.
Patience is a virtue that is in short supply on this forum. But if a house is falling down you can't just put new tiles the roof and ignore cracked foundations. Producing quality juniors was the strong foundation we built our best eras on.
We're not going to rely solely on the junior ranks to rebuild the roster. The recruitment of DWZ shows that we're actively looking for quality in positions of need. But the teams doing well long term do so because they balance the budget by having good juniors filling out the roster alongside of quality recruitment.
People who just want to take out their frustrations are interpreting the quote in a manner which supports the desire to vent. I don't like the way our season has played out any more than the people spewing negative comments about every thing the club says. But I've chosen to show some maturity about the rebuilding process. It was never going to be possible for the board to click their fingers and magically recruit the best talent in an instant. Other clubs have done their best to inspire some loyalty in the stars they developed. And many other clubs have shown more faith in juniors than we have in recent years.
Our junior development over the past 14 years has gone off the rails. And in recent years Hasler favoured recruiting fringe first graders from other clubs over promotion from within. The end result is that our club has over the past 6 years become a no go zone for players that hope to further their careers. We provided few paths into the NRL, so players with potential and smart managers opted to choose clubs where the chance of promotion was better.
Hopefully what the club has been doing with the new outlook (even if it is closer to an old school way of thinking) will make it clearer to good youngsters and their managers that devoting at least a few years to playing in our jersey can help their careers.
The new board has taken steps to get back on track with the expansion of our nursery areas. Rather than just negotiating deals with individual schools, we've started investing in whole regions.
The results of what the board is doing and has already done won't be instantaneous. It will optimistically take 2-3 years before many 16-18 year old players from the regional competitions we're now working with filter into the mix for promotion. In the meantime the club will keep trying to recruit players that are good enough to improve our team and try to ensure that the junior talent we do have is developed to NRL standards. Hopefully before that some of the player managers recognise that our club is on the rise and offering the opportunity to progress the careers of players with potential. We saw signs of it with Cogger and Meaney moving here for NRL chances.