A general lack of talent

[Alan79]

I've been thinking recently that a huge gap has opened between the top few sides and the rest of the pack. I couldn't clearly identify when this began. But I do have a few ideas about why it's happened.

Restructure of the reserve grade system
To start with we have gone from a time when pretty much every team had a dedicated reserve grade side. This would be where players that weren't quite up to standard at 21 would get a few years to catch up. They'd still get paid to play to some extent so just quitting to focus on other careers wasn't really their only option. I'd say that when the NYC came in almost every club decided to cut costs by dropping their dedicated reserve grade teams and we now have a merry go round of sorts where a team will house their players in a self supported reserve grade club for a few years but often the deal will last no longer than that. As a result, these clubs no longer give the "almost made it" type of players a few extra years to work on their deficiencies. For example strength, defense, skills etc and maybe lacking a bit but the player might have other great attributes that allow them to become a late bloomer at 23-25 if the system was still there to give them time to overcome deficiencies. You rarely see late bloomers these days, but when I was a teenager it was quite common for a player to be out of sight until they hit about 25 then emerge and make you wonder where they were hiding. But the current system means that players that haven't really emerged at 22-23 are mostly going to start playing casually rather than try to stay in a professional system and might never get the opportunity or coaching to become the late bloomer unless they're incredibly dedicated. Results in a lack of depth in league in general.

Football in country areas
I see this as another area that the NRL doesn't support. These days I see other sports taking a bigger focus on country areas to their credit, but league in the bush is dying a slow death. While you do see some support for things like the Koori tournaments, I don't think that the pathways for bush players to stay involved heavily in the game as being there. With talks of expanding, there has to be some way the NRL can help clubs in the bush become stronger to maybe allow players to focus on the game. Maybe the NRL could think about sponsoring a development team composed of promising players from the bush. It wouldn't break the bank to have a few talent scouts select 30 players from the bush and sponsor them to come play in the stronger city comps for a year. They could register a team in the lower grades. They'd get the chance to focus on the sport and maybe get nabbed by an NRL club after playing for a year in the Canterbury cup competition. The biggest benefit would be that it might keep players in the bush interested. I know a couple of people that played from school until they copped an injury then quit because they saw that it meant they spent time away from work due to these injuries and it wasn't worth the risk when the chance to be identified and make a career of league wasn't there

It's hard to support a competition where only a handful of teams are able to genuinely be a threat to the premiership every year. Part of it is because the salary cap doesn't work, but it's not working because the talent just isn't around anymore. The game would be better supported if it was.

 

[Rodzilla]

i wouldnt mind it if we were one of the handful of teams though, my recommendation is that we become better

 

[silva]

It began last year pretty evident if you compare ladders from 19 to 20

 

[foREVerA7X]

I genuinely believe the comp needs to be culled. There isn't enough talent in each position to even justify expanding. If there was, we would have a damn hooker by now. Joey Johns was spot on with culling to 12 teams and once interest, talent and the likes grew, then reintroduce teams.

I'd be happy to see no more Tigers and Titans pre 2020.

Salary cap doesn't work either. Need to exclude TPAs from the cap. If a team pays 1mill then that is removed from available cap, not 350k and the rest TPAs. If a player wants extra, then get their manager to source Sponsorship from Nike, Maccas etc

 

[TwinTurbo]

Salary cap doesn't work either. Need to exclude TPAs from the cap. If a team pays 1mill then that is removed from available cap, not 350k and the rest TPAs. If a player wants extra, then get their manager to source Sponsorship from Nike, Maccas etc

TPA's are excluded from the Cap, the club is not allowed to be involved. The third party can not be a sponsor/advertiser of the club.

Third party agreements are sourced by the player's manager and do include companies like Nike, Madison (JT's headgear) Maccas, Foxsports, Lowes, Ch9, etc. All offers made by third parties to players must be submitted to the NRL, that applies regardless of whether they’re accepted or not.

Go Dogs

 

[_G-Dog_]

And how do they plan to add 2 more teams with 30man squads each with this lack of nrl talent going around.. i dont think there is enough good players to sustain 2 more teams..

 

[diddly]

Just an opinion - cant prove it -I thnk there is a stack of talent across the areas that play RL - the problem is keeping the talent playing the game an developing it.
Pathways, junior leagues, Regional n Country areas, Pacific Island nations etc need to be heavily supported - resources invested in these area to incentivise players to pursue a genuine career path and, given the high injury rates, the provision of genuine study ( trades, , uni ) opportunities as an insurance.
(Some clubs do certificate courses which dont really lead anywhere)

 

[Kelpie03]

I genuinely believe the comp needs to be culled. There isn't enough talent in each position to even justify expanding. If there was, we would have a damn hooker by now. Joey Johns was spot on with culling to 12 teams and once interest, talent and the likes grew, then reintroduce teams.

I'd be happy to see no more Tigers and Titans pre 2020.

Salary cap doesn't work either. Need to exclude TPAs from the cap. If a team pays 1mill then that is removed from available cap, not 350k and the rest TPAs. If a player wants extra, then get their manager to source Sponsorship from Nike, Maccas etc

If they cull teams, I would be very concerned for our club, ie. the bulldogs. After the Sl war it was stated by those in authority, that the bulldogs did not qualify for a franchise. The 6 Sydney based teams that qualified for what ever reason were, Manly, Rotters, St George, Parra Penrith don't remember the last one but the Bulldogs were not one.
The area our club is situated in has a much greater ethnic population than any other club, and ethnic's take much less interest in the advertising rubbish.
This would mean that if our club was to fold News and 9 would loose the lest number of clients, I suspect that this the reason why our club is maligned by much of the media, by maligning a club it will slowly reduce its fan base eventually destroying the club without creating a ripple to the comp, then News and 9 wont need us.
The latest and continuing rule changes has made the genuine footballer much less effective, and now their are only the Supper Athletes who can win you a game, and their are not many of them going around.
The new rules will eventually lead to the culling teams.

 

[Malla]

TPA's are excluded from the Cap, the club is not allowed to be involved. The third party can not be a sponsor/advertiser of the club.

Third party agreements are sourced by the player's manager and do include companies like Nike, Madison (JT's headgear) Maccas, Foxsports, Lowes, Ch9, etc. All offers made by third parties to players must be submitted to the NRL, that applies regardless of whether they’re accepted or not.

Go Dogs

Ok

Go Dogs

 

[Freakzilla]

I honestly believe that 1 of 2 things should happen.

1. Transfer system like in soccer where you get a transfer fee for losing a player. Allows lower teams to invest more in juniors.

2. Each team only has a NRL team and a NSW Cup team with no juniors and have a draft every year so bottom club s get first crack at the best juniors.

Either way players can only move clubs between NRL Grand Final day and NYE and you can't sign with another team unless your contract is up or you get sold in that period.

 

[Riggs80]

i Agree with the OP in general .
1) clubs had dedicated reserve grade sides - ever since clubs had affiliates its affected production
2) the top 30 squads . This is the big one
3) June 30 and clubs buying players years in advance causing too much turnover and this only benefits the stronger clubs with Players agitating to be released and clubs wanting to flick players

why ?

the old system allows clubs to develop , bulldogs probably best example how much it has affected . all these years at the bottom , they have been stuck with the squad they signed and have had to play the same duds over and over again , if a player was having a break out year in lower grades no ability to introduce them to grade or replace the duds . Imagine last year could have thrown every half in the system a chance instead of constantly rotating Lewis and wakeham in and out of the squad .
also top 30 allows the top clubs to hoard a bit more talent then the old system which had 1st grade cap and 2nd tier cap that allowed for more talent distribution

I also hate that clubs have to spend min amount of $$ each year on cap , forces clubs with shit players to over pay shit Players in squad to even sure they meet cap requirements when they could be more judicious on player spend to have real crack at elite players.
‘I assure you we had the old cap system and not top 30 squad , rooster would not have the depth they have currently

 

[Greenmachine121]

Think the top 30 squad is nonsense . Teams should be able to use players from reggies and whatever under 20s is called now ...
Surely they can just be paid match payments and not have to be NRL contracted

 

[Dognacious]

And how do they plan to add 2 more teams with 30man squads each with this lack of nrl talent going around.. i dont think there is enough good players to sustain 2 more teams..

We actually need less teams. Nrl don't care if half the sides are reserve grade level, more matches means more $$ and thats all they care about

 

[Benno Bulldog]

I think that some of opinions on here might be a bit short sighted, heard an argument on the weekend that when establishing new teams you can't take a 10 year view but really think about where a new team would be in 25 years which makes sense. I believe that more talent retires from a lack of interest and opportunity. How can you cull teams FFS as a business solution.

 

[Psycho Doggie]

I've been thinking recently that a huge gap has opened between the top few sides and the rest of the pack. I couldn't clearly identify when this began. But I do have a few ideas about why it's happened.

Restructure of the reserve grade system
To start with we have gone from a time when pretty much every team had a dedicated reserve grade side. This would be where players that weren't quite up to standard at 21 would get a few years to catch up. They'd still get paid to play to some extent so just quitting to focus on other careers wasn't really their only option. I'd say that when the NYC came in almost every club decided to cut costs by dropping their dedicated reserve grade teams and we now have a merry go round of sorts where a team will house their players in a self supported reserve grade club for a few years but often the deal will last no longer than that. As a result, these clubs no longer give the "almost made it" type of players a few extra years to work on their deficiencies. For example strength, defense, skills etc and maybe lacking a bit but the player might have other great attributes that allow them to become a late bloomer at 23-25 if the system was still there to give them time to overcome deficiencies. You rarely see late bloomers these days, but when I was a teenager it was quite common for a player to be out of sight until they hit about 25 then emerge and make you wonder where they were hiding. But the current system means that players that haven't really emerged at 22-23 are mostly going to start playing casually rather than try to stay in a professional system and might never get the opportunity or coaching to become the late bloomer unless they're incredibly dedicated. Results in a lack of depth in league in general.

Football in country areas
I see this as another area that the NRL doesn't support. These days I see other sports taking a bigger focus on country areas to their credit, but league in the bush is dying a slow death. While you do see some support for things like the Koori tournaments, I don't think that the pathways for bush players to stay involved heavily in the game as being there. With talks of expanding, there has to be some way the NRL can help clubs in the bush become stronger to maybe allow players to focus on the game. Maybe the NRL could think about sponsoring a development team composed of promising players from the bush. It wouldn't break the bank to have a few talent scouts select 30 players from the bush and sponsor them to come play in the stronger city comps for a year. They could register a team in the lower grades. They'd get the chance to focus on the sport and maybe get nabbed by an NRL club after playing for a year in the Canterbury cup competition. The biggest benefit would be that it might keep players in the bush interested. I know a couple of people that played from school until they copped an injury then quit because they saw that it meant they spent time away from work due to these injuries and it wasn't worth the risk when the chance to be identified and make a career of league wasn't there

It's hard to support a competition where only a handful of teams are able to genuinely be a threat to the premiership every year. Part of it is because the salary cap doesn't work, but it's not working because the talent just isn't around anymore. The game would be better supported if it was.

I genuinely believe the comp needs to be culled. There isn't enough talent in each position to even justify expanding. If there was, we would have a damn hooker by now. Joey Johns was spot on with culling to 12 teams and once interest, talent and the likes grew, then reintroduce teams.

I'd be happy to see no more Tigers and Titans pre 2020.

Salary cap doesn't work either. Need to exclude TPAs from the cap. If a team pays 1mill then that is removed from available cap, not 350k and the rest TPAs. If a player wants extra, then get their manager to source Sponsorship from Nike, Maccas etc

I think that some of opinions on here might be a bit short sighted, heard an argument on the weekend that when establishing new teams you can't take a 10 year view but really think about where a new team would be in 25 years which makes sense. I believe that more talent retires from a lack of interest and opportunity. How can you cull teams FFS as a business solution.

The answer to all these questions and more is to divide the NRL into two divisions. I suggest 12 teams in each, worst two teams in top division demote. I'd even suggest demotion and promotion between division two and the current NSWRL and QRL comps. Imagine how epic it would be if PNG Hunters could promote?

Juniors are retained, no squad cap, but put rules in for flexible loan arrangements. Bring in transfer fees, reward clubs that develop juniors.

 

[Kelpie03]

I just can't see the NRL introducing an extra team in Brisbane, and not dropping one of the Sydney teams.

 

[Ribo Flavin]

And how do they plan to add 2 more teams with 30man squads each with this lack of nrl talent going around.. i dont think there is enough good players to sustain 2 more teams..

B'landys thinks speeding the game up and limiting stoppages during games is the answer.

 

[top-dog]

If only peter Moore was alive this shit mess would never of happened .

 

[TwinTurbo]

I don't see that a general lack of talent as being a problem, just as long as it is spread evenly around ALL of the teams. That's the real issue at play, the talent is not spread even remotely close to evenly. Every other problem, set restarts, fatigue causing injuries, score line blow outs etc are all caused by the uneven distribution of talented players.

The NRL, in "benevolent dictator" mode, should be able to step in and say to Melbourne, for example, "no you can't have both Grant and BSmith, pick one and let the other one go!" No Penrith you can't have NCleary, May, Luai and Burton, pick 3 and let one go!" In both of those cases it would make any team/s much better and wouldn't affect Melbourne or Penrith much at all. In simple terms it would even up the competition.

The stated objective of the Salary Cap is to stop teams going broke, as a result there is no real method for evening up the talent spread. Time we had one.

Go Dogs