I think we probably have a wishlist of staff as well as a few young players that we'd like to bring in. It's all good to say hire Andrew Johns to help halves coaching etc. But there are junior coaches at some clubs that can build the fundamental skills of every player. You see certain clubs that tend to be able to promote NRL ready players whenever they need to. We used to be a club that had staff at every level who knew their jobs and prepared players for the step up. In the past a guy like Okunbor would have had his handling errors ironed out before he was promoted. Greenberg decided that junior development wasn't a priority and let some great staff go.
It's not as easy to get these kind of development staff to break contracts as players. In time we'll acquire the right staff again. The fact that we've released some staff tells me that the process has begun. The new board is trying to get whole regions producing talent to bolster our junior ranks. In time it's hopefully going to pay dividends. I'd like to think we'll be able to scalp staff from some of the junior development hubs like Keebra park etc who tend to produce great schoolboy talent rather than just trying to scalp the youngsters they have a hand in developing. Alongside of that they can hopefully improve the coaching talent in our new junior nurseries.
For the moment we will need to recruit quality for the NRL squad. But I'd like to think we're going to return to being a club that produces the bulk of our roster in future.
It's a long path ahead for all of this to come to fruition.
“The new board is trying” this the start of one of your sentences stood out to me.
I am sure that the new board desperately want to improve the team’s performance, but who exactly are we talking about when we say “the new board”
Is it Lynn & Chris Anderson? Are there other members of the board who are active in player recruitment and retention? If so, it would be nice to know who and what makes them better judges in regard to player talent identification and how to build a better team for the future than say Andrew Farrar who they just sacked??
Or does the head coach Dean Pay have a free hand in building the squad that he wants, subject to sign off by the board of course. Seems unlikely as his job seems far from secure even for the rest of this season.
