I think Paul Sironen probably has a point. Gus has wrote a good article about kids having creativity coached out of them by coaches who just want to play high percentage, high completion rate style footy. He actually used Bryce as the example. I'll dig up the link for anyone who is interested(its very Penrith flavoured) as it was a good read.
Edit:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...he-will-be-the-real-deal-20150704-gi59xd.html
Its a bit long winded(as Gus usually is) but the main part of it is this and touches on what Paul is saying about Curtis.
"I don't get involved in coaching at Panthers. That's the job of our coaching staff. However, four years ago I sent all of our coaches a link to a YouTube video of a gentleman by the name of Sir Ken Robinson. He was giving a speech to an education seminar discussing the role of our current education systems in preparing people for employment and life in an ever-changing world. The major point he made was that all children were born with creativity. All children were born artists. They will have a go at anything. But for most kids, these attributes or qualities are educated out of them by a system and society that rarely values such talents. I guess if we want to get very philosophical about this, kids are not born with prejudice, scepticism, insecurity or self-consciousness. However, life can soon lead down the path to all of those things. I'll leave that discussion for greater minds than mine.
Back to football and Sir Ken.
The basic premise of his presentation was that education quite often kills creativity. His fear was our world needs more creativity, yet such talents were being squandered pretty ruthlessly by a system that only wanted to create people in its own vision. It was pretty heady stuff.
After watching the video, the coaches said "Yeah, great speech. but what's your point?" I gave them my opinion that from where I view rugby league these days, I believe coaches kill a lot of creativity in players. I then related this to the way rugby league coaching has evolved over the past decade. To my mind, coaching has become programmed, uniform, risk-averse and motivated by playing the percentages. We teach kids to play in lanes, in one corridor of the field, with simple roles and responsibilities. Some players may go through their entire career and know only one small part of the game.
I then used the example of a young fellow coming through our system at the time by the name of Bryce Cartwright.
At 16 Bryce was doing everything. Kicking long, short, high, low, cross-field. He would kick at any time from anywhere on the field. There were no rules. His passing was outstanding. He could offload at will, around the corner and over the top, he could pass short to a man hitting a hole, or throw it to someone in the next postcode. He had all the skills.
I suggested to the coaches that while we may marvel at the way he plays while being only 16, if history is any guide, we will more than likely coach a lot of this stuff out of him by the time he turns 21 to conform to the modern systems.
I asked the question "How are you going to develop Bryce Cartwright as a back-row forward in the modern game?"
For that matter, how are we going to develop any player in any position in the modern game? Are we going to typecast them into a structure that merely replicates what every other team is doing? Or can we evolve our own development program where we encourage and value the creativity of individuals to build their own style?
I go back to the statement I made earlier in this column: "The unique talents that Bryce Cartwright possesses will be both a blessing and a burden to him as he makes his way through this important development phase of his career."
It's up to our coaching staff to protect him from the burden and to help him manage this blessing"
