Value of Juniors

[Carlton]

I think that the value of Juniors is minimal these days.

The problem is that they are encouraged to sign short term contracts, make first grade and then shop themselves around. This means the club developing them gets minimal benefit and does not get a financial advantage for blooding them and once they make first grade have to pay for them like every other interested club.

A big percentage of Juniors who make first grade did not even come through the club's junior league but were purchased or moved into the the club from outside to increase their opportunities. Loyalty is getting rarer and the gamble on Juniors is becoming less beneficial.

If the cost is basically the same to gamble on a junior or pay for an established player who's abilities are known, why take the gamble?

I personally don't like this trend and like to see genuine Juniors being developed and coming through the grades. The problem is if a club does this they are going to struggle to compete. This is similar to NFL and Soccer where junior means a young player not playing at the top level from anywhere. Juniors belong to everyone and teams are bought.

 

[Old Kogarah Boy 1]

If you don’t work your junior base, it dies.

You become a club just like the Rorters, who must rely on buying players from other clubs, which of course, you then have to pay top dollar and still stay within the cap...... a feat only uncle Nick has managed to successfully achieve over time.

Juniors are the clubs lifeline, hence we should utilise our better.

 

[Coffs dragon]

The game is neglected in the bush/country regions and is being completely dominated by soccer & AFL. The NRL clubs are now responsible for having 50% of their players being Polynesian decent. So there lays a huge problem that the pathways are being blocked and there is less demand for younger small framed type players.

 

[BennyV]

There is huge value in maintaining a good junior base and identifying/developing youngsters into good first graders. While loyalty is less common than it once was, not every kid hits first grade then goes looking for a big payday - if we pick the right kids and develop them properly (which we are struggling with) then we give ourselves the best opportunity of keeping them on board for the best value. We also are likely to get a couple of good years from them while they are still on lower value contracts.

I think the definition of a ‘junior’ have changed though - any club restricting their junior base to the clubs playing in their district or junior league is setting themselves at a disadvantage. There are massive markets for exciting youngsters throughout the country and pacific islands and we should be scouting out these kids from 13-15 years old and bringing them into our junior system, developing the best of them and creating the best opportunities for them and for our club, regardless of whether they come from Hurstville, Thirroul or bumf**k nowhere.

All that being said - winning comes first. Given the choice, I’d rather win titles with a team of imports than plod around the edge of the 8 with a team of locals. In reality, there’s a balance that involves properly developing our juniors and our coaching staff don’t give us the best chance at that.

 

[RufusRex]

Half our 1st grade squad this week are either local or developed juniors ...

I think we are getting reasonable value

 

[BennyV]

Half our 1st grade squad this week are either local or developed juniors ...

I think we are getting reasonable value

Que? I count Dufty, Aitken, Nightingale, JDB, Leilua and Sele (and Sele is likely to be dropped for Latimore). So at best 6/17. If we go to the squad of 21 and include Lomax, Robson and Lawrie then we have 9/21, but that’s for a real representation of the players we use. Both far less than half. Who taught you math?

 

[watatank]

Top 30 has more.

Othes: Host, Garrick, Herbert, Field...

They probably count Frizell and Sims in there as well, even though they were local juniors that developed elsewhere which puts the total up to 15

I agree it's a little misleading. Especially since a lot of those players (and others) may or may not come through here

 

[Saintsified]

It would be worth more to a club if the club could sell and profit from players, issue is you invest in them and they can always get poached anyway and you didn't get anything on or off the field out of them . Also why not bring in loaning players out? Like a soccer does.

Hastings for eg. We lost the plot when Rorters signed him under our noses.

 

[Carlton]

There is huge value in maintaining a good junior base and identifying/developing youngsters into good first graders. While loyalty is less common than it once was, not every kid hits first grade then goes looking for a big payday - if we pick the right kids and develop them properly (which we are struggling with) then we give ourselves the best opportunity of keeping them on board for the best value. We also are likely to get a couple of good years from them while they are still on lower value contracts.

I think the definition of a ‘junior’ have changed though - any club restricting their junior base to the clubs playing in their district or junior league is setting themselves at a disadvantage. There are massive markets for exciting youngsters throughout the country and pacific islands and we should be scouting out these kids from 13-15 years old and bringing them into our junior system, developing the best of them and creating the best opportunities for them and for our club, regardless of whether they come from Hurstville, Thirroul or bumf**k nowhere.

All that being said - winning comes first. Given the choice, I’d rather win titles with a team of imports than plod around the edge of the 8 with a team of locals. In reality, there’s a balance that involves properly developing our juniors and our coaching staff don’t give us the best chance at that.

I agree BennyV but part of the issue in the current environment where they have greedy player managers, pushy parents and the ability to sign 12 months before their initial contract ends, salary cap, squad number limitation, and the demise of country league is that they become a big financial gamble. In the past
club's could take a risk on a promising junior but now they have to be more than just promising for a club to be able to accommodate them. I don't like the situation, but I think the value of Juniors is fast disappearing.

 

[Frank Facer]

Easts and Melbourne have been 2 of the strongest and successful clubs over the last 12 years and they don't produce any juniors.

Parra, Penrith and Newcastle probably have the 3 best junior nursery's in NSW and all three have been starved of success.

Clubs don't receive any benefits for producing their own juniors. They have to pay them market value if they become top line players.

 

[BennyV]

I agree BennyV but part of the issue in the current environment where they have greedy player managers, pushy parents and the ability to sign 12 months before their initial contract ends, salary cap, squad number limitation, and the demise of country league is that they become a big financial gamble. In the past
club's could take a risk on a promising junior but now they have to be more than just promising for a club to be able to accommodate them. I don't like the situation, but I think the value of Juniors is fast disappearing.

It then becomes important for coaches and recruiters to counter that. Even if kids aren’t playing NRL or aren’t particularly next in line, the communication about their future needs to keep up. I’d love to know what Mary/Millward are saying to guys like Herbert, Host, Field and so on who, from the outside, don’t look to be given the opportunities they seem to deserve. This becomes important.

I’m some cases, letting a youngster know there’s a plan to develop them and bring them through to full time first grade has the ability to counter managers/parents trying to push them towards the money.

 

[RufusRex]

Que? I count Dufty, Aitken, Nightingale, JDB, Leilua and Sele (and Sele is likely to be dropped for Latimore). So at best 6/17. If we go to the squad of 21 and include Lomax, Robson and Lawrie then we have 9/21, but that’s for a real representation of the players we use. Both far less than half. Who taught you math?

Tariq is a local junior even though he left and came back so 10 from 21 roughly half .. we wouldn’t have got him back if he were not a junior.

Frizz is also a former “local” one that we got back through community connections (corrimal)

 

[BennyV]

Tariq is a local junior even though he left and came back so 10 from 21 roughly half .. we wouldn’t have got him back if he were not a junior.

Frizz is also a former “local” one that we got back through community connections (corrimal)

Fair enough - I wouldn’t class these guys as our juniors, developed and came through the grades elsewhere.

 

[RufusRex]

Fair enough - I wouldn’t class these guys as our juniors, developed and came through the grades elsewhere.

Yep it is splitting hairs ... we don’t have them on the deals we do (and potentially not at all) if not through relationships formed as juniors in our local catchment ...

 

[redandwhite4evr]

I think that the value of Juniors is minimal these days.

The problem is that they are encouraged to sign short term contracts, make first grade and then shop themselves around. This means the club developing them gets minimal benefit and does not get a financial advantage for blooding them and once they make first grade have to pay for them like every other interested club.

A big percentage of Juniors who make first grade did not even come through the club's junior league but were purchased or moved into the the club from outside to increase their opportunities. Loyalty is getting rarer and the gamble on Juniors is becoming less beneficial.

If the cost is basically the same to gamble on a junior or pay for an established player who's abilities are known, why take the gamble?

I personally don't like this trend and like to see genuine Juniors being developed and coming through the grades. The problem is if a club does this they are going to struggle to compete. This is similar to NFL and Soccer where junior means a young player not playing at the top level from anywhere. Juniors belong to everyone and teams are bought.

 

[redandwhite4evr]

I still feel annoyed at the somewhat arbitrary decision to merge some clubs, including SGI, and not others. A while back there were a number of criteria, including the size of the club's junior league and crowds at games that justified a club a place in the NRL. On those two scores neither Souths nor the Roosters deserve to be a stand alone NRL club but as a merged entity- yes. Probably the bulldogs would be on shaky ground as well as they are considered a SW Sydney team when Wests Tigers was the team created to represent that part of the world. The sharks landlocked and sitting in the middle of SGI territory would have to consider their position too.

Now it appears that mergers are off the table and it is money only that the NRL is interested in.

This is relevant as merged clubs generally have a larger junior base to draw talent from. If genuine junior players (ie those who were developed by the club from U10 onwards), received say a 20% discount off their salary cap value and therefore teams with larger junior talent pools used a smaller percentage of their salary cap, they could afford to buy the better players from outside their club. This would then force the Roosters and other low junior, high money teams to merge or face extinction through the inability to compete.

Of course this would be contingent on a second Brisbane team coming into the comp otherwise the Broncos with their monopoly of all Brisbane juniors would be unbeatable.

 

[BennyV]

Yep it is splitting hairs ... we don’t have them on the deals we do (and potentially not at all) if not through relationships formed as juniors in our local catchment ...

Any evidence of this? I can’t remember Friz or Sims citing anything to do with our local catchment as reasoning for their signatures...

 

[RufusRex]

Yes

 

[Dragon Revival]

When Frizell resigned he said that he was a local junior and as such was happy to resign and stay in the area.
I think that Sims also was comfortable to come back to the area where he grew up. The benefit of having a strong junior league will begin to pay off when local juniors get their opportunities in coming years. Junior retention previously was pathetic resulting in the loss of Bird, Damien Cook, Docker, FaiFai Loa, Hastings, Kevin Naiquama, Linnett, Mansour, Alex MacKinnon, Josh Morris, Ashton Sims, Korbin Sims, Brett Stewart, Glen Stewart, Tariq Sims , Whare and countless others. Ian Millward appears to be doing a fabulous job in turning this exodus around. Hopefully a junior led recovery will occur as the new talent comes through and get their opportunities.

 

[possm]

While ever the rich clubs can effectively double their salary cap using TPA's, the returns on junior development are diminishing year on year.Usually, a Club like the Dragons might get one or two seasons benefiting from the bargain price of a local junior in the NRL. From that time on it is a matter of meeting the market or losing the player.

I believe the best way to maximise the benefits of junior development is to implement the following policies:

1. Take TPA's our of the hands of Clubs and transfer it to player managers and the NRL.
2. Implement very steep fines and suspension of credentials for player managers that rort the TPA rules.
3. Introduce a one off transfer charge when a local junior moves to another Club. This charge to apply no matter when the player leaves the club; prior to NRL registration or 10 years after NRL registration. I'd say a reasonable charge would be 100k.
4. This transfer charge to come out of the gaining club's salary cap and go into the losing Club's salary cap.