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Development Officer?

TheRam

Coach
Messages
13,457
I was talking to a St George supporter mate of mine about the lack of real quality juniors your club seams to not have developed over the last 5 years or so.

He and I were both at a loss as to why you should be struggling to bring quality players through from juniors to NRL level. Which is very surprising considering how great and vast your catchment area has always been.

We speculated that it must be due to the people that are involved from junior to senior development. Is Craig Young still involved in this facet and what did you guys think of his recruitment abilities to date and can you tell me who if anyone has now been put in charge of recruitment?

Sorry for the long winded question, but we are at a loss as to what has happened to this Great Clubs juniors.
 

TruSaint

Referee
Messages
20,093
Thats a fair question, but i believe we still have many players coming through our system.

The problem is no much, do we have a talented pool of players in our enchantment region, its what is done about them.

I believe Young was the recruitment "guru", but is now the forwards coach...
Not sure if he is still a scout.

Its interesting you mentioned the last 5 years, as it ties in with results. Apart from 2010, where Bennett brought in his entourage, we haven't had a great deal of success maintaining our local talent.

Nice thread though and food for thought.

Do we lack local talent (I doubt), or are we not nurturing / holding onto, those with potential.

Prior to that of course, the Club was gifted with local players...
 

TheRam

Coach
Messages
13,457
Thats a fair question, but i believe we still have many players coming through our system.

The problem is no much, do we have a talented pool of players in our enchantment region, its what is done about them.

I believe Young was the recruitment "guru", but is now the forwards coach...
Not sure if he is still a scout.

Its interesting you mentioned the last 5 years, as it ties in with results. Apart from 2010, where Bennett brought in his entourage, we haven't had a great deal of success maintaining our local talent.

Nice thread though and food for thought.

Do we lack local talent (I doubt), or are we not nurturing / holding onto, those with potential.

Prior to that of course, the Club was gifted with local players...


That's what we were thinking. Before Bennett, the club was always bringing great juniors through, but then when Bennett started he seemed to not really be interested in that side of things, concentrated on the players already there and the quality that he brought in from outside and sort of left the development side of things to sort of fade.

It seems from an outsiders point of view that the recruitment side of things has been neglected in the sense of not having quality people to guide it.

What may be needed is what my club, Parra have done and brought in a top notch development officer in Peter Nolan to rejig the whole setup. Nolan has done wonders for Parra in the short 3-4 years that he was there and I attribute him massively to why Parra now have great junior and are at the top end of all the competitions, with some of the best prospects going round.

However now that he has gone back to the Broncos, I fear that if we don't replace him with someone of equal ability, we may end up going backwards once again.

Who is in charge of your recruitment and development, maybe that is the real problem and not the lack of quality juniors?
 

AyiosYiorgos

Coach
Messages
13,483
Doesn't help when clubs come in and pick off the best juniors with big money
BJ Leluia, Hastings, other players leave for a chance to play 1st grade, Linnett, Whare, Buchanan, Docker Sims (brothers - more to that)
 

TruSaint

Referee
Messages
20,093
That's what we were thinking. Before Bennett, the club was always bringing great juniors through, but then when Bennett started he seemed to not really be interested in that side of things, concentrated on the players already there and the quality that he brought in from outside and sort of left the development side of things to sort of fade.

It seems from an outsiders point of view that the recruitment side of things has been neglected in the sense of not having quality people to guide it.

What may be needed is what my club, Parra have done and brought in a top notch development officer in Peter Nolan to rejig the whole setup. Nolan has done wonders for Parra in the short 3-4 years that he was there and I attribute him massively to why Parra now have great junior and are at the top end of all the competitions, with some of the best prospects going round.

However now that he has gone back to the Broncos, I fear that if we don't replace him with someone of equal ability, we may end up going backwards once again.

Who is in charge of your recruitment and development, maybe that is the real problem and not the lack of quality juniors?

Yeah the role is critical. Not only does it make sense to look in your own backyard, but it is also cost effective. Parra's turnaround this year has been awesome and credit to those involved, in particular your coach. I rate him highly.

Hayne is playing better than ever. Sandow looks like a new man.

Juniors coming through look good.

Credit where credit is due.
 

TruSaint

Referee
Messages
20,093
Doesn't help when clubs come in and pick off the best juniors with big money
BJ Leluia, Hastings, other players leave for a chance to play 1st grade, Linnett, Whare, Buchanan, Docker Sims (brothers - more to that)

Ayios, mate it cuts both ways as you know.
We cant keep them all granted, but our pool is greater than most.
Love Benny for bringing us a premiership, but since then we have dropped the ball on local development.
Just my opinion mate.
 

AyiosYiorgos

Coach
Messages
13,483
I think its all part of it, I also think we assume we have an endless supply of "GREAT" talent, and have not explored outside of our area, in saying that we have some good u/20 players coming through
 

Father Ted

First Grade
Messages
5,531
The future is not looking bright either because even though Dean Young and Ben Hornby are the under 16's NSW SOO coaches we have only one representative player in Jack Cross compare that with Newcastle who have five players selected or even Balmain , Canterbury or South Sydney who all have two .
 

SIR LANCELOT

Juniors
Messages
986
We are being left behind.Illawarra Junior League is in trouble.It's SG Ball and Harold Matthews have also missed the semi's the last two years being near the bottom of their groups.The St.George junior teams with least juniors have performed better than Illawarra.
Yes I believe we are falling behind.Not enough Kiwis or Queenslanders.
Maybe bring back Peter O'Sullivan from the Roosters to do our recruitment.He learned his trade as a Dragons junior and coach and supply him with free paper bags........plenty of em!!!

Lancelot
 
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twinkletoes

Juniors
Messages
919
Future not that bleak...we have quite a number of Holden Cup players who if retained will be very good at the least first graders...couldpotentially be something more..its a matter of retaining these and building on that
 

Weipa Dragon

Juniors
Messages
1,182
The illawarra and st george area is definitely big enough. A fair bit if bush footy though. I wrote before saying that we only have the one reserve grade team officially and it wouldn't be a bad thing to try for another. It seems unfair because up in qld the nrl teams have a broad selection. Canberra has souths Logan to choose from along with their whole area. The broncos have central qld, norths devils and maybe even Ipswich jets. Cowboys have two and same with the Gold Coast having tweed and burleigh. Melbourne have east brisbane I think.. As far as I know the bulldogs have just hit ahold of the Sunshine Coast team; manlys old feeder club. We don't get the nsw cup on free to air up here but the qld cup is very strong at moment. Good to watch to day the least. What about this samoa connection with the png hunters? Would be some guns there and saw a couple of the png fans with red v's on. Big too hard for archaic board to pull that off though.
 

Minh

First Grade
Messages
8,858
We need a new senior coach, better club managers who have areal desire to be the best. With a respected senior coach there will be respect that will trickle all the way down.
 

Benny

First Grade
Messages
9,500
Bennett came to win a Premiership and achieved that (which no St.George fan would regret) but he didn't do it with a long term view.

He sacrificed our best talent coming through to buy established players, it worked and we got a Premiership.

Unfortunately it left a hole of players coming through which had the flow on effect of playing staying too long as no one to replace them.
 

watatank

Coach
Messages
13,972
I think what has added to the problem is that some of the juniors that we have had come through here haven't worked out, for one reason or another. We have had players like Cameron King, Kyle Stanley and Evander Cummins that have had terrible luck with injuries.

I think we dropped the ball with recruitment in recent years. Much of it was due to Bennett who only had the premiership in mind but I think we have taken the development for granted a bit. I think other clubs are far more aggressive than we are as far as recruiting young players go and it probably needs to be addressed. Our U20s the past few years for the most part have been fairly ordinary where in the past we used to be consistently strong.

I don't advocate it but if you have a look at a club like the Roosters who have most of their players debut for them...they have won the U18s competition the past few seasons spend a fortune on juniors, even flying players from QLD and NZ just to play in Sydney on weekends to play. Not saying we should do that but they are obviously doing that for a reason while we are looking in the local competitions for players and that probably isn't enough.

That said, we have a good group of U20s players coming through that, if they stay together can become good NRL players.
 

watatank

Coach
Messages
13,972
Oh, and to answer the actual question/title thread, Craig Young was recruitment officer for years, he was moved to assistant coach this year and now Robert Finch is the officer. Too early to tell how good he is but for some reason I have my doubts. As said, it will be all about how many of our U20s players we can retain.
 

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