18th club, whose next?

[flippikat]

Watching the NSW Cup GF now (courtesy the NSWRL TV app - its free to watch the game, even from NZ)... win or lose I got a feeling it's gonna be a great week or so for the red & black army.

 

[Gobsmacked]

Watching the NSW Cup GF now (courtesy the NSWRL TV app - its free to watch the game, even from NZ)... win or lose I got a feeling it's gonna be a great week or so for the red & black army.

Man! That's awesome!

 

[flippikat]

Man! That's awesome!

I heard it was free on 9Now, but rather than muck around with trying to access that, I figured the app might carry it for free.

Turns out my hunch was right. QRL did the same last week with their GF.

Good on both of them!

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

You’re right but there’s always room for smaller bodies too. The likes of Cotter and Martin hold their own against the biggest of Pacific Islander players.

The challenge is keeping them in the game in those early post-pubescent years when the early developers get the jump on them.
I wonder if the dearth of quality halfbacks coming through presently is in fact indicative of this already occurring over the last 30 years.

 

[Matiunz]

Yeh but post 2002 Aussie clubs activity went though the roof in terms of scouts

It’s not just nz migration to oz it’s clubs scouting players and offering them a place in Australian schools (pretty sure sbw and Benji were poached like that)

I was at the bulldogs “home” game in Wellington when they unveiled SBW as the winner of their scholarship- he was completely unknown then so great spotting by the dogs there.
Early days of the Warriors a decent chunk of players came straight from the local comps, that number decreased significantly until it dried up, there was even a brain dead tactic for a while to send Warriors development players to other clubs to develop and then we would buy them back for overs (ala peta Hiku eg).
Pretty much Any decent NZ player now has had a large chunk of their league education in Aus systems, we need to find a way to better develop them in NZ and then play them in NZ based teams