If that's the case Kikau was an import too.
Salmon Cronulla junior.
Yesterday on NRL360 they had a team of Penrith locals who have left and half of them are not locals! Api developed by Penrith? hahahaha
In a few years they'll want to get compensated for Fifita! Penrith really need to sit the F down and relax! You had a purple patch and you want to be compensated for having the largest junior base in Sydney? For a club who brings along 3 people and a dog to away games outside of Penrith you lot need to be brought back to reality!
I commented about that in another thread. The list on 360 and how much it was talked up was way over the top.
In saying that the players you claimed all made their name at other clubs before stepping foot into Belmore apart from Mortimer, Gould captained Penrith, went to Newtown & Souffs before becoming a Dog. .
Kikau was a Nth Qld Junior but debuted at Penrith. Salmon, SoS, Capewell were all fringe before coming to us. Api as well really. He didn't get a shot at Souffs until Luke got suspended and that was after we signed him. Letting him go to Manly in favour of Seggy was a dumb move and one of Gus's missteps, fortunately it was corrected later.
The size of the Junior base means shit, other clubs cherry pick it to an extent (Sualli, Schuster, Katoa among others) and we also get kids from well outside the geographical area. According to Benny on 360 last night the Tigers catchment is actually bigger (Havent verified it, but that what he said)
Roosters and Storms geographical catchment would both fit on the same postage stamp, but both do an amazing job of identifying unknown kids from other areas and developing them into first graders. Roosters also supplement that with signing big names, but that is a different conversation. I hate the Storm as much as any sane person, but I still believe they were hard done by with the cap thing. Sure they broke the rules and it is what it is, but the stupid system is what allowed it. They developed all those players, other clubs all had just as good a shot it them if not better, but Storm put in the work and got punished for it.
You say we need to sit down and relax. Maybe we should make bred not bought T Shirts like some numpty club did in the 2000's cant for the life of me recall who it was, maybe you can help me? They lost 3 or 4 players iirc.
In closing you should all be really sucking our dicks and saying thank you. If it wasn't for the clubs that put in the resources to find and develop players the rest of the shit clubs would have nothing to pay overs for. In the case of your club they at least are now putting the systems in place to get back to developing instead of raping the hardworking clubs.
**By "our" I dont just mean us, Roosters, Storm, Knights, Raiders, Cows, Warriors & Broncos (eeww) deserve a bit of love too.