You missed my point. Players are bought and sold every year. With Saints, it's a JV and I'm not about to count up the juniors because imho, I'd be proud of any club that can field first graders that have been nurtured through their own junior programs.
Do you think that Lance Thompson or Mark Gasnier don't utilise the training facilities at Wollongong? Of course they do.
Equally, Trent Barrett wil use the facilties at Kogarah.
There are plenty of teams in the NRL who rely on imports. If you look at the Dragons side, the vast majority of players in the top grades come from the St George and Illawarra districts.
Problem is, we keep building up the juniors but because of the club's committment to the salary cap, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to hang onto players. The irony being that despite the JV, the underwriters still have to compete for its juniors with other clubs on the open market.
