Parramatta may have a larger junior league and that league may produce more 1st grade players, but if Parramatta ceased to exist it would hardly affect the quality of the NRL. Their junior area would just be looked after by other clubs. Apart from a golden decade in the 80s Parramatta have hardly contributed much else to the league.
What nonsense.
It costs time and money to develop juniors mate. And knowledge and love of the game.
You give our area to someone else and see if the players all come through as well.
If you could develop juniors as well as us then why didn't you take Williams two years ago? He was aways a big kid with potential, everyone could see that.
And what about Mateo? If producing talent was as simple as having a large enough catchment area, then why did we have to send him to England to grow up? Why didn't you try and steal him off us back then?!? He'd already played in First Grade and people knew he was a talent so you could've taken him then and done all the hard yards with him, couldn't you? No, you waited until he was just starting to kick arse before trying to nab him, didn't you?!
It's a professional game, how many big competitions around the world rely entirely on local juniors to produce quality sides.
Ok then, considering that we aren't the English Premier League and can't buy talent from all over the world, where do you think we should produce it from?
(Oh, and it has been widely recognised that the lack of locals in the English Premier League is one of the reasons that their national team is sh*t. But in Rugby League we can't afford a drop in the local standards, because that would leave just Queensland, Auckland, and a couple of freezing hell-holes in Northern England playing the game)
If your argument defending the purchase of a fringe first grader is "it's a business, you shouldn't rely on locals", then you kind of prove the point us Parra fans are making, don't you?
If you think that the business of Rugby League is all about purchasing talent, then you really are missing the point.
If Tony Williams was a priority signing for Parramatta then your management would have treated his negotiations the same way as they did with Hayne and Inu.
True. No-one here is denying that. We think that it is a mistake to let him go (unless the $300k is more than a rumour).
However, going back to your previous post about the locals in the team, you will notice that not one of our players who isn't a local was the product of outbidding the local team (with the possible exception of Riddell, but Saints had got service out of him, knew what they were letting go and weren't too fussed). Throwing cash at a kid on the fringes of first grade just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Surely you can understand that. We put all the work in and other clubs take the players right as they are about to blossom.
It is widely known in league circles that Parra juniors have good skill sets. Some clubs like to take advantage of that.
