The fact that this topic has turned into a roosters bashing shows exactly why this competition is behind the other competitions in the world. The whole “my club develops these players whilst yours doesn’t” is so outdated and unprofessional it is not even funny any more. Look at any other successful competition in the world and tell me how many of them rely on juniors.
Take our own backyard for example, the AFL whether we like it or not is the best football competition in Australia which is a shame because I love my rugby league but it is fact. They have a draft where it does not matter where you are from you get drafted where you get drafted and that is the end of it and you get on with playing football. Of course they have feeder clubs but those players can be bought/traded as well.
Next example is the competition which averages the most fans per match, the NFL. Do you think they care for one second where their start players come from? The answer to that would be no, they have a draft just like the AFL.
My final example is the English premier league where buying/selling players is the cornerstone of a successful side NOT juniors. Granted the top 4 clubs have a monopoly in this comp which is not ideal but we have the salary cup to counter that in the NRL.
Everyone on this forum needs to get over the junior league debate and realise that the juniors of Australia as a whole should be seen as rugby league juniors rather than Parramatta juniors, Brisbane juniors, Canberra juniors etc. I will use the bulldogs as an example here (this is not a criticism of them in any way). They went from wooden spooners to 2nd place last year. How did they do this? By buying players. The cornerstone of their side at the moment is Kimmorley, Hannant, Morris, Ennis, Idris and Patten. One of those players is a bulldogs junior!
Take a look at the following list of players that were either bought or are not juniors
- Cowboys – Thurston, O’donnell, Bani, Webb, Rovelli, Manuokafoa, Southern, Mason
- Broncos – Winterstein, Wallace, Te’o, Sims, Setu
- Titans – Prince, Laffranchi, Bailey, Preston, Minichiello, Zillman
- Newcastle – Ciraldo, De Gois, Dureau, Taia
- Dragons – Soward, Weyman, Boyd, Costigan, Greenfield,
- Wests – Marshall, Cayless, Fifita, Galloway, Tuiaki, Tuquiri
- Penrith – Petero, Kingston, Puletua, Plum, Purtell, Walsh
- Parra – Mortimer, Poore, Fui Fui, Shackleton, Mateo, Reddy, Cayless
- Souths – Taylor, Asotasi, Taylor, Pettybourne, Luke, Wesser, Best, Crocker, Talanoa,
- Bulldogs – Ennis, Kimmorley, Morris, Hannant, Patten
- Warriors – Price, Tate, Henderson, McKinnon, Moon, Lillyman, Luck, Maloney
- Melbourne – Do I really need to name any players here?
- Cronulla – Smith, Tupou, Morris, Barrett, Cuthbertson
- Canberra – Shillington, Galea, Leoroyd-Lahrs,
- Manly – Foran, Gulavao, Hopoate, Kite, Stewart brothers, Perry, Matai, Lyon
Now that list was done with minimal effort (I am sure many more players than that would make the list) and I am not whinging about the teams buying players, I am merely pointing out that it is widespread. I recognise that some of those players have been at their clubs a number of years and/or were developed at those clubs but that isn’t good enough for omission from this list for some of the people on this forum. I left out the roosters on purpose as I was trying to make the point that all the other clubs do the same thing.
