How to Attract Players?

[Warriorsoul]

Given the salary means we cant throw endless $$ at players, do we have anything at all that we can use to attract players to the Warriors. If you were Jim Doyle, what would you say to players to try and get them to sign? (Keep it clean lol)

 

[jamaman]

Only Kiwis will come here..

 

[ZEROMISSTACKLES]

I'd expand on where to recruit from for the future cos right now,

• I don't believe theres the talent on the current market that can change us into a premiership winning team
• We need to look past Australia
• Our future looks dim

Leivaha Pulu and Tohu Harris are good signings with Pulu still growing as a player. Harris is probably in his prime right now. For me personally - they're just good players, they're not exceptional but like I said Pulu, is still yet to show the NRL his best so Im hoping he can do that for us and we can help him get there, and more importantly we win games off of that.

Many have mentioned we need to recruit from Australia which I find suprising. Luke, Foran, RTS, Hoffman, Robson, Ayshford are fairly recent signings from Australia. WE HAVE BEEN recruiting what we CAN from Australia. Have these extremely good Aussie recruits made us into a premiership winning team? Well to be fair no one anticipated them to end up so average despite Aussie league fans describing us as the place where players go to kill their careers and with a reputation like that, should we still try to recruit the best from Aussie?

Lets have a look at union I say. The Wests Tigers recruited Taniela Tuiaki from an Auckland rugby club, he wasn't Blues bound but he was an NRL wrecking ball.

The under 20s aren't promising and with the Warriors and Kiwis cementing a loser status it really makes me wonder about the future of league in NZ. Unless of course we make changes.

 

[Penrose Warrior]

Sign all the players you want, if the coach isn't up to it you're not winning squat. I'm not suggesting Kearney is not up to it, but he's not shown to be NRL standard yet either.

So yeah, our next 3 years will be as much dictated by whether Kearney can coach (and whether his assistants are any chop) as who we sign.

 

[ZEROMISSTACKLES]

Sign all the players you want, if the coach isn't up to it you're not winning squat.

Ok we'll sign the entire 2017 Kangaroos Squad, all 20 something of them.

I think the players need to take some of the blame too. Yes Kearney does pick them and he can be faulted for that I guess but the other issue is, do we have a replacement that can step up to and right over the incumbents level of performance? Its not like we got much depth.

Maybe Kearneys got the wrong structures for our type of players, maybe it takes time, maybe our players have hit a form slump. I think if Kearney was to incorporate his structures to the Roos, those guys would carry it out to a tee and then Kearney would then be great right? theres no I in team, its a bit of this and a bit of that.

 

[jaseg]

We've been recruiting from Union for ages... just at junior level, which is probably the best way to do it (need more consistent cherry picking than we have recently though... not much outside of Fineanganofo, Papalii & Nanai look to have potential). Harder to recruit at senior level because they need to learn league smarts, and if you're bringing in more senior players you'll be spending NRL money on them - hard to let them learn in reserves.

There's value in the Aus market... just because bad operators haven't found enough of it in the past (eg. the Robson signing was never going to work, despite some fans - and clearly some administrators too - fooling themselves into thinking he was first grade standard) doesn't mean it isn't there or available for us to get. Reserves who look NRL-ready come cheap, even to us, because they're looking for NRL opportunities. Sign 6, if a third of them pay off you've filled 2/17 first team slots.

It's also not really true to represent establish Aus NRL players as unsignable for us... we've certainly signed a few in the past. Since the Cleary era (so 6 years of transfers) we've signed 8 experienced Aussies (not counting guys like Townsend, but 50-60ish games or more guys)... not enough in the way of inexperienced guys though - the type of which Cleary signed quite a few, and had some success with.

 

[ZEROMISSTACKLES]

We've been recruiting from Union for ages...

Not only recruit but to make league a sport the youngsters want to play is what Im talking about. I posted the number of NZ union registered players compared to leagues and leagues numbers is far too low, my sources were from the net. We may have been recruiting for ages but NZ Super TEAMS have been at the top recruiting top talent for ages while our ONE league team has been struggling for talent for ages. It sure doesn't look that way, maybe NZRFL need to work harder.

League smarts isn't too far out of reach for those senior players. Maybe more so in some positions but its not well out of their depth as the range of skills in league isn't too hard to acquire for these professional athletes. Again Ill use Taniela Tuiaki for an example - he came from union much later in life and he went great for the Tigers. Tuiaki was my example of Aussie scouts working hard, they found their winger in Auckland club rugby. Thats hard work.

 

[jaseg]

Not only recruit but to make league a sport the youngsters want to play. The numbers sure doesn't show it. I posted the number of NZ union registered players compared to leagues and leagues numbers is far too low. We may have been recruiting for ages but NZ Super TEAMS have been at the top for ages while our ONE league team has been struggling for talent for ages. It sure doesn't look that way.

Easier said than done I'm afraid. Part of that surely requires a successful Warriors and Kiwis, for start - and investment in local leagues and market saturation that is just beyond our means.

Short of the NRL chipping in... which just flat out won't happen.

 

[ZEROMISSTACKLES]

Easier said than done I'm afraid. Part of that surely requires a successful Warriors and Kiwis, for start - and investment in local leagues and market saturation that is just beyond our means.

Short of the NRL chipping in... which just flat out won't happen.

Yeah I agree its hard work but thats what it takes. I spoke about this before in regards to making league cool for teens in another thread. They have to find a way, identify the market problem and conduct the research, Im not sure if thats how they solve it but until they sort it, league will just continue to suck in NZ. Im surprised the brits haven't surpassed us yet with all their league wealth.

 

[ZEROMISSTACKLES]

I would love to be an NRL scout for the Warriors. Probably 4 hours of sleep a day, 1 hour of gym a day, 19 hours dedicated to rugby league scouting. Endeavour to make the impossible possible. Hire me lol!!

 

[MKEB...]

I dunno, but a sack of paua, a slab of p1ss and half an ounce used to work wonders for local clubs a few years back.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Move the home ground and training base to Queenstown, that might get a few more of the Aussie boys interested.

 

[soc123_au]

Cocaine?

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Dunno about that, ourmob don't seem all that interested in finding the white line at the moment, certainly not in second halves...

 

[TheDMC]

Move the home ground and training base to Queenstown, that might get a few more of the Aussie boys interested.

NRL team based in Queenstown ... that's funny. They would stick out like a sore thumb, be like a big bunch of munters among backpackers, health nuts, and landed gentry. Probably 100 leagueies in Qtown.

 

[WellsNZ]

Targeting Poms makes a lot of sense because the home factor is gone.

However I imagine if any big English recruit had a word to Tomkins about coming to the Warriors it wouldn't be a very glowing endorsement.

There's very little reason for an Aussie to come here beyond money or lack of opportunity. Established guys the opportunity isn't an issue so it's only the money.

Scour the ressies for some props/a winger who aren't getting the opportunity and might be worth a gamble where you can say look you've got to move to NZ but we can get you playing first grade. Maybe it'll be a guy who has had some off field issues, or injuries or is a bit older, but that's where scouts should be earning their money by identifying who is a risk worth taking.

Matt Lodge is an example of a guy who could grow into a good prop in the NRL but kept f**king up off the field and now he's in reserves I think. He seems like a grade a f**kwit but maybe he could turn himself around

 

[JJ]

TBH I don't think there's anything to say...

The club needs to (imo) do two things

1. Show an ability to win and consistently compete
2. Show an ability to develop talent

Can't do either - of the current batch I'd argue only Mannering and Matulino (at various stages anyway) have developed to being the sort of players expected, and I can't think of anyone we recruited that became better with us (historically Maloney, Mears etc I guess but different regime)

The Broncos attract big talent ignoring the smoke and mirrors with the cap - Auckland is a better place to live imo, and when they had Griffin and were struggling they didn't - Grandpa Wayne comes back and things change

 

[Rich102]

It came up on NRL 360 a couple of weeks back. Players wanting to change clubs look seriously at the coach. The top 5, if I remember them right, were: 5. Ricky Stuart. 4. Gus Gould (though not strictly a coach) 3. Des Hasler 2. Craig Bellamy 1. Wayne Bennett.

 

[JJ]

It came up on NRL 360 a couple of weeks back. Players wanting to change clubs look seriously at the coach. The top 5, if I remember them right, were: 5. Ricky Stuart. 4. Gus Gould (though not strictly a coach) 3. Des Hasler 2. Craig Bellamy 1. Wayne Bennett.

I wonder where Elliott, McFadden and Kearney rate lol

 

[RHYTHM AND STEALTH]

Recruiting forwards is easy. We should start with Qld Cup and NSW cup. Some good prospects in those grades dying for an opportunity. Some big boppers as well. Recruiting halves is very hard as we would have to pay massive overs to get a quality half to come and all the good young halves are signed early to developmental contracts