O'Davis has a say

[B-dos]

we had half a stadium

 

[perverse]

the stadium construction definitely affected crowds. just because we still have 18-20k seats... doesn't mean they are all desirable. a lot of people simply wont attend if they can't get good seats in a good spot. i'd say it has just as much... if not a much higher effect than any "no locals in the team" stigma.

truth is we still have heaps of local talent in the team - including just about all of our star power. the old fuddy-duddy "locals only" mentality has to go. success will bring the crowds, regardless.

 

[roopy]

we also had plenty of empty seats at every game.

The Knights are well aware that locals are not engaged with the team as much as they used to be - some people are putting it down to an anti polonesian thing - and others see it as a problem with not enough locals - but there has been a lot of talk about bringing on local juniors more - Onslow mentions it nearly every time he is quoted, so he is very aware that he should be looking locally as much as possible for junior talent.

 

[Bensen]

fair to say that the visitors to this forum are in the hardcore fan category.

I reckon Roopy is on the mark regarding the average punter that fills the seats.

Personally, I think its more about how long the players stay than where they are from as far as relating to them goes. Plenty of imports are our most recognisable and all time favourites but they stuck around long enough to considered locals.

The times are a changin

 

[perverse]

i'm not saying that we shouldn't take locals, people obviously feel a greater affinity with local players than they do with imports (unless, of course, the imports are actually good players like BK or doogs... then for some reason this mentality drops by the wayside... funny that). of course if there are talented juniors we should keep hold of them. the problem is over the past 3 or 4 years we absolutely have not had any talent worth bringing through, except for the ones that we already did!

how many times can this be spelled out? WE HAVE NOT HAD THE JUNIORS TO BRING THROUGH. the ones we have let go have been for good salary cap reasons at the time. i don't even see how this is a discussion. you can't just make a list of juniors that are playing for other clubs, because each of the players you always bring up were let go for good reasons at the time.

as for the discussion of crowds - you're not going to accept reason in that argument so i'm not even going to bother. we've had empty seats at pretty much every game aside from the odd sellout each season since i've lived in newcastle (2001).

if you want to support a team full of local nuffies that runs dead last each season then i really can't get through to you. it's not like i hate supporting our locals, i love it, but when is the penny going to drop for you that you're living in a fantasy world as far as a competitive team of locals 1 through 17 goes?

 

[roopy]

We have brought through as many local juniors in the last 4 years as we ever do - McManus, Uate, Paterson, Dureau, Walsh, Steve Gordon, Snowden, Mullen, Seu Seu - the junior nursery is as good as it ever was - but we aren't making efforts to keep them.

 

[perverse]

We have brought through as many local juniors in the last 4 years as we ever do - McManus, Uate, Paterson, Dureau, Walsh, Steve Gordon, Snowden, Mullen, Seu Seu - the junior nursery is as good as it ever was - but we aren't making efforts to keep them.

McManus, Paterson, Dureau, Mullen, Uate - all retained and playing first grade for us (that's over half the players you've named). Seu Seu is on his very last crack at an NRL spot with Manly... and hasn't really looked the goods in first grade at any stage for any amount of time. Snowden - definitely a regrettable loss, i will give you that one. we had to make a choice between walsh and dureau, we chose dureau - right or wrong decision irrelevant.

and Steve Gordon? lol? which NRL club is he playing for again?

so what is your point roops? out of all those names, i can really only give you 1 out of 9 juniors that we really should have kept. i think an 8/9 good decision (7/9 if you include letting go of walsh as a bad decision) strike rate is pretty bloody good. please note that i did stipulate in my previous post that the juniors that HAVE come through and were worth keeping in the last 4 years, we have brought through and kept.

 

[roopy]

so what is your point roops?

Your point seemed to be we don't produce juniors anymore.
My point is that we produce as many now as we ever did = with the exception of 2008 when Smith brought in a whole team of Sydney nuffies and sacked all our locals with potential for NYC - which probably cost us 2 or 3 locals in firstgrade, and has crippled our under 20s till this year.

Ironically, the same Smith was on TV last night bemoaning that Boyd Cordner is out for the season for the Roosters - one of the locals he lost from the Knights.

 

[perverse]

Your point seemed to be we don't produce juniors anymore.
My point is that we produce as many now as we ever did = with the exception of 2008 when Smith brought in a whole team of Sydney nuffies and sacked all our locals with potential for NYC - which probably cost us 2 or 3 locals in firstgrade, and has crippled our under 20s till this year.

Ironically, the same Smith was on TV last night bemoaning that Boyd Cordner is out for the season for the Roosters - one of the locals he lost from the Knights.

my point is that we can't do any better than we have over the past 4 years as far as juniors in the team goes. sorry if that all got lost in the translation. i can't say i agree with what smith did to the juniors... although if we can get someone like a Con Mika to step up then it wont be all for nothing in that regard.

 

[aqua_duck]

really the only local I regret letting go recently would be Snowden. The rest were unpreventable or they weren't good enough.

The juniors we have let go in recent years:
Lowrie-showed nothing here, I'd say we did pretty well to get Zeb Taia in the 'exchange'
Snowden-should've kept him
Seu Seu-was given the arse for multiple off field incidents
Tilse-given the arse for being an idiot
Bird-ask Hagan and the previous regime why they let him go
Ennis-stuck behind Buderus
Tupou-was 140kg when he was here
Perry/Newton-weren't willing to earn their keep
Natusch-we upgraded with Tuimavave IMO
Walsh-sealed his own fate with in the trial against the storm last year
Riley Brown-dud
Boyd Cordner-we simply can't compete with the roosters chequebook

 

[Joker's Wild]

Your point seemed to be we don't produce juniors anymore.
My point is that we produce as many now as we ever did = with the exception of 2008 when Smith brought in a whole team of Sydney nuffies and sacked all our locals with potential for NYC - which probably cost us 2 or 3 locals in firstgrade, and has crippled our under 20s till this year.

Ironically, the same Smith was on TV last night bemoaning that Boyd Cordner is out for the season for the Roosters - one of the locals he lost from the Knights.

"Nuffies" like Taia, Hilder, Fa'aoso, De Gois, Cross, MacDougall and Sau? Those are the very guys who have been winning us games and were all brought to the club ( or back to in maddogs case) by Smith. If you compare them to the juniors they replaced and the difference in our positions on the table between 07 & 08 it is hard to knock the decsions.

 

[roopy]

"Nuffies" like Taia, Hilder, Fa'aoso, De Gois, Cross, MacDougall and Sau? Those are the very guys who have been winning us games and were all brought to the club ( or back to in maddogs case) by Smith. If you compare them to the juniors they replaced and the difference in our positions on the table between 07 & 08 it is hard to knock the decsions.

Nuffies like Fruen, Kev Naiquama, and a dozen other kids not wanted in Sydney whose names i have forgotton - while Lucas Miller went to Melbourne, Liam Higgins went to Manly, Jason Schirnack went to Wests, Robbie Rochow went to Melbourne, Shane Gray went to Manly, Luke Clydesdale went to Penrith - and worst of all, half a dozen other local kids didn't get a run in NYC at all.

 

[aqua_duck]

Lol thank god Shane Gray went to Manly, otherwise imagine the controversey. Shirnack ain't a local in anycase and his brother was at the tigers, and Miller has come back none the better

 

[roopy]

I was watching NYC on TV when Miller dislocated his knee - or rather - had his knee dislocated by a tackler - and I didn't think he would play again. He had his knee reconstructed about 18 months ago, and people say it takes 18 months to get over a knee reconstruction completely. Despite that, last year Miller and Ryan Tandy were the starting props for the Central Coast Storm side that was near the top of the table in the NSW cup all season - so he actually has better recent form than it was possible for our other young guys to show in the Newcastle comp, and despite him looking like he hasn't trained much, he was still very close to our best in the last trial i thought - just behind Tovo. Him and Adams are our bargain buys this year IMO.

 

[Alex28]

I was watching NYC on TV when Miller dislocated his knee - or rather - had his knee dislocated by a tackler - and I didn't think he would play again. He had his knee reconstructed about 18 months ago, and people say it takes 18 months to get over a knee reconstruction completely. Despite that, last year Miller and Ryan Tandy were the starting props for the Central Coast Storm side that was near the top of the table in the NSW cup all season - so he actually has better recent form than it was possible for our other young guys to show in the Newcastle comp, and despite him looking like he hasn't trained much, he was still very close to our best in the last trial i thought - just behind Tovo. Him and Adams are our bargain buys this year IMO.

Doesn't change the fact that for the most of the local names you listed had left we have recruited better than we have developed over those years...

 

[roopy]

Doesn't change the fact that for the most of the local names you listed had left we have recruited better than we have developed over those years...

No we haven't.
The reason you can't possibly get local players back is because we don't have an 8 million dollar salary cap - which we would need to sign all the best Newcastle talent.
The guys we have are decent use of our salary cap - but our local guys are better.

 

[Pika]

Which locals?