If it was as simple as a bit of fancy accounting, your club should be a powerhouse. The Raiders aren't short of money, but still struggle to keep players.
Surely you knew what I meant by fancy accounting... Don't pretend that it's not ubiquitous across the NRL, or that your side is above it.
The main reason the Raiders struggle to keep good players is the same reason all regional clubs do; the nature of the NRL's player market and salary cap rules are totally weighted in favour of Sydney and big city clubs.
No transfer windows, no draft, no incentives and protections for juniors development, having to pay overs just to get any player settled in Sydney (with the exception of those with literally not other choice) to move out of Sydney, etc, etc, etc. All those things add up, and the vast majority impact teams from smaller markets significantly more than the others, but this is a tangent that it's own massive discussion.
Maybe?
What about the happy accident of BS short-sighted rule changes, that have completely f**ked the game to the point that most games are basically unwatchable in my opinion, effectively rigging the whole sport in the favour of teams that played Penrith's style of game... It's definitely not a coincidence that Penrith go from 10th in 2019 to almost undefeated minor premiers in 2020.
Pre the six again rule this Penrith side is being strangled out of the contest by most sides with a competent defence. Post six again they can rely on gifted unearned cheap possession and field position, and run riot as a result.
The fact that the Panthers were flat broke less than a decade ago and were a realistic chance of going bankrupt until Gus got old mate Jimmy Packer to more or less pay off all your debts, effectively allowing all of the club's bad business practices and overextending of themselves to go without consequences, was a massive boon as well. Your junior development and growth West would have at least crippled the club financially for years, if not decades, if not for that piece of charity that most other clubs could never, ever, even dream of having the good fortune of falling in their lap.
All of that, and more, seems to be more than 'maybe' a little bit lucky to me.
It's pretty fortunate that we have had a talented group come through in pretty quick succession, but it's also fair to say that good management played it's part. Our strike rate historically has been pretty shit for the most part, and this lot are the first products to come through from the 14-15 age group with the benefit of the academy and other facilities we have in place. Pretty much every kid we have debuted in the last 5 years or so has either kicked on with us or another club. The ones before that such as Cartwright, Moylan, Jennings, Lewis, Coote, Graham etc had plenty of talent, but either didn't really reach their potential or had to go elsewhere to reach it. The talent management now is clearly better.
Other big juniors clubs have had periods of similar strike rates, the only difference is somehow Penrith have managed to keep all of Cleary, Luai, To'o, etc, when at other clubs three quarters, or more, of those guys would have ended up in other club's jerseys before they'd really had a chance to kick on as a team.
I mean sure the Tigers probably are a bad example, because they really are a shambles, but they are a recent example, and just look at what they've produced over the last roughly ten years, and imagine where they'd be now if they could somehow have keep even half of it together.
That's the major difference between the current Panthers side and other similar ones. Which brings me back to my question; how have they managed it when for almost 30 years now , if not longer, every other side has found it more or less totally impossible.
The players are obviously happy, they are winning and still getting a pretty decent payday. My guess would be that they are happy to be making a good living while playing with their mates, being in the conversation for Rep jerseys and having state of the art facilities. When they get to the point that the next kid comes through and looks likely to take their spot, they know the Dogs, Tigers etc will throw stupid money at them anyway.
Ha ha, you're not serious are you!
Sport is a business, loyalty is dead, and 99% of players aren't taking a cent less than what they are worth on the open market.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have the slightest issue with it, the players have short careers and good luck to them, but let's not kid ourselves.
