People in the Penrith system will tell you that Gould was the mouthpiece, the system was built by Matt Cameron and run by him and Jim Jones. Gould did finance their COE when the Panthers got out of trouble after Gould got refinancing via James Packer (they were in manic cash flow problems )
Gould is good at self promotion but talent identification is not his forte.
The best leaders know how to get the best employees and delegation right. He seems to have succeeded in that by the time he left.
Were there missteps along the way? Yeah sure, maybe in his impatience and uncontrollable hands on fiddling getting in the way at times but he knows what needs to be done to setup a winning club and the type of people needed to do the heavy lifting.
I wish we could get Matt Cameron back. It all started to go pear shaped once he, Craig Catterick and Hayden Knowles all left. I think if we could somehow get this dream team all back again we would see a massive difference in our junior pathways development outcomes. It sure as hell would piss all over relying on the Rouse Hill Rhinos as our saviour.
Also I can't believe we still haven't set up any regional academies yet. What the hell are we doing? I know Nathan Brown is supposed to be doing stuff, but what exactly has he setup that wasn't already in place when he was appointed? Have we opened up the purse strings and allocated the needed resources to have a growing and thriving development program in place? Have we removed the stumbling blocks(personnel included) that have hindered progress and success? Have we hired better people that have the same vision at heart and know how to get there?
These are serious questions that I hope some posters here who have contacts and some knowledge of the goings on at the club could answer and help us all understand where we are exactly in regards to all our pathways systems.
We are a mighty club with more then enough money, juniors, fans and the only club that represents a whole city of the same name that is now a thriving and still growing metropolis that has what, around a million people in its catchment area if not more? We should be like the Broncos if we ran all our structures correctly. People are our greatest asset. But the right people in the right positions seems to be our greatest weakness too.
I hope we are addressing this. Can any posters here please enlighten us on what is actually going on right now in as much detail as possible, including names of new hires and who they have replaced if applicable and is it in their opinion a step in the right direction or new program setups if any and so forth? Are there still people around running things that in their opinion they aren't suited to and or who would be better if applicable? Or anything else that maybe relevant on this topic. Thank you.
Allowing Matt Cameron and Co to leave our club seems to be one of the most significant blunders our club has ever made. Penrith has been the beneficiary of that mistake and have given Matt everything he needed to take the Panthers to the next level. We need to do a cut and paste on them and replicate what we used to have and even amp it up a few notches. Until that happens, if ever, we will probably never see another premiership again unless we just got dumb lucky. Juniors is the life blood of any successful organisation and the only real and fair way to cheat the salary cap by having a steady stream of quality juniors always coming though who replace or fill positions that the cap forces you to lose. Without it you get what we have now. A team that can't buy or find enough quality players to fill every position in the 17. Short of that the only other option is to have a billionaire benefactor like the Roosters that will do anything to see us succeed. Which we don't and aren't ever likely.
Cheers
TheRam
The elite pathway system that has taken Penrith to the top of the NRL has its makings at Parramatta, where the current Panthers CEO worked under Brian Smith.
www.racingandsports.com.au
Penrith's grand plan was Parramatta vision
by
Scott Bailey , 10 months ago
The elite pathway system that has taken Penrith to the top of the NRL has its makings at Parramatta, where the current Panthers CEO worked under Brian Smith.
Brian Smith sees more than just a hint of Parramatta DNA in Penrith's looming NRL dynasty.
In fact, the former decade-long Eels coach knows too well that the Panthers' current reality was once a Parramatta vision that never truly got the ultimate reward.
"What (Matt Cameron) would say to me is that it was just a copy-and-paste job," Smith told AAP.
"There's no need to complicate it."
Cameron is Penrith's CEO of football, and the man some consider to be Phil Gould's greatest signing when Panthers supremo.
But for 15 years before that, Cameron was one of the men trying to end Parramatta's long premiership drought.
An assistant coach in the under-16s Harold Matthews set up when Smith arrived at the Eels at the end of 1996, Cameron spent most of his time working in the Eels' junior pathways.
The much-talked about Penrith player production line that is the envy of every club is the exact thing Cameron attempted to set up at the Eels.
In Smith's time at the Eels, Parramatta won a total of nine NSWRL club championships, demonstrating their success from under-16s through to reserve grade.
At Penrith that dominance is being replicated and then some ahead of the Panthers' third straight NRL grand final and possible premiership defence.
A strong mutual respect remains between Smith and other former Eels staff at the Panthers, with insiders happy to point out the striking similarities in systems.
"It was more than the winning thing (about the pathways)," Smith said.
"When I first got there, on the food-chain of coaching, Matty was on the bottom.
"So if you want a person who understands the history and how to develop a club, coaches, assistant coaches and finally players, Matty has seen it all.
"Phil Gould knew what he was getting when he took him to Penrith."
Parramatta's inability to take that next step and convert their hope of the early 2000s to a premiership has been one of the stories of grand final week.
So too their dramatic slide from 2009 onward, with the club at times losing its identity and ging through the 2016 salary-cap scandal before rebuilding to return to Sunday's grand final against Penrith.
But as far as Smith is concerned, what Cameron has at Penrith is the same job with more experience, life lessons, geographical pull and far greater resources.
"You could easily stuff that up or not maximise it though," Smith said.
"What he has been able to do is adapt and embellish all the advantages that Penrith have.
"They are a very wealthy club.
"They have always good pretty contacts in western NSW.
"But he has just made the most of all those resources and opportunities to create what that juggernaut is."
Under Cameron, Penrith pour in some $2.5 million worth of investment each year and the likes of Ben Harden, Sam Jones and former Eel Lee Hopkins now heading it up.
It's a process that includes around 300 youngsters each year, with academy squads in Penrith and at satellite towns in Dubbo, Forbes and Bathurst under other former Penrith players.
Just last week its results became most evident, as the Panthers took out the NSW Cup and under-21s Jersey Flegg, after also winning the under-18s SG Ball in April.
Victory on Sunday would make the Panthers the first club in the game's history to take out all three of those grades as well the top-flight in the same year.
"Cammo (Cameron) is the brains," long-time Panthers recruitment manager Jim Jones said.
"It probably all started when he got here and had that history in pathways at Parra.
"He sat down and one of his first papers was develop from within.
"We said let's start winning under-16s, then 18s, and it will roll onto first grade."
In its most simple terms, the program taught at Penrith differs from the one at Parramatta two decades ago only in that there were no regional academies for the Eels.
But the outcome is similar.
In 2009 when the Eels reached the NRL grand final on the back of a crazy run from eighth spot, there were 13 players in their 17-man team that made their debuts at the club.
This year, Penrith's 30-man squad includes a whopping 24 who have been through the club's elite pathways system.
"I remember Nathan (Cleary) and Jarome (Luai) sitting on the bench in Harold Matts," Jones said.
"And then you have a bit of luck and guys like (James) Fisher-Harris and (Moses) Leota roll into town.
"But the idea was just to get that winning culture into your grades and it will burst into your system.
"It's like a drug eventually, they get used to it and they expect to win."
Cameron is not alone in having the Parramatta DNA.
Until last year, Craig Catterick was Penrith's head doctor after serving a long stint at Parramatta under Smith.
Former Eels performance boss Hayden Knowles was at the Panthers until exiting last season, with close observers noting strong similarities between the way the Eels of 2001 and current Panthers team are prepared.
Both teams could back up play after play, while their forwards show the mindset of always moving and regularly competing for the ball in the in-goals.
"When Gus or Ivan (Cleary) took those guys out of Parra, they were getting a lot more than just the average acquisition or staff member," Smith said.
"Penrith were getting guys who were very effective in their jobs. But they were also getting the unity package.
"They all knew each other. And that made it easier for them to make progress rapidly.
"They got so many people on the same wavelength in so many aspects: Developing a club in the pathways, creating success."
