I think if the Knights were investing that wouldn't have happened. Your catchment area is so large, and the focus needs to be putting money into areas which are producing, which really the amount of guys who just come from the Hunter region is where 90% of the money needs to go into.
I'm a Newcastle born boy (No knights when I grew up though), used to go to heaps of Knights games as I lived at Adamstown and could walk to games. I'd like to see a strong Knights side, but they really need to put money into that and get guys want to stay. Geez you look at the guys who are in the NRL who get there start at the Knights in lower grades and go elsewhere. That makes one great team, even if you get half of those to stay, you guys are a powerhouse.
Wests leagues just needs to put some money into ensuring that the club itself has that attraction to stay.
Investing what, exactly? Hopes and dreams? There was no money, as macavity says. The club was broke & they sold out to a paper billionaire who didn’t understand footy and thought he could buy a quick fix. It wasn’t “old boy cliques” like people on here are saying. If anything it was the opposite, the club brought in outsiders like Brian Smith or Tinkler/Bennett and basically gave them carte blanche to dictate how everything at the club should work. The old boys were cut out for the most part, and if it wasn’t for one particular old boy in Matt Gidley insisting on a $1 buyback clause during the club takeover, the Knights probably wouldn’t exist anymore.
The club as a whole had simply long been run on the smell of an oily rag, even with the temporary cash fountain from Tinkler which never reached below the first grade setup. You can’t be a professional operation like the elite clubs were becoming in the 00’s and early 10’s if you literally don’t have any money.
Wests has invested and is investing orders of magnitude more in pathways & we’re starting to see the benefits of that now, for all Joey’s bleating about how back in his day they had “75% internally developed players” in their premiership winning teams (11/17 is actually 65%, but you don’t need to be good at maths to play footy), almost every team we’ve put out this year has had at least 8 and usually 10 guys who’ve come through Knights pathways. Which would compare well to like half the clubs in the comp right now.
