strange...

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susan

Bencher
I dont get to watch much toyota cup and although i see a few sunshine coast games  it is difficult for me to comment BUT

it seems strange to me that we have the best lower grade record of any club over the last 2 years

-were minor premiers in the toyota cup last year
-leading toyota cup this year till the mass send off against cowboys (and still only 2 wins off the top)
-won the QRL title last year and are flying home with a late run this year

yet we seem to have absolutely no depth to call on,particularly in the forwards.we seem to have a top 17 and then any replacements get a 5 minute run.With the exception of  foran and JWH for a few games last year  we have seen a couple of games from whare and hopoate and the embarrasing site of buerher not getting a run at all.

watching the titans the last few weeks with a few big young forwards like bodene thompson and that huge unit ryan??,the tigers with fifita and dwyer,the production line of young blokes from the broncos and storm and now the emergence of some real young talent at the roosters it has really rammed the point home to me - what is going on at manly.

the answer must be that we have 2 very good sides playing the lower grades with no real budding super stars which can easily happen.

It is unfortunate because

-our forward pack must be the oldest in the comp on an average age basis with most players form tapering off
-we dont seem to have obvious up and comers  in the forwards that have the confidence of the coach
- AND we also seem to have a tight salary cap situation

crusher is one of the great recruiters and the big man has  a real challenge ahead.lets hope he keeps his fine record intact because the club needs it badly over the next few years.
 
good points susan.. i dont know why we are so reluctant to blood the young  ones..  maybe thats why they go else where,, we train them up  to just let them go...
 
Watch the Toyota cup today if you want to see good young forwards.

Tasi, Cunningham, Stromquist all have first grade written all over them, eventually. Tasi may be the closest to ready but he's leaving, I think, so bugger him.

In the Q cup we have Lussick in the back row. I haven't seen him play this year but he was killer in the 20's. I thought he might've got the nod ahead of Buhrer, but that's not the way Des went.
 
I don't rate Stromquist at all from what I've seen, which isn't much. Cunningham looks alright.
 
Volley link said:
I don't rate Stromquist at all from what I've seen, which isn't much. Cunningham looks alright.
is he any relation to owen cunningham???
 
Volley link said:
I don't rate Stromquist at all from what I've seen, which isn't much. Cunningham looks alright.

I've seen good & bad from him. I haven't seen that much either, maybe I've happened to see his best couple of games, but I have defo seen him play well.

Cunningham looks to be a gun. He's impressed me every time I've seen him.
 
duff

thats my point.we have needed some forward changes this year at times but we never see them as we do with those other sides i mentioned.

2 possible reasons for that

1.Des doesnt rate them as being good enough
2.They may be good enough but des wont play youngsters in the pack even though the senior forwards are struggling

I dont know the answer to the above hence the title of the thread.overachieving lower grades and no promotions occurring is a conundrum.
 
I think the answer is that Des simply doesn't rate the Under 20s comp and has always been a bigger advocate of reserve grade

If we look at the players who have come through the 20s and made a reasonable go of it in 1st grade, I can't come up with much more than Prior and JWH, and JWH is really yet to make an impact either. That John Kite bloke that is now at the Storm came and went bloody quickly too. Basically I think 19-20 is too young for a front rower to come in and make an impact in the NRL

Tony Williams was 1 of the most dominant 20s players I have seen and we have seen how big the step up for him is
 
bodene thompson,gillete,hoffman.winterstien,yeow ye,fifita,dwyer,proctor,o'neill,tolman,mccullough,maguire,barber,duffie,nielsen,stanley,packer,linnete,merrin,dugan,nuisalla,masoe,waddell,dean carney are just some off the top of my head who have made good contributions from 20's in the last couple of years and that is without looking at the lists.i dont buy the fact that it is not a good breeding ground.it throws up its fair share.

my question relates to the fact that we have the best performing lower grades out of all clubs and except foran,Hodk and JWH for 4 or 5 games no one has really had a crack.

i lean towards the answer that the lower graders  are probably not good enough at manly as des and crusher are good judges but it seems strange we cant seem to throw any.we must have good teams with no real stars.
 
But how many other teams have more than 3 youngsters that have made the grade over that period? Possibly Brisbane & Melbourne only? Given we have Fozzie Hodko (leaving) and JWH (left) we don't seem too different after all. Keeping the good ones is another matter of course.
 
i think it is cutt off in my previous thread but you can add packer,merrin,linnette,dugan and wadell to that list.

would be interesting to have a look at all the lists.im sure there are a few more.
 
The thing is though Susan, we are wanting young forwards, front rowers mainly, and they simply haven't been produced out of that comp so far outside of a couple of people

Front Rowers and Halves seem to struggle coming out of that comp, outside backs finding it the easiest.

imo Foran has been the best young halve to come up into NRL level, Ben Hunt and Ben Barba dominated the 20s but really struggled with the initial step up
 
We are down in the props department. We have back row depth, but we haven't really needed to blood anyone. The thing with props is that they say that they don't hit their straps until their late 20's, hence why you don't see alot of props come through from the under 20's.  

I have faith that Des knows what he is doing though.
 
im more talking about being given the chance to make the grade.other sides seem to be willing to give them a chance and many come off.canberra are a good example.look at the last couple of years-dugan,croker,carney,waddell,vidot,fensom and joel thompson all progressed  and are all  good first graders.if canberra had a halfback they are top 4 material.

we gave 3 blokes a go and they have progressed well.other than that  basically only whare and hoppa have  been sighted for a couple of games despite our obvious struggles at times.

as i said i think our guys must be part of good teams as opposed to great individuals or surely we would have seen more of them like at titans,melb,canberra and brisbane.

i dont have a real view on it as i dont see them play.it is just an observation that it is strange as we have had such great success in our lower grades.
 
Fair point but don't forget a team like Canberra had little choice but to throw in their bright youngsters. We on the other hand have had the core of a premiership winning side and the highest aspirations, we have not been (yet) in a rebuilding phase.
 
I think it is more a case Susan of our star players having quality in front of them in the positions they play. Foran is getting a real crack because we lack depth in that area. If we look at 3 of our other standouts from the past year, Lussick, looks good, but hard to get a run with Watmough and Stewart being 80min players and Rodney going so well. Whare, 2 international centres in front of him in Matai and Lyon. Hoppa, still only 17-18, would be a huge ask for him to get up for too many games I think. I had a bit of a chat to him up at the Gold Coast and he said the difference in the games and the step up is massive from the 20s to the NRL and was hard work.
 
i agree re props and halves totally but i think we are missing something here.

we need back up backrowers  just as much OR MORE.

between kite,perry,king and rose surelly we have enough grunt in the front row IF THEY TURN UP.3 have played origin and one may in the future.

stewart and choc have been extremely ordinary given their status in the game,rodney consistent while all the other backrowers are getting on in years and sit on the bench and rarely play.and i wont even mention bailey. we have absolutely zero strike if choc has a day off which is usually the case.

there are a mriad  of young backrowers across all clubs being given a chance yet we can manage buerher getting 5 minutes in 4 games.i honestly think our lower grade guys must not be up up to it (des must think that)and we are unfortunate in that regard as our loose forwards have been so ordinary this year.

to be honest with our average age being around 28 in the forwards the whole pack needs reshaping including a back up hooker with a bit more flair to play 20 minutes in the back part of halves.
 
This is what's always bugged me about Des. I love him as a coach i think he has been part of a great team that turned our club around, however, its obvious that of late we need to take a chance on some young kids and he just wont give them a shot.

I think back to Glen Stewart, he didn't look half a first grader over his first dozen games in the NRL. If you stick with a kid they can prove to be well worth the effort. Even if at first they seem not up to it.
 
one of the real downsides of being excessively patient with young players coming through when you are coming off a title win is that you will always be spending a lot of cash retaining your side and as such will continue to play guys like perry etc simply because they are on the books for so much cash.the young blokes see

1.not a lot of cash available
2.a coach who stick with his stars on past efforts

inevitably many will leave to get a start when some recognition and a few chances in the top grade at a club they played much of their early football may have convinced them to stay.

tough balancing act.

what confuses me is we dont want to use gnuluvua,cross or bailey off the bench very much AND we dont give young blokes a go.our reserves would play the least amount of football in the league.

the inevitable conclusion is that our current reserves are not as good as we hoped when we recruited them and our young players are absolutely not ready.not a great position im afraid.
 
Team P W L PD Pts
3 3 0 48 6
4 3 1 28 6
3 2 1 10 6
4 2 2 39 4
3 2 1 28 4
3 2 1 15 4
3 2 1 14 4
2 1 1 13 4
2 1 1 6 4
3 2 1 -3 4
3 1 2 0 2
3 1 2 -5 2
3 1 2 -15 2
3 1 2 -22 2
3 1 2 -36 2
2 0 2 -56 2
3 0 3 -64 0
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