Retention and Recruitment is harder than most people on here think, I mean do you honestly think that just because you have the "money" or "desire" to get a player to your club then thats enough to make it happen??
FIRSTLY: Every player has a club they are already associated with so they ALREADY have a link or connection to that club, there is your first hurdle,
as "Quality" players who are looked after by that club they are not going anywhere...SIMPLE...
Look at the Trjbojevic's, DCE etc and same would go for players like Cleary, Martin, Hughes, Munster etc, These top quality players only leave if there is an issue with the club or are ready for retirement and looking to get a "better deal" for their last contract.
SECOND: They all have managers and the managers have a bigger say in where players actually go if they are indeed looking to leave their current club, and these managers either have "favoured"clubs or "favoured" relationships with certain people at certain clubs, SO no matter what you throw at them they are not even looking, they may use your club to "up the value" or "Time pressure" another club but thats all it is.
THIRD: Is the player themselves and if they would even look at playing at your club, and this would come down to location, Coaching, Facilities and even Fan bases.
A player wanting to play in Queensland will more than likely not sign with the Warriors, and other players who have personal issue with members of coaching staff would not sign at that club.
The reason Ive written this post is because there is NO MAGIC BULLET, all clubs are in the same position, they all have a "core" group of players, they all have a couple of marquee players and they all have some "juniors" that came through their system or came to grade with that club.
and no matter how much hoping or how much whinging we do thats the system.
Don't blame the club for not getting certain players, because they are not available or Manly was never an option to them regardless of what the media talk is.
So whats the solution?
the clubs main and only hope is its administration, and how that administration sets up the pathways system, The best way to get top talent into your core group is through the juniors, look at every teams past success and this will be a common theme.
Its then up to management to nurture and secure those juniors as well as manage the marquee contracts and add "roster fillers" around the group to meet the NRL salary cap rules.
and thats the second part of building a premiership winning team, getting the right "roster fillers" at the right prices to ADD value to the team , not just add "A Number".
Part of our problem is we have had too much administrative changes in the past decade and no real backbone when it came to managing the salary cap and contracts,
I'm hoping Mestrov gets to hang around for a long stint and I'm pretty confident he will turn it around, he's already shown he is not scared to make the hard calls and hes also pretty shrewd when it comes to negotiating and seems to put the club first.
