Club Structure / no NSW Cup is the issue

[Adz]

The Roosters have been running their reserves through the Bears and previously the Central coast for years and the Sharks through Newtown,neither have any strong links to either areas.
Why are they able to do it successfully?
Is it more Des needs to actually play our reserves in reserves instead of mothballing them?
In saying that,we do play our talented kids more in Flegg than training and playing them with Blacktown,maybe this is hindering their development and unless we can find a solution it it will be more of the same,hard to get them out to train at Blacktown.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

I disagree feathered friend in your philosophy
The Strom in Melbourne have no Great junior or cup teams but they are still an attractive Successful great club .

And so too does Easts. Virtually no juniors yet always challenging for a premiership.

Storm and Chooks are both flush with funds and can ensure their feeder and pathway clubs are professionally run and coached in sync with their NRL outfits, even if physically remote from them.
It is a money issue.

 

[SeaEagleRock8]

Imagine if Penn said “I’m gonna buy a big share house on the Northern Beaches to house country kids and I’m gonna pump $2mil a year into the junior programs for the next 5 years, as well as bring back Manly NSW Cup”. If I was the passionate owner and I had the cash that’s the first thing I’d do.

Do you see this happening?
Just reading your posts makes me think surely someone (someone, maybe you!) has put these sort of ideas to the club already but the club (ie the current purse-string holders) have filed them away on a dusty shelf somewhere.
Do you think Mestrov is someone who can make a difference? Or the whispers about Penn selling may have substance?
I'd love to think the club could move forward, but in the era of private ownership is it out of our hands?
What a shame if we were to waste the Turbo years and fail to win a comp while we have these champs!

 

[manly al]

Certainly was not helped this season in terms of Black Town [ Manly ] competitiveness with the extent of the injury ravaged main squad for a good part of the season . The concept of the Black Town connection or benefits for and against can always be up for debate but in terms of having a regular competitive line up , this season was not a good indication . May have been more of a natural fit with the Central coast but for whatever reasons over time , just did not eventuate . Manly 's pathways systems still seems to be going O K and to the point unfortunately of occasionally losing some good talent . Again maybe better to make an assessment of the competitive level of a Manly - Black Town reserve grade with not such an injury affected i st grade squad having such an unhelpful impact .

 

[eagle66]

Storm and Chooks are both flush with funds and can ensure their feeder and pathway clubs are professionally run and coached in sync with their NRL outfits, even if physically remote from them.
It is a money issue.

We have all said it or thought it @SeaEagleRock8 spells it out, run and coached in sync with the Nrl outfits.
Didn't happen with Des1.0 nor Des2.0. Always looked like lower grade finances went to a select few with opportunities.

 

[BOZO]

Storm and Chooks are both flush with funds and can ensure their feeder and pathway clubs are professionally run and coached in sync with their NRL outfits, even if physically remote from them.
It is a money issue.

There is more than one way to skin the salary cap and
Smart recruitment also plays a part in the money issue salary cap challenge
and The storm have done that very well over the years

 

[Scorpio]

There is more than one way to skin the salary cap and
Smart recruitment also plays a part in the money issue salary cap challenge
and The storm have done that very well over the years

Surely if 'smart recruitment' alone was a silver bullet, then every team would be doing it.

Stating the obvious, but the club will have a lot of (if not more) buying power if the club and the owners are willing to invest more money in the club, its structures and staff. It would also help if they had a lot of (if not more) wealthy and influential people within its own sphere of influence.

Look at the Roosters for example. They have pretty much no juniors in their own catchment. But... some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country are on their board. The chairman himself has a net worth of $2.23 billion in 2022. Not only that, but thanks to the chairman, the club had assets worth $120 million in 2020, with the aim of increasing that to $500 million.

Now, if you were a representative player in your late 20s looking to set yourself up for life after football, would you sign for $800k at club A that offered minimal tangible career opportunities post football? Or would you sign for $550k at club B that offered you those opportunities via direct connections to some of Australia's richest and most influential people, plus other indirect associated benefits (including TPAs)? That salary discrepancy might be exaggerated, but if you were a club, you could buy yourself some pretty handy players with the salary cap money you'd save across the board.

Of course, throwing money alone at the problem won't help, but along with better planning (see the initial post of this thread) it will also require more investment from the club from the top down to improve us as a club across the board.

 

[MW66]

Have a look at our team list most weeks. A lot of the players cut from the 24 named either don't play or play JF. Basically zero will play FG and they are playing against teams every week with fringe first graders trying their guts out to get promoted to FG. I don't think it is Blacktown - its how we manage this teams squad. Every year at the start of the year the team looks exciting on paper. Smokin Joe does his research on each player and there is anticipation about potential first graders - it just peters out from there. With one exception. 2 years ago we started with Harper, Sipley, Cust and Olakatau in ressies. We looked good and were very competitive. Enough said.

 

[robbiea]

Imagine the difference if we had professional ownership who actually knew what it took to run a club.
The quicker these clowns sell the quicker we get a premiership.

 

[Budgie]

Blacktown is ridiculous. As if Parramatta and Penrith are going to leave the cream of the crop out west to play for Blacktown.
I also heard at some point that Manly used to billet kids from the country and pay the host families to look after them. Apparently that doesn't exist anymore either.
And if they don't think there's enough talent on the beaches, then why not set up a relationship with the Central Coast but still have a Manly NSW Cup team? I heard Nicho Hynes Umina coach (from when he was a kid) on the radio this morning. He said there are 4,000 juniors playing league on the Coast.
I am beyond frustrated with this club.
It seems the more professional the NRL becomes the further we get left behind.
Hicksville Central.

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

It would appear the issue is the cost of fully operating a reserve grade under the club banner. The reason there isn't a reserve grade comp now in form there was in 90's and prior is the cost it takes to run a club with say 60 senior players. Most clubs weren't able to afford it so it was scrapped.

I do like the idea of having a NSW Cup team based on the Northern Beaches though. The Blacktown experiment has too much of a disconnect for both parties. Whatever financial incentives the club are providing Blacktown could go to a locally based team, maybe someone like Belrose Eagles to help elevate them from the Sydney Shield to NSW Cup. The point being the NSW Cup club would have to stand on it's own feet to the point where it's not a drain on the NRL club, but rather funds from the NRL club, either directly or via sourcing of sponsorship, are enhancing the club rather than just propping it up. That way the 10 or 12 grade players not required in NRL that week can be playing for Belrose with another dozen or so of the best local players in the area. As @RedEagle said still scout western sydney, country areas, NZ etc for junior talent, but have a locally based NSW Cup club for them to play with while they are on the fringe to aid their development.

I'm sure it's all not a simple as I've proposed but that's essentially how some of the other Sydney based

Penn just needs to stump up the $$$

Something he doesn’t like doing.

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Imagine the difference if we had professional ownership who actually knew what it took to run a club.
The quicker these clowns sell the quicker we get a premiership.

I wonder if Arko ever thinks…’Maybe we should have joined Superleague?’

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Blacktown is ridiculous. As if Parramatta and Penrith are going to leave the cream of the crop out west to play for Blacktown.
I also heard at some point that Manly used to billet kids from the country and pay the host families to look after them. Apparently that doesn't exist anymore either.
And if they don't think there's enough talent on the beaches, then why not set up a relationship with the Central Coast but still have a Manly NSW Cup team? I heard Nicho Hynes Umina coach (from when he was a kid) on the radio this morning. He said there are 4,000 juniors playing league on the Coast.
I am beyond frustrated with this club.
It seems the more professional the NRL becomes the further we get left behind.
Hicksville Central.

Well they’ve had two decades to try and make some real inroads over on the North Shore.

Crickets.

 

[BOZO]

If 'smart recruitment' alone was a silver bullet, then every team would be doing it.

Some people do it better than others feathered friend

And smart recruitment is a very critical aspect

 

[BOZO]

Look at the Roosters for example. They have some of the wealthiest and influential people in the country on their board. The chairman himself has a net worth of $2.23 billion. Not only that, but thanks to the chairman, the club had assets worth $120 million in 2020, with the aim of increasing that to $500 million.

Now, if you were a representative player in your late 20s looking to set yourself up for life after football, would you sign for $800k at club A that offered minimal tangible career opportunities post football? Or would you sign for $550k at club B that offered you those opportunities via direct connections to some of Australia's richest and most influential people, plus other indirect associated benefits (including TPAs)?

Your theory has merit but it is not always practical

The roosters may be one of the wealthiest club with all those influential people

But that did not stop the 2 most sought out players of their time in Tom and Jake Turbo accepting a lucrative contract at Manly to take a pay cut and go to the roosters

If I was a rep player and top 8 team offered me 800k a year on a 3 year deal I would be stupid to
sign for another top 8 club for 550k and lose 750k .

All clubs have contacts and sponsors that give players opportunities after footy
And a players most lucrative playing contract at the time is as they say is a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush .

Our system the Manly System is a proven premiership winning system and worked before and can work again

Because it is not what you have it is how you use it
We need to lift our game once again

 

[BOZO]

Look at the Broncos .

They have all the 3rd parties , they have all the juniors and all the wealthy people in the club
But they they failed the system because they did not use it properly

Repeat
It is not what you have but how you use it

 

[BOZO]

2011 the Penn Premiership winning team

Repeat
It is not what you have but how you use it

 

[BOZO]

Our greatest obstacle we have in winning another premiership is our selves

 

[Bearfax]

You’re always gonna have politics in footy clubs. People outside the club, that would like to work in the club, are always gonna think that they can do better. And once employed by the club, those people think things should only be done their way. Which leads to inevitable conflict. The reality is, our club structure is this;

1) NRL Players and Coaches
2) Pathways Players and Coaches

We don’t really have a reserve grade side as such, with the entire group aspiring to play first grade. They are fulltime Blacktown players, with a few Manly top 30’s dropping back. For example, Fullback Jake Toby won NSW Cup player of the year at the Manly presentation night. He will never play first grade, doesn’t train with Manly and was a Ron Massey player at St Marys two years ago. Local football people feel as though the club has neglected the Manly junior league and based their priorities in Western Sydney by aligning with Workers as well as filling the junior rep teams full of Western Sydney kids.

We want the best kids playing for us, with the Manly Junior League, Western Sydney and the country all feeding into our sustainable program of long term success.

The Pathways people in the club are frustrated with the lack of progression of kids being selected in the NRL side, which is understandable as they have been putting in years of work. But the reality is, these kids are coming from a mid table Jersey Flegg team and training with the fulltime squad. There is a lack of competition within our club to earn your spot. Penrith are dropping kids up and down the Flegg/NSW Cup team all season. Their depth is sensational, but it is born out of competition within the four walls. When Cup players are elevated to first grade, they don’t miss a beat.

If our blokes don’t make the top 17 on the wknd, Des tends to not play them at all to avoid injury in a meaningless Blacktown clash. This doesn’t help the development of anyone. Particularly the kids who would benefit from playing with better players who miss the NRL team and have to drop back. The pathways people shouldn’t be upset if a Flegg kid isn’t playing first grade. But if a young bloke proves himself as a cut above the rest in a fulltime Manly NSW Cup team, he will get his shot and he will go well.

Blacktown was Bozo’s idea and I’m sure that dropping them will cause friction, but if he knew of the disconnect between the NRL side and the development pathway, I’m sure he’d change it. If Weekes, Ben Turbo, Vaega, Fulton, Tuitavake, Fifita, Humphreys & Kum Tong are knocking the door down in a Manly NSW Cup that is winning, we are in a much better spot. You’d also be excited to get to Brookie early and watch it.

RedEagle one of the best comments I've seen on this site. Well done and I agree totally. The club is seriously disjointed and needs a complete rethink about its progression of junior payers to the top. I agree I sense that the recruiters such as young Fulton, must be tearing their hair out at the dysfunctional progression for these young players they have spent so much time and energy in encouraging to this club and training. Its like first grade is a different club to that which brings through the juniors. This progression issue has annoyed me for years and for the life of me I cant understand why those in charge have been sitting on their hands while this crazy situation has continued to develop.

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

I wonder if Arko ever thinks…’Maybe we should have joined Superleague?’

Interesting question isn’t it , in hindsight , perhaps we should have.

If we had we might still be a powerhouse today.