getting away from the doom and gloom, ive had this idea for some time. I would like to see every contracted player throughout the club linking up with a junior club in the district. Spread the talent evenly. the player keeps his association with his allocated club for the duration of his tenure with the sea eagles. local juniors get placed with their junior club. players have the logo of their junior club on the side of their shorts for all to see. the players attend training at these clubs and build real relationships with the kids, officals, parents etc. it has to be genuine, not tokenism. Get them to help out with drills, holding tackling bags, chatting with the parents etc. I beleive that this would help foster goodwiil throughout the local community, and once the wider rugby league world got wind of it our image may start to change. some of the spin of from this would be; Junior participation would triple or better within 2 years we would have a people in each club able to advise the club of players with the ability to go further in the game home crowds would swell. Kids would insist on going to brookie to watch their "mates" play and they would take a paying parent with them A little bit of added emotion may be the difference between retaining players and losing them players will have to deal first hand with the people that get upset when they stuff up off the field
