In the wake of the Raiders much publicised flame out in the recruitment market in recent weeks, Canberra fans are hearing two types of comments.
Firstly, the club is being blamed for its own predicament. Whether it’s the allegedly toxic Ricky Stuart, or the ‘culture’ of the side – a concept never further explained – it is the Raiders’ fault the club can’t attract top talent.
The second types of comments Raiders fans are hearing are horrible platitudes masquerading as advice. The Raiders are being told to search out ‘hard-working and honest’ footballers who ‘want to be there’ and most commonly to continue to ‘invest in junior development.’
While no doubt well intentioned in most cases, these comments are essentially useless. The Raiders are already loaded with hard working types like Shaun Fensom, Joel Edwards and Dane Tilse. Raiders fans love Shaun Fensom but no one is winning a premiership with a tackle machine as their best player.
As for the call to focus on junior development it seems like some folks have missed the point. That is what the club has been doing and look at where it has got them.
The Raiders squad for Monday night’s thumping by the Broncos included 13 Raiders juniors. Of the 24 players to appear in lime green this year, 16 are Raiders juniors and the club is third last and going nowhere.
So you can forgive Raiders fans for being a little sceptical that this is the pathway to premierships
Most galling of all though was a recent newspaper column from the Penrith Panthers General Manager Phil Gould. In the piece on Sunday, Gould accused the Raiders of being irresponsible when offering James Tedesco big money to sign with the club and then harped on about the importance of junior development.
Here is what Gould had to say under the heading “What is the point of junior development?”
Look at this from Wests Tigers’ perspective. They develop James as a player from school and junior league ranks through to the point he becomes a 25-game NRL player. Just when he starts to show his potential, another club comes and blows them out of the water with a massive offer.”
Do they raise their offer to keep the player, affecting their ability to pay or retain other players, or suffer the wrath of their fans for letting him go? Think of how many players Wests Tigers invested time, energy and development dollars in, to produce a player of Tedesco’s potential.
For every junior that makes it through to the top grade, there are hundreds who fall by the wayside in the process. A James Tedesco sits at the top of a pyramid, where the club starts with a large number of hopefuls, before they get to the pointy end, producing an NRL standard player.
The cost of this development pyramid is getting more expensive by the year. The cost of this pyramid explodes at the top end when rival clubs start their bidding for players of potential after all the hard work has been done by the developing club.
There is no compensation for the developing club when they lose a player of NRL status. In fairness to the Raiders too, the same thing happened to them with Anthony Milford and many other hopefuls over the years. They were just doing what has happened to them on a number of occasions.
Under salary cap and second tier competition systems, there is no incentive or reward for investment in player development. Clubs are prepared to invest in junior development because they know this is the lifeblood of our game. However, the system does little to encourage or reward such efforts.
This was an interesting thing for him to say given the Panthers recent history. Gould’s words may say ‘invest in juniors’ but his deeds say ‘let someone else do it.’
Since arriving at the club Gould has allowed, and in some cases pushed, home grown players like Luke Lewis, Michael Jennings, Lachlan Coote and Tim Grant to leave the club.
At the same time the Panthers have invested heavily in other teams’ junior talent and in particular juniors who have just crossed that threshold from junior with potential to ready for a regular first grade role.
James Segeyaro (Cowboys), Elijah Taylor (Warriors), Tyrone Peachy (Sharks), Josh Mansour (Rabbitohs) Dean Whare (Sea Eagles) have all played critical roles for the Panthers this year and next season they’ll be joined by Api Koriasau (Souths again). These are all players who were developed elsewhere and then brought to Penrith between 21 and 24 years of age.
Naturally Gould’s column generated a wave of antipathy from Raiders fans on social media. In a reply to a tweet about his column, Gould said “we at Penrith have gone through what the Raiders are going through. It’s tough but there are solutions.”
For the Panthers the solution has clearly been to poach other teams’ young talent.
So the lesson is you can focus on junior development like the Raiders and be 14th with a bullet, or you can poach 21-year-olds and be top of the ladder like the Panthers.
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