Like seagulls fighting over a chip, Sydney NRL clubs – evidently led by the Roosters – have waged a bidding war for the ageing playmaker halfback Cooper Cronk for the 2018 season and beyond.
Obviously Roosters halfback Mitchell Pearce has his nose out of joint and rightly so as the big bucks have been thrown at the Melbourne halfback by Pearce’s club who seem to believe they need Cronk in order to win a premiership.
However, this player squabble within the NRL signals a much bigger headache for the game: where are the Generation Z up and coming stars, in particular young and talented halfbacks to fight for and take over from the likes of Cronk and Johnathan Thurston in both the NRL and in rep footy.
Thurston and Cronk have dominated the Queensland Maroons’ halves since Darren Lockyer’s retirement, and Thurston has had a monopoly on a halves position for 13 consecutive seasons. No one has come close to challenging them.
Sure, they are both generational champions, but the best Queensland junior footy has come up with is Ben Hunt, who is handy but not worth what the Dragons are paying for him, and Ash Taylor, who isn’t in Thurston or Cronk’s class.
In New South Wales, the situation is worse. They have tried numerous halfbacks, including Pearce on a number of occasions, but all have failed to cut it at State of Origin level.
(AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
And then this to top it all off. The Daily Telegraph‘s Phil Rothfield mentioned recently there are now 50 NRL players over the age of 30 years who will be going around again in 2018.
The question has to be asked: what has the NRL been spending its millions on? Obviously not the recruitment of young talented athletes and playmaking halfbacks. They have failed to sell the dream of an NRL playing career to kids. How have they failed? By not bringing the champions to the kids and so inspiring kids to want to be like them.
Kids will get excited about a sport if they get up close and personal with their perceived heroes. However, with player managers ruling the public access to the game’s champions, kids never get the chance to meet their heroes. The NRL stands by and lets the managers control this lack of access.
Unfortunately, it appears we have also raised a generation of video gamers (this is their preferred reality) and not real life wannabe footy champions. The video game superheroes have become the kids of today’s heroes rather than the real-life footy heroes. Simply while video killed the radio star ages ago, today video games are killing junior sports participation.
But what if we used video to win the hearts and minds of young athletically talented kids? More on that later.
Parents play a role here but so does each footy code in employing the most powerful recruitment strategy of all: connecting the champions with the kids and in so doing triggering an emotional bond that sets in place dreams of becoming a champion just like the hero they meet and believe in.
I know from personal experience that any kid with footy talent knows the topline players and, in particular, his or her hero by the age of five or six.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
They emotionalise being able to play like their champions, they simulate their hero’s key talents in the backyard and in their mind’s eye going off to sleep.
But wow what if they could ‘meet’ their champion in real life or on video? That would kick the dream further down the road towards wanting to become his or her sporting champion.
If you ever catch a train at school time you will notice every kid from five to 18 living online on their mobile which reinforces the video gamer generation. Frankly, kids today live online and learn by watching not reading.
However, what if the major sports played to this addiction by producing video content that featured their champions and heroes (and their best plays) so kids could experience and share this content in the true viral social media way with their mates, thereby also passing on the dream of becoming a footy hero?
Kids would feel they were getting to know and getting ‘close’ to their footy champions. Back in time, it was the footy cards. Today, it is mobile video that is the way to entice talented youngsters to pick up a Steeden and make a career in the NRL.
Hence the NRL would be employing the medium that is threatening the greatest game of all to actually recruit more champions. Imagine in the future if every NRL team boasted a halfback of Cooper Cronk or Johnathan Thurston’s skill? Imagine the crowd numbers and the sponsorship dollars, let alone the TV rights.
It’s time the NRL got serious about developing the foundation upon which every sport rests on: creating the next generation of champions and heroes.
Connecting today’s heroes with kids via video is the way to go. Do we really want to watch 40-year-olds trying to compete in the NRL?
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