JTS to NRL; the Titans juniors transition lounge

[Titanic]

Broncos/Wynnum on YouTube/SeagullsTv live for those bored with Home & Away reruns.

[Hail Sezer]

Quick wrap up of Titans-relevant CC/MM Round 1:

As a reminder, MM is Under 19s, CC is Under 17s.

Tweed MM won 32-6 v Wynumm
Burleigh MM lost 22-10 to Souths Logan
Dolphins MM won 30-14 v Easts Tigers

Tweed CC lost 28-12 v Wynumm
Burleigh CC lost 24-20 v Souths Logan
Dolphins CC drew 14-14 v Easts Tigers

In the MM Comp, Round 2 sees most teams have their first game of the competition, and a few more Titans contracted boys will feature. Some games of note -

Tweed play Easts Tigers and could be without Ryder Williams (NRL trial?), Sam Stephenson (concussion protocol), Jack Schmidt (injury). These are reasonably sized holes to fill in their lineup.

Burleigh play Dolphins and will be looking to make up for a round 1 loss. They'll have half Coby Black playing as well, who was absent on the weekend due to playing NRL trial for the Broncos. Will be a big scalp if they can secure a W against the comp heavyweights.

Ipswich play SC Falcons in both sides first game of the comp. Only mentioning Ipswich because Caelys Putoko should be playing in the centres for them as well as Isaac Togia in the backrow, and Junior Saifiti Saifiti on the wing. Wasn't hugely impressed by Ipswich in the trial v Burleigh and they'll need to be a few levels above that to be competitive.

The CC comp mirrors the MM draw. Titans have got contracted players all over the place here but mostly at Tweed. Looking ahead to this week -

Tweed CC will need to be a mile better than they were in R1. Lacked spark in key positions except for 9, and their attacking concepts were really elementary (shovel it to the big kid and hope for the best). If they lose v Easts and go 0-2 it's going to be an uphill slog to make finals. Easts are a good side and managed to draw with the Dolphins, who are prob comp favourites. Going to be tough.

Burleigh will play Dolphins, another tough match. Not many Titans kids at Burleigh CC this year.

Big weekend of footy coming up with jr comps in full swing + all stars + NRL trials how good

[Hail Sezer]

Stephenson out for Tweed, Billy Tonkin (also Titans contracted but I think still U17?) in. Schmidt named.

Burleigh named as expected.

Putoko not playing for Ipswich because he's playing NRL trial.

[Hail Sezer]

Big W's for Burleigh in today's CC & MM, beating the Dophins in both.

Dolphins CC hadn't lost a game for a few years and their MM is the favourite to win the comp again.

Well done to the bears.

Tweed beat Easts Tigers in both CC & MM. MM performance wasn't overly convincing IMO, took a long range intercept to spin momentum but when they did they piled the points on.

[Hail Sezer]

Slightly interesting article here with 60 QLD kids playing in the HM/SG comp in Sydney. I'd say minimum 80% are from SEQ too.

Mixture of talent levels here - a lot simply couldn't secure a contract with a QLD club, a lot were poached, and some were let go by QLD clubs and made the move elsewhere. The lure of the SG and Flegg comps is enough to get a lot of those boys down there, even if they don't have a contract with the associated NRL club in Sydney.

Getting more and more competitive in SEQ for talent and that's only going to get worse as the development model becomes preferred by most clubs.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...6054a18d7d9a37

[Whats Doing]

Slightly interesting article here with 60 QLD kids playing in the HM/SG comp in Sydney. I'd say minimum 80% are from SEQ too.

Mixture of talent levels here - a lot simply couldn't secure a contract with a QLD club, a lot were poached, and some were let go by QLD clubs and made the move elsewhere. The lure of the SG and Flegg comps is enough to get a lot of those boys down there, even if they don't have a contract with the associated NRL club in Sydney.

Getting more and more competitive in SEQ for talent and that's only going to get worse as the development model becomes preferred by most clubs.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...6054a18d7d9a37

Agreed plus there will be more money spent on junior recruitment and development and the targeting of elite juniors where the funds are not part of any salary cap or restriction. Hope the Titans hierarchy are acutely aware of this likely danger to keeping our better juniors

[MaroonTitan]

Agreed plus there will be more money spent on junior recruitment and development and the targeting of elite juniors where the funds are not part of any salary cap or restriction. Hope the Titans hierarchy are acutely aware of this likely danger to keeping our better juniors

Thanks HS and WD. The NRL have got this completely ****about. Juniors developed by clubs into first graders should have cap concessions or exemptions only at the club they come from. Poaching juniors isn't good for anyone. Then clubs will benefit for their own junior development efforts and gain long term advantages from it.

[lonegull]

Great point MT and couldn’t agree more about concessions for juniors who come through the club and make NRL it’s something that needed to be looked at many moons ago

[Titanic]

Totally agree. The issue of course is 60 doesn’t go into just a few places each year so the attrition will continue no matter the incentives unfortunately. As the venerable HS rightly reminds us “we can’t keep them all”.

[MaroonTitan]

But we can keep the best and should be doing it with cap concessions that don't apply to the other juniors that are picked up by other clubs.

In terms of junior development and the betterment of the game, it just seems so straight forward to me. The only reason they may not be able to see it is because of powerful vested interests at clubs with no juniors - which is costly and not sustainable in the long term.

[Hail Sezer]

There's two different ends to the stick here. One is retention of talent transitioning to NRL, which is an NRL problem. Here you've also got the limitations of balancing a Top 30 + Dev 6 which is always going to see tough decisions made and some NRL calibre players let go. Concessions for developing players seems a no-brainer at this point IMO but there's an argument that it will disadvantage the likes of Melbourne who don't have the benefit of a rugby-league heavy local catchment area (ironic i know).

The other end of the stick is the identification and more importantly, signing of young talent at the 15's age group. And to WD's point - that's where a significant imbalance can happen. Some clubs can afford to pay 2-3x what others can for kids at that age, not because the player is worth it, or generating any ROI at that point, but because the club can wear that sunk cost and is willing/able to take the risk, and they're not faced with imposed limitations to even the playing field financially. I'll unashamedly call out the Dolphins here who are leaning into unprecedented $ contracts for 15's/16's players to secure the best ones. Heck, they even took a massive swing at Ryder Williams when he was coming off-contract with the Titans, which forced us to play our hand early and back-end his deal to an NRL one. Once you sign the kid at 15, it's likely they are retained at the club all the way through to NRL.

Everyone is seeing what Penrith is doing and suddenly it's becoming significantly easier to present to the board of an NRL club that you need more funds for junior development, and unless we step up our resources here, I do worry we're going to get left behind. Broncos and Dolphins are stepping their game up year on year, and Sydney clubs are imposing themselves in SEQ as Western Syd becomes overly saturated too. Each year the battle for the best players in that 15's age group gets more and more competitive and in the last two years I can honestly say we aren't winning it, at least for the Gold Coast kids.

[Titanic]

Yep that’s the conundrum. I suppose you can add the practicality of the actual pathway options lure of ‘club competition to cup to NRL’ into the mix too.

[Whats Doing]

Yep losing the cream of the crop at 15 and 16 due to ridiculous money being thrown around poses a big danger for the Titans wanting to be a leader as a development club. Once gone at this age, in most situations it is likely that they won’t come back unless they are let go which means any real potential superstars are not coming up through our systems. There is the odd exception with Leapai but that didn’t last long and maybe his leaving the Roosters had more to do with boxing than coming home to play with the Titans.

I know we can’t keep them all but there are a few Gold Coast juniors at Broncos and Dolphins that I am sure we would love to have signed but are likely to have signed elsewhere because of the money offered which is backed up by huge financial resources which are not subject to any cap or restriction.

The key age group for signing juniors is 15 otherwise it is likely to be too late particular for the most talented ones. So talent identification is required at the 13-14 ages groups and good funding required at the 15 age group to sign our most talented to ward off the vultures which are increasingly circling and targeting our top juniors.

[MaroonTitan]

It's a big problem that isn't going anywhere. The clubs need to be allocated 'Development Zones' that include their local area and elsewhere. Signing juniors from elsewhere ought to bite into your cap but developing your own shouldn't affect it. The more you sign a 15 year old for from elsewhere, the more it ought to disadvantage your cap. It can be done.

The BRL had residency rules back in the day that made the competition very tribal. They were enforced strictly for quite a while. The same could be done around the cap and junior development.

[Hail Sezer]

It's a big problem that isn't going anywhere. The clubs need to be allocated 'Development Zones' that include their local area and elsewhere. Signing juniors from elsewhere ought to bite into your cap but developing your own shouldn't affect it. The more you sign a 15 year old for from elsewhere, the more it ought to disadvantage your cap. It can be done.

The BRL had residency rules back in the day that made the competition very tribal. They were enforced strictly for quite a while. The same could be done around the cap and junior development.

I've thought about this kind of model before, but always get stuck on how to create equal opportunity for each club. For example how would all of say Penrith, Melbourne, Canberra, Manly, Warriors and Titans have assigned zones that are all of a) geographically relevant to the club b) relatively equal in population and subsequent number of junior clubs c) relatively equal in terms of quality of junior football (and players). If these aren't all satisfied at entry level age then you've got a case of some clubs having endowed cap advantages over others down the line.

They have development fees at the moment for taking a player out of their "catchment zone" and relocating them to another club, but it's only 5k and it's a fixed fee so most NRL clubs don't even bat an eyelid at it.