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Aussie Player Exodus

Crashy

John Solomon (38)
Yep the one in Rozelle on Victoria road.
I always found him hard to like - very anti rugby too which I found curious - like he had some massive chip on his shoulder.
 

Doritos Day

Johnnie Wallace (23)
Epitome of angry little man.

Wouldn’t surprise me if he’s punted away all his cash and had nothing behind him.

He wasn’t a bad writer but gee he was a sour bloke. Hated Rugby along with his mate Paul Crawley who he played country league with. Just need Buzz do drop off and the rest aren’t that bad.
Kent was generally one of the better league journos in the sense he was willing to apply the blowtorch a bit in a 'tough love' sense, especially during COVID and regarding off-field behavioural stuff. But after that (presumably at the direction of his Newscorp handlers) he just went so over the top with the non-stop drama/negativity for clicks.

Became the pin-up boy for the very tired Fox playbook of man yells on TV -> article about man yelling on TV -> article about people reacting to man yelling on TV -> man reacts to people reacting to him yelling on TV... on TV.
 

Rebel man

John Thornett (49)
We need greater depth in the professional sides, not simply more professional sides.

The issue for him was he needed a development environment and time investment from a pro team. Given the nature of Australian rugby; financial limitations and lack squad depth, the opportunity for development players is limited and its expected all contracted players be at a standard of playing Super Rugby, which he wasn’t at the time.

France have depth in club squads that allows this.
With a 15 game season and 5 teams we can never blood and bring through players effectively. They may get a few minutes off the bench here and there but it’s not enough. In France they play close on 40 games in a season and have 30 pro teams. There are opportunities galore
 

Wallaby Man

Nev Cottrell (35)
With a 15 game season and 5 teams we can never blood and bring through players effectively. They may get a few minutes off the bench here and there but it’s not enough. In France they play close on 40 games in a season and have 30 pro teams. There are opportunities galore
The difference is we need to be able to pay players correctly if we had more teams. Opportunities are great, but no point having 10 teams if we drop our baseline salary to have that many teams. You’d lose all the best players we currently have (which is fine if that’s what people want) but more importantly we wouldn’t attract the correct young talent because the financial package available would be very low, you might find we attract a worse quality than we currently do. This is a career after all, as much as we would love to having everyone passionate about the game playing it, even those passionate will weigh up if they are going to be appropriately financially compensated to play it. Especially when you could still be a pro athlete in other sports willing to pay a high entry salary.
 

Rebel man

John Thornett (49)
The difference is we need to be able to pay players correctly if we had more teams. Opportunities are great, but no point having 10 teams if we drop our baseline salary to have that many teams. You’d lose all the best players we currently have (which is fine if that’s what people want) but more importantly we wouldn’t attract the correct young talent because the financial package available would be very low, you might find we attract a worse quality than we currently do. This is a career after all, as much as we would love to having everyone passionate about the game playing it, even those passionate will weigh up if they are going to be appropriately financially compensated to play it. Especially when you could still be a pro athlete in other sports willing to pay a high entry salary.
Yeah I do agree but it’s just an example of how our system is broken
 

Wilson

Phil Kearns (64)
The difference is we need to be able to pay players correctly if we had more teams. Opportunities are great, but no point having 10 teams if we drop our baseline salary to have that many teams. You’d lose all the best players we currently have (which is fine if that’s what people want) but more importantly we wouldn’t attract the correct young talent because the financial package available would be very low, you might find we attract a worse quality than we currently do. This is a career after all, as much as we would love to having everyone passionate about the game playing it, even those passionate will weigh up if they are going to be appropriately financially compensated to play it. Especially when you could still be a pro athlete in other sports willing to pay a high entry salary.
Yeah, it's a big part of why we need to find more rugby for our existing teams and players before trying to go for a significant increase in teams.

It's been said a million times already, but the super au/NRC run through the international calendar is far and away the most useful developmental tool we could add for new pros. That's where the opportunity is to take a punt on "raw material" players who need time in a professional program to see if they can take the next step. An elevated national club competition isn't going to offer that, not without at least 10-20x the investment required for a super au program.
 

Adam84

Rod McCall (65)
With a 15 game season and 5 teams we can never blood and bring through players effectively. They may get a few minutes off the bench here and there but it’s not enough. In France they play close on 40 games in a season and have 30 pro teams. There are opportunities galore

Game time is one part of development, depth in the squad and opportunity for actually being within a professional environment is the more specific issue in this example.

Australian players need to play more absolutely , but in Emmanuel Meafou example's we need more squad depth to capture project players, not simply more teams.
 
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stillmissit

Peter Johnson (47)
Game time is one part of development, depth in the squad and opportunity for actually
being within a professional environment is the more specific issue in this example.

Australian players need to play more absolutely , but in Emmanuel Meafou example's we need more squad depth to capture project players, not simply more teams.
And as the young guy wrote last week before going to France, 'we train 4 hours a week in Qld, in France we train 4 hours a day!'
 

Wilson

Phil Kearns (64)
who said four hours a week in Qld? Assume it was a club player?
Toshi Butlin, specifically referring to the post school, colts period for guys just outside the core squad:

“I understood where I sat in the Reds system. Under 18 Academy with other boys straight out of school and obviously, there’s people before me that have graduated – there’s probably Aussie Schoolboys and people before me,” Butlin told RugbyPass.

“The opportunity to train full-time in a professional setup like the Reds is something that’s very scarce for boys like me, or just lots of boys my age where there’s a big pool of us and only a few selection people that are straight into, not the Academy, but the next level.

“From school into outside of school, there’s a big drop in the amount of training you do. At Brothers, a great club, you only train twice a week.

“Straight from school and training lots, you go into Colts footy where we had no gym sessions during the week. There are only two field sessions that are probably like two hours each, so four hours a week of footy.
 

stillmissit

Peter Johnson (47)
who said four hours a week in Qld? Assume it was a club player?
He was in the Qld academy and a Reds Junior. Wilson covered it above but this quote is relevant:

Toshi Butlin and Aiden Stait were both part of Super Rugby academies in Australia but decided to head north to Europe after receiving the opportunity of a lifetime with French juggernauts.

Butlin, 18, was part of the Queensland Reds Academy and played in Brisbane State High’s First XV for two years in the state’s prestigious GPS competition.

Training in a professional French set-up is lightyears ahead of the pathway systems in Australia. Butlin was training for four hours a week in Brisbane, and is now matching that on a daily basis in France.

The Reds were “very supportive and aware” of Butlin’s decision to sign with Pau-based club Section Paloise, with the Queenslander currently training the house down with their academy.
 

stillmissit

Peter Johnson (47)
Please explain to me again - all of you guys arguing about how good our talent ID is?
It strikes me that we couldn't ID a talented player until the media pointed it out and by then it is obvious to all and too late if we want to keep them here.
Mostly we only want proven talent and NRL holds some of that. How the hell can we run a professional rugby organisation where we are shovelling $$$$$ into the teat of NRl or fighting for its leftovers?
 

Pfitzy

Nathan Sharpe (72)
It strikes me that we couldn't ID a talented player until the media pointed it out

Hmph. Probably true in part, but I think enough talent is identified. It's what we do with it.

Politics fucks things up sometimes. Mutterings around "who you know" for some players at the expense of others, particularly when higher honours are being doled out, and Big Kid Syndrome hits.

The platforms within which that talent operates, and the level of challenge it provides to them, is a key factor. If you're in a good rugby school in Sydney, you play in a very shallow pool compared to the kids still grinding out club and reps footy in league. Likewise, the separation of school from club means our junior club competitions are severely diluted at Opens level.

We also don't put enough resourcing into capture: getting kids involved at the youngest age possible. So much of the work is done by volunteers
with limited help from the hierarchy, because they've made poor investment choices.

Rugby is very good at tripping over itself.
 

Pfitzy

Nathan Sharpe (72)
I see that quote of the kid training hours a day at the school, and then getting maybe 10 hours a week tops in a club / Academy environment.

Why aren't the schools and clubs sharing IP and facilities to help keep people in the game?

Because Schools don't give a shit about those kids once they leave, except to put "Wallaby alumnus" in gold leaf up on a timber board somewhere.
 
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