My brother (who is a die hard rugby tragic like me) has gotten to know him on the Gold Coast. Reckons hes a genuine top bloke.Makes ya think….
Don’t mind Tallis. That’s just how he talks. Seems an honest bloke. Probably laugh at himself trying to pronounce it over the others saying oh what’s the big deal.
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.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.
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 galoreWe 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.
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.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
Yeah I do agree but it’s just an example of how our system is brokenThe 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.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.
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
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!'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!'
That was his point. Was doing that at school and missed a QLD contract so was playing club footy when offered a French contractYeah, that needs some context.
School Boys would be getting near 10 hours a week everything included.
Toshi Butlin, specifically referring to the post school, colts period for guys just outside the core squad:who said four hours a week in Qld? Assume it was a club player?
“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.
He was in the Qld academy and a Reds Junior. Wilson covered it above but this quote is relevant:who said four hours a week in Qld? Assume it was a club player?
It strikes me that we couldn't ID a talented player until the media pointed it out