All though
Hiku is now a Centre, he was developed mostly at Wing for the juniors, IMO this highlights how far wrong we are with our development.
Even worse is the fact we are still trying to develop mini Beasts that have that many fundamental flaws for either Centre or Wing that it's ridiculous.
The Centre and Wing depth we are seeing for the Kiwis is quite amazing and all of them have skill levels that are far greater than anyone at the club.
The thing about "developing" wingers is that the majority of nrl wingers didn't play there growing up- you'll find most of them were centers or fullbacks- even halves because when u have a real stand out junior their coaches want them to get the ball in their hands as much as possible and think they'd be wasted on the wing.
That's not just a warriors thing- that's across the board.
All the same, I have always thought it was strange that we haven't produced many good wingers ( apart from Manu I'm struggling to think of another one) when from an athletic pov big fast Polynesians seem like the perfect fit.
I don't buy into the argument that we're all too dumb but there's got to be something there because Union seem to pump them out by the dozen- maybe we should just pillage a couple from them? ( although if they're resorting to signing the likes of Duffy maybe I'm giving them a bit too much credit).
Playing guys like Toka Likiliki and
maumalo on the wing is pretty ridiculous and you're right that they need to look at the type of players they're putting the development into but at this stage that's a long term fix. Short term I think we have to recruit.
Winterstein and Rona are both off contract ( someone mentioned linnett as well) one of them would be perfect.
I can see Lillyman, Lousi, benry and konnie all leaving at the end of the year ( if not sooner) there's likely to be a couple more shown the door too so money shouldn't be an issue.
