General Warriors SG Ball General Discussion

[TeetsNRL]

If you aren't in a system (NRL, Super Rugby) by age 18 you have no chance of being looked at because the fact is no one makes it to NRL from that age. I believe its only happened twice in the last decade.

100 points each if you can name both players...

I get zero points. Who are they?

 

[Fonzie]

If the Warriors cant afford it how the hell is a team from Wellington or Christchurch going to do it lol? And what do they do? Just play each other every week?

There are 15 teams in the Harold Matthews competition. The very best U16 from the Bulldogs play the very best U16s from the Raiders. Then the week after they play the very best U16 from the Roosters and so on so forth with the Panthers, Eels, Roosters, Rabbitohs etc.

We dont have that level of intense competition week in and week out here in NZ even with another team.

The easiest thing the Warriors can do is send a team to the play in the Harold Matthews Cup but they may need some help funding it as NSWRL clubs have a history of not agreeing to pay for away flights and accomodation to NZ or even having the NSWRL pay for us to travel and stay over there.

Money, money, money...

 

[mt.wellington]

Backing up my other post.

Waikato has teams in the Warriors Shaun Johnson Shield and Dean Bell cup comps, open trials.

There’s open trials for the teams that go to the NZRL National Youth tourney thats attended by multiple NRL scouts every year.

You’d think every kid with footy talent would show up to give themselves as wide a shot as possible at pro-footy.

But just the same League kids show up. We’ve an abundance of rugby talent that’s going to peak at 1st XV or Chiefs development level who still don’t try out.

Now you can say the trials should be better advertised, I’d agree, but opportunity is being presented and the rugby kids don’t take it for whatever reasons.

Warriors open trials arent actually open open. You still have to register and be confirmed to play. They vet kids and most of the spots are already taken by players they invite...

 

[Fonzie]

The easiest thing the Warriors can do is send a team to the play in the Harold Matthews Cup but they may need some help funding it as NSWRL clubs have a history of not agreeing to pay for away flights and accomodation to NZ or even having the NSWRL pay for us to travel and stay over there.

Money, money, money...

This is exactly what I’m suggesting, x 2

 

[mt.wellington]

I get zero points. Who are they?

Suaia Matagi and Manu Ma'u. Obviously couldn't cause they were in jail but both were age grade reps for Auckland growing up. Think they debuted at 21yo without being part of a junior NRL system...

 

[TeetsNRL]

If the Warriors cant afford it how the hell is a team from Wellington or Christchurch going to do it lol? And what do they do? Just play each other every week?

There are 15 teams in the Harold Matthews competition. The very best U16 from the Bulldogs play the very best U16s from the Raiders. Then the week after they play the very best U16 from the Roosters and so on so forth with the Panthers, Eels, Roosters, Rabbitohs etc.

We dont have that level of intense competition week in and week out here in NZ even with another team.

I think Fonz was referring to both teams playing in NSW comps.

I.e both Matt’s teams fly over every week and play in the comp.

Warriors open trials arent actually open open. You still have to register and be confirmed to play. They vet kids and most of the spots are already taken by players they invite...

Not referring to actual Warriors trials.

These are for the Shaun Johnson/Dean Bell feeder comps. The 4 Auckland sides might still have that process as you say but not here at least.

Of course you have to register, but the Waikato NZRL tourney teams have nothing to do with the Warriors, while the teams in the Warriors aligned comps are basically the exact same teams + a couple rugby kids.

 

[Cces]

Suaia Matagi and Manu Ma'u. Obviously couldn't cause they were in jail but both were age grade reps for Auckland growing up. Think they debuted at 21yo without being part of a junior NRL system...

Think Andrew Davey is another one. Made his debut at 28 in 2020 & definitely didn't play any NYC

 

[Brother Faisal]

If the Warriors cant afford it how the hell is a team from Wellington or Christchurch going to do it lol? And what do they do? Just play each other every week?

There are 15 teams in the Harold Matthews competition. The very best U16 from the Bulldogs play the very best U16s from the Raiders. Then the week after they play the very best U16 from the Roosters and so on so forth with the Panthers, Eels, Roosters, Rabbitohs etc.

We dont have that level of intense competition week in and week out here in NZ even with another team.

The easiest thing the Warriors can do is send a team to the play in the Harold Matthews Cup but they may need some help funding it as NSWRL clubs have a history of not agreeing to pay for away flights and accomodation to NZ or even having the NSWRL pay for us to travel and stay over there.

Money, money, money...

This shows how the professional era has left nz league in the dust and there’s no easy way to turn it around. Just looks like there’s no solution apart from the warriors being successful on the field etc.

 

[The Falcon]

Schools are the key - large pool of players to consistently draw from.
Develop and grow the game from the bottom up and then fund a 2nd NZ team to play NSW Cup.
Hopefully The Warriors can get some success and the two can meet in the middle

 

[mt.wellington]

Was speaking to one of my Roosters contacts in the weekend and it looks like they are going to completely can their NZ arm of development. They have been bitterly disappointed with the quality of players from here and will go back to recruiting and getting them over to Australia.

Of the 60 13-17 year olds they were developing they only took on 2 of them. The rest were just too unfit for the most part. They want players who can do a hard 80 minute game then run a 5 minute bronco straight after. 1.2km in 5 minutes!

Fitness was their main benchmark after physical attributes.

We have the latter in spades but the fitness is well below what their Aussie counterparts are doing over there.

Their other concern was that the level of coaching was, in the guys words, "completely trash". The clinics run by Brent Webb were never going to be enough to get them up to play.

Had some reports about the league comp they just had in Christchurch and they sent over a NSW U14 team. They lost their last game but was told they were fitter and smarter than the NZ based teams despite being physically dominated. Think that game they lost 8 of their players went off injured including 2 broken legs. They were pretty freaked out by the size of players they played but held their own with better structure and fitness...

 

[Cces]

Had some reports about the league comp they just had in Christchurch and they sent over a NSW U14 team. They lost their last game but was told they were fitter and smarter than the NZ based teams despite being physically dominated. Think that game they lost 8 of their players went off injured including 2 broken legs. They were pretty freaked out by the size of players they played but held their own with better structure and fitness...

It wasn't a NSW rep side. It was a club side out of Canberra. They definitely gave away size but were incredibly well drilled from the tiny bit I saw. They did have the advantage of playing against sides who will have been lucky to have 6 trainings together before the tournament.

 

[Geoff Public]

I found the Bronco interesting.

Less than 5 minutes is moving considering Richie McCaw has a pb of 4 minutes 56.

Physical Assessment » RugbySmart

www.rugbysmart.co.nz

 

[Noitall]

I found the Bronco interesting.

Less than 5 minutes is moving considering Richie McCaw has a pb of 4 minutes 56.

Physical Assessment » RugbySmart

www.rugbysmart.co.nz

Starts becoming clearer about that young manly player that died in pre season training the other year, they must be pushing them to the extreme.

 

[TeetsNRL]

I found the Bronco interesting.

Less than 5 minutes is moving considering Richie McCaw has a pb of 4 minutes 56.

Physical Assessment » RugbySmart

www.rugbysmart.co.nz

Yeah a lot of elite pro forwards are still going to struggle to come in under 5 mins, this sounds frankly ridiculous.

And these teams the Canberra kids played weren’t exactly monsters.. come on man.

If these kids are considered big and scary you’ll be in for a fright when you see an elite Western Sydney team.

 

[Viking]

I found the Bronco interesting.

Less than 5 minutes is moving considering Richie McCaw has a pb of 4 minutes 56.

Physical Assessment » RugbySmart

www.rugbysmart.co.nz

There's a bit of an art to doing Bronco's, maintaining a steady pace is the key. My son's school rugby coaches teach them how to do it efficiently. He did a bronco for a league trial this year with over 60 under 13 year olds and beat everyone with a low 4.40s. The small number of boys that ran under 5 were all accused of cheating by the trial trainer because it was faster than his prems players could do. 4.40 would rank him about 4th best just in his junior school rugby team alone. Having said that, you would only expect the backs, halves and the odd flanker with good engines to run under 5 realistically.

 

[Viking]

Was speaking to one of my Roosters contacts in the weekend and it looks like they are going to completely can their NZ arm of development. They have been bitterly disappointed with the quality of players from here and will go back to recruiting and getting them over to Australia.

Of the 60 13-17 year olds they were developing they only took on 2 of them. The rest were just too unfit for the most part. They want players who can do a hard 80 minute game then run a 5 minute bronco straight after. 1.2km in 5 minutes!

Fitness was their main benchmark after physical attributes.

We have the latter in spades but the fitness is well below what their Aussie counterparts are doing over there.

Their other concern was that the level of coaching was, in the guys words, "completely trash". The clinics run by Brent Webb were never going to be enough to get them up to play.

Had some reports about the league comp they just had in Christchurch and they sent over a NSW U14 team. They lost their last game but was told they were fitter and smarter than the NZ based teams despite being physically dominated. Think that game they lost 8 of their players went off injured including 2 broken legs. They were pretty freaked out by the size of players they played but held their own with better structure and fitness...

I know a number of those boys in that Roosters academy, stink for them. Brent's youngest boy is schooling in Brisbane next year, not sure if his brother is too and the family are moving over but there's others that could continue here. The Roosters will always have the problem of not having the size in their junior catchment area to take through to 1st grade so they have to get them from NZ or other clubs, hence the majority of their big players coming from NZ.

I don't know about the fitness itself but there's definitely a bit of resilience missing in the kids this year. It might just be a post COVID thing. Although if you can do a sub 5 minute Bronco after a hard 80 minute game then you didn't expend enough energy on the field but the intent needs to be there I guess. Same old Auckland problem though, big juniors playing for stacked teams and dominating then going into similar stacked rep teams and cruising into the seniors never having faced any adversity. The majority don't achieve anything in league past junior reps. The ARL tried to address this poaching problem by making it so that clubs could only put 4 players from each team forward for junior rep trials and this would hopefully discourage talented boys going to stacked teams and missing out on rep opportunities but the coaches found creative ways to get around it and the ARL abandoned the concept this year.

 

[Viking]

Yeah a lot of elite pro forwards are still going to struggle to come in under 5 mins, this sounds frankly ridiculous.

And these teams the Canberra kids played weren’t exactly monsters.. come on man.

If these kids are considered big and scary you’ll be in for a fright when you see an elite Western Sydney team.

There's a number of videos on junior grade Aussie NRL and rep teams and they aren't amazing. An U14s Samoan side were in Brisbane in the last school holidays and cleaned up including beating Ipswich who are the state school champs. As a result of that teams trip, a number of NRL scouts flew in to watch the PYC comp at Bay Roskill a few weeks ago, where that Samoan side was well beaten by the NZ Maori side. So now the Storm are running a 3 day camp in December and have invited most of the Maori side to attend.

 

[Chchfanatic]

I found the Bronco interesting.

Less than 5 minutes is moving considering Richie McCaw has a pb of 4 minutes 56.

Physical Assessment » RugbySmart

www.rugbysmart.co.nz

I just looked back at our colts time for this year. 18 of the 28 tested were under 5mins. Top guy was 4:19. Most times were 430-445. I heard Richie was normally around the 445. Beauden Barrett was one of the fastest around 415. So I can see why they want them under 5 mins. After a game of footy is tough though.

 

[mt.wellington]

TBH I have never run a bronco in my life and actually had to be told what it was but that was the conversation I had with one of the Roosters top men on Saturday night. Wont go into detail as I dont want to give him away but he's up there.

The reports from the Christchurch tourney were from two parents who flew down from Auckland who had kids playing. I didn't watch a game bar reply of a fight that happened at the end of one game.

That was the other thing I forgot to mention Viking that I heard Webb is moving back home. From what I heard the Roosters are only interested in Charlie. I have 3 mates who had kids in his team. All signed to the Roosters program. Two from Papakura and one from Otara. He had enough kids in his team that they had a whole team on the bench.

I have no involvement in junior league or development. I just know a lot of people in the game and post what I hear. Will be going to a wedding next week and a couple scouts will be there with one of them being a Roosters scout who use to work with the Warriors. I'll be nosy again. And post my findings...

 

[Viking]

TBH I have never run a bronco in my life and actually had to be told what it was but that was the conversation I had with one of the Roosters top men on Saturday night. Wont go into detail as I dont want to give him away but he's up there.

The reports from the Christchurch tourney were from two parents who flew down from Auckland who had kids playing. I didn't watch a game bar reply of a fight that happened at the end of one game.

That was the other thing I forgot to mention Viking that I heard Webb is moving back home. From what I heard the Roosters are only interested in Charlie. I have 3 mates who had kids in his team. All signed to the Roosters program. Two from Papakura and one from Otara. He had enough kids in his team that they had a whole team on the bench.

I have no involvement in junior league or development. I just know a lot of people in the game and post what I hear. Will be going to a wedding next week and a couple scouts will be there with one of them being a Roosters scout who use to work with the Warriors. I'll be nosy again. And post my findings...

If I had to pick one junior in Auckland to be a future NRL star, it's Charlie. He'd be better than Shaun Johnson was at the same age. You'd think the Warriors would've gone all out to sign him, especially since his brother Rueben is in their future Warriors program and a really good player in his own right. Charlie's going to Wavell in Brisbane which is Greg Inglis's old high school. They've got some great NZ talent at the school now so they must serious about competing with the big dogs in school league.

I don't know too much about the Roosters academy except I think the boys train there once or twice a week. If the Roosters were expecting someone else to get those boys fit, like a school or club, then they would be sorely disappointed. It just won't happen because those boys aren't in competition with anyone for their spots in the academy like they would be in Australia. It's still a shame the Roosters are going because having a local presence with NRL clubs creates a buzz around junior league, a bit of renewed hope that's been missing in league in recent times. The Tigers set up shop here for a bit but left when Covid hit understandably. The Broncos and Storm have held short camps but have no local presence that I know of. The Bulldogs are looking to commit money and resources into developing juniors here which came off the back of Phil Goulds short stint with the Warriors I was told. A recent rumour is the Eels trying to do something locally as well so it's not all doom and gloom. But our favourite club is looking to scale back their junior program it seems.