Penrith's successes = our shortcomings?

[broncobuster]

A lot was said of "the 5 year plan"™ when it was introduced but that plan has turned into 5 years of utter and complete domination of the competition. There's no doubt that this has been a once in a lifetime or generation purple patch but having seen it, I wonder if it's something we could potentially replicate (or not).

Geographically, Penrith used to be a fringe area fairly barren of development and population. Now, Penrith City is just shy of 220k population (according to the 2021 census) with junior clubs ranging from the Hawkesbury to the M4-M7 junction to Katoomba. This year they registered 9000 junior players too.

Randwick council makes up the majority of Souths Juniors territory and has a population around 135k (2021 census) - in 2023, Souths Juniors had around 2800 junior players.

The numbers are smaller by a fair margin, where you could almost argue Penrith are bordering on becoming a "one team town" in a rapidly expanding area that's about to become bigger with an airport in a few minutes' drive. They're also expanding even further to the west, being heavily involved in the central west and possibly beyond, further bolstering their talent pool.

Meanwhile, we are surrounded by the filth, Wests Tigers (Balmain JRL) and St. George nurseries, with no room to expand. The Roosters, for all their faults, have realised that fate and have expanded into the Central Coast and other areas.

For me, the writing is on the wall - we need to find more space and more of a nursery. Obviously, we can't just pack up and move to another area away from other clubs - but, we need to look beyond the ANZAC Parade peninsula if we want to even come close to replicate Penrith's success.

If you look at Penrith's premiership teams, most of their stars have been homegrown, either developed in Penrith clubs (St. Mary's Saints could almost have won an NRL premiership on their own) or in regions where the Panthers have vested interests. Meanwhile, many of our current players are "imported" in one way or another, barring obvious exceptions like Cam, etc.

Their long-term plan began in 2012, where they finished 15th, then 10th, then 4th, where they could have met us in the Grand Final in 2014 had they beaten the Bulldogs in the Prelim. That season saw the debut of Isaah Yeo, just quietly. In 2015, they dropped to 11th, then back to 6th in 2016, which also saw the debut of Nathan Cleary. They stayed around the same for the next few seasons, until missing the 8 in 2019 with a 10th place finish, but with the majority of their premiership-elect squad now in place.

If you consider their plan to be "complete" upon their 1st premiership of the era, it was a 10-season plan that saw the club go from 12th in 2011 to Premiers in 2021, or a 15 year plan that culminated in the strongest and most dominant* team of the colour TV era. (* so long as they are legal which I strongly doubt)

Developing first grade quality talent in-area means you can use your cap space more effectively and bring in star talent for your younger players to learn from. It means you don't have to chase a first grade squad, like the Wests Tigers or even the Bulldogs have had to do, paying overs for players in the hopes of them playing just as well at another club.

Something needs to change here, be it in administration, high performance or recruitment and development. Perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board and have a good look, from the ground up, at how we can become dominant. No one in a bajillion years could have predicted what we've just seen - the easybeat Panthers dominating the all-conquering Storm to win 4-straight. It's not impossible for us to do the same.

 

[Bully]

Great post. I’d love to be in a room to hear the thoughts of Blake and co and the Juniors on this subject.

- we OBVIOUSLY have no interest or money recruit from NZ. That’s pretty clear thats not on our radar at all despite the obvious talent.
- we seemingly aren’t identifying any genuine bush talent.
- we seem to be supplementing our junior teams from QLD. Whether this was because of the influence of Joe O’Callaghan or not remains to be seen I guess with him moving on.
- I think we are capturing all the best talent as it is in our catchment and it simply isnt good enough. No ones fault. For those who might disagree, who was the last kid to come out of Souths Juniors who we hadnt already identitied or graded? I don’t think we’re missing them at 15-19, we just don’t have enough of them.

So what does that leave us with? We’ve had a backrow and wing shortage for 5+ years and havent been able to fix it.. why?

What is our style or our way or our system? We all know Penrith’s now. We can see Melbourne’s. We know the Roosters. The Dogs are coming and we can all see it building. Not saying any of them are right or wrong but they clearly have an ‘identity’ and way about things.

How does our approach to 17-21s encourage club connection or squad building?

Its a pointless question to ask anyone at the club because you know we’d get a “oldest, loudest, proudest or guts and glory” type response.. but what are we building toward? What do we want playing for South Sydney to look like from the moment you get graded in Matts until you play NRL? Right now I wouldnt send my son or nephew to play at Souths in the 17-21s unless they were an absolute elite talent who was guaranteed to make it anyway.

Why would you so they can get surrounded with the offcuts and body shapes and styles in complete contradiction to all the top teams and all the other kids making it? The squads we build there make no sense either.

The other issue that sort of links to this is we’ve churned through head coaches the past 10 years for whatever reason. All of them will place a different level of interest in whats happening from Matts up but Madge had the whole club moving in the same way no matter if you were 17s or NRL squad. I don’t think weve had that level of investment since and if you look at results in those grades they do die off post Madge.. whether thats purely a coincedence who knows.

 

[Pplspoet]

The club have seemingly opted out of development.

It isn’t just a case of ‘oh, well, the demographics of the catchment area don’t work, so be it’.

The Roosters do a good job developing juniors from Matt’s onwards. TBF, that’s the development that most impacts first grade. The quality you have in those side and the work you put into them equals what you’ll have to call into your cap.

Penrith have always had a big nursery, it’s what they are doing with it now that has made the difference. And plenty of their success has come from Country NSW, outside their Penrith catchment.

Souths seem to have opted for doing minimal recruitment bar a couple of positions they particularly wanted to focus on (Gray, Le Blanc and Mellars as examples). I feel Duncan was only recruited to say FU to the Roosters, just my opinion. Signed 6 months after Sualii defected.

Then we seem to be far more interested in looking at guys 21-26 who have maybe been undervalued by competitors (which is where you get guys like Tatola, Tass, Host, Walker and Cook too I guess). Guys you can pick up on tiny deals, after not having to have paid for their development, who have upside.

And then there are the gimmes who just happen to come through the Juniors, through little to no input of our own (Ala Munro, Mamouzelos, etc).

Do we need to change tact? Maybe. I mean, it would be nice to have a tonne of elite talent just sitting in lower grades waiting to be called up.

The club just don’t seem to have any interest in that approach though.

It will be very telling who/if they replace O’Callaghan in pathways. No word on that side of things yet.

They have the deals in place with the QLD partners, but those feel rather set and forget as opposed to leveraging them to add talent to those programs. Input seems more one way I.e, if something be turns up unaffiliated, we’ll take a look at them.

 

[Bully]

Looking back at this announcement in Oct 2023:

To allow Joe O’Callaghan to focus on coaching, his previous roles in managing the Club’s pathways system and recruitment will be the responsibility of two new roles that have been created at South Sydney.

Tyrone McCarthy joins the Rabbitohs as Pathways Coaching Director. McCarthy joins the Rabbitohs from the Warrington Wolves where he was the Senior Academy and Development Coach. Renowned junior coach and talent scout, and former Rabbitohs first grade player, Brent Hill, will join the Club as the Pathways Recruitment Manager.

Assuming those 2 are still on-board, maybe nothing will change. Not to say thats their problem, any agreed approach to development would be above their pay grade and obviously our model is what Blake and the Board thinks is most appropiate.

 

[wheelbarrow]

A lot was said of "the 5 year plan"™ when it was introduced but that plan has turned into 5 years of utter and complete domination of the competition. There's no doubt that this has been a once in a lifetime or generation purple patch but having seen it, I wonder if it's something we could potentially replicate (or not).

Geographically, Penrith used to be a fringe area fairly barren of development and population. Now, Penrith City is just shy of 220k population (according to the 2021 census) with junior clubs ranging from the Hawkesbury to the M4-M7 junction to Katoomba. This year they registered 9000 junior players too.

Randwick council makes up the majority of Souths Juniors territory and has a population around 135k (2021 census) - in 2023, Souths Juniors had around 2800 junior players.

The numbers are smaller by a fair margin, where you could almost argue Penrith are bordering on becoming a "one team town" in a rapidly expanding area that's about to become bigger with an airport in a few minutes' drive. They're also expanding even further to the west, being heavily involved in the central west and possibly beyond, further bolstering their talent pool.

Meanwhile, we are surrounded by the filth, Wests Tigers (Balmain JRL) and St. George nurseries, with no room to expand. The Roosters, for all their faults, have realised that fate and have expanded into the Central Coast and other areas.

For me, the writing is on the wall - we need to find more space and more of a nursery. Obviously, we can't just pack up and move to another area away from other clubs - but, we need to look beyond the ANZAC Parade peninsula if we want to even come close to replicate Penrith's success.

If you look at Penrith's premiership teams, most of their stars have been homegrown, either developed in Penrith clubs (St. Mary's Saints could almost have won an NRL premiership on their own) or in regions where the Panthers have vested interests. Meanwhile, many of our current players are "imported" in one way or another, barring obvious exceptions like Cam, etc.

Their long-term plan began in 2012, where they finished 15th, then 10th, then 4th, where they could have met us in the Grand Final in 2014 had they beaten the Bulldogs in the Prelim. That season saw the debut of Isaah Yeo, just quietly. In 2015, they dropped to 11th, then back to 6th in 2016, which also saw the debut of Nathan Cleary. They stayed around the same for the next few seasons, until missing the 8 in 2019 with a 10th place finish, but with the majority of their premiership-elect squad now in place.

If you consider their plan to be "complete" upon their 1st premiership of the era, it was a 10-season plan that saw the club go from 12th in 2011 to Premiers in 2021, or a 15 year plan that culminated in the strongest and most dominant* team of the colour TV era. (* so long as they are legal which I strongly doubt)

Developing first grade quality talent in-area means you can use your cap space more effectively and bring in star talent for your younger players to learn from. It means you don't have to chase a first grade squad, like the Wests Tigers or even the Bulldogs have had to do, paying overs for players in the hopes of them playing just as well at another club.

Something needs to change here, be it in administration, high performance or recruitment and development. Perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board and have a good look, from the ground up, at how we can become dominant. No one in a bajillion years could have predicted what we've just seen - the easybeat Panthers dominating the all-conquering Storm to win 4-straight. It's not impossible for us to do the same.

All fair points
1) Panthers have a large population/area base to grow their juniors and develop future players
2) in addition , their population base has room for further growth
3) in addition , they have a HOME ground , which is their fortress
4) in addition , they have a prosperous leagues club
5) in addition , they choose to minimise their travel , they minimise trading home ground games.
6) in addition , whilst they have tremendous junior talent to choose from , they also wisely bring in players who are WORKERS from the outside to compliment

My concern with Souths , and your suggestion of back to the drawing board
1) We do not have a fortress , home ground .
2) our local junior base is restricted and we cannot stop Roosters from plundering some of our best
3) we do not have a prosperous leagues club .
4)our owners whilst wealthy are businessmen , and Jolly's an excellent administrator , whose main focus appears to run an efficient club financially , which is one reason why we do have a woman's team in the NRLW and why we are willing to trade some home games to be a travelling circus.
5) our recruitment has been average

YES we have history , a rich history ....but so did the Romans and the Ancient Greeks and where are they now in world affairs. a joke. I am pessimistic about our future because of some of the points above , hence why have mentioned before , our drawing board should have been to consider an amalgamation move to Perth, however Bears were smarter.

 

[Pplspoet]

Looking back at this announcement in Oct 2023:

To allow Joe O’Callaghan to focus on coaching, his previous roles in managing the Club’s pathways system and recruitment will be the responsibility of two new roles that have been created at South Sydney.

Tyrone McCarthy joins the Rabbitohs as Pathways Coaching Director. McCarthy joins the Rabbitohs from the Warrington Wolves where he was the Senior Academy and Development Coach. Renowned junior coach and talent scout, and former Rabbitohs first grade player, Brent Hill, will join the Club as the Pathways Recruitment Manager.

Assuming those 2 are still on-board, maybe nothing will change. Not to say thats their problem, any agreed approach to development would be above their pay grade and obviously our model is what Blake and the Board thinks is most appropiate.

I mean, this doesn’t fill me with confidence.

I know Brent is an old boy and is well known by some at the club. But they throw around ‘renowned talent scout’ as a term - can anyone with further background provide some proof points for that claim?

To me (again, with little background) that feels like a tick a box appointment and less like an aggressive strategy.

Like when your boss leaves and to save a buck the company says ‘how about you guys just take over their role?’

And if Brent is a renowned talent scout and the right man to run one of the biggest clubs in the leagues pathways identification, it doesn’t really matter does it if there’s no financial backing behind him to make appropriate moves?

 

[yobbo84]

Demographics is the biggest thing. Way moreso than just sheer numbers.

I've said it before - go to Penrith Plaza on a random Saturday and you'll see more 6-foot-3, 110kgs, legs the size of tree trunks, athletic 17 to 21-year-old men - then you would find in our entire catchment area.

The skinny, skilful, 15-year-old outside back has barely a hope these days.

As long as Penrith maintain a solid leadership platform, and recruit very wisely when Cleary's time is up (both of them) - they'll be the dominant force in this competition for a long time. It's a literal production line of athleticism out there.

The gentrification of our area means we absolutely need to look outside the box, and we've failed at it so far.

 

[Shauno]

Right now I wouldnt send my son or nephew to play at Souths in the 17-21s unless they were an absolute elite talent who was guaranteed to make it anyway.

Why would you so they can get surrounded with the offcuts and body shapes and styles in complete contradiction to all the top teams and all the other kids making it? The squads we build there make no sense either.

I appreciate the whole recruitment and development process is complicated and there isn't one single solution, but this comment totally sums up where we are at.

Why would any up and coming possible talent want to be at Souths? What do we offer them in their development and growth as a human and a footballer?

It's simply not good enough at present.

 

[Pplspoet]

Demographics is the biggest thing. Way moreso than just sheer numbers.

I've said it before - go to Penrith Plaza on a random Saturday and you'll see more 6-foot-3, 110kgs, legs the size of tree trunks, athletic 17 to 21-year-old men - then you would find in our entire catchment area.

The skinny, skilful, 15-year-old outside back has barely a hope these days.

As long as Penrith maintain a solid leadership platform, and recruit very wisely when Cleary's time is up (both of them) - they'll be the dominant force in this competition for a long time. It's a literal production line of athleticism out there.

The gentrification of our area means we absolutely need to look outside the box, and we've failed at it so far.

Agree.

100% St Mary’s helps their squad turnover.

But also worth noting, 9 of their grand final squad aren’t from the Penrith catchment (8 players are, so to your point, yep, it certainly helps). And then of course, they’ve developed them excellently.

On the alternative to natural fortune, the Roosters have a plethora of junior rep elite talents with no local catchment. They identify and develop without the help of a nursery in their heartland.

So while it helps, it isn’t something you can’t overcome with the right approach and investment.

Like you said, currently, we don’t seem interested in that.

 

[captainsutto]

Some great points Wheelie until you got to the last bit. I’d rather us fold than sell our soul and move to Perth

 

[Joe]

To counter all of this doom and gloom….
- The Storm are competitive without having any real dedicated juniors so I think we can solve that problem
- We have recruited some fairly good English players over the years, add to that Aiden Doolan and Lewis Dodd more recently and I think we are certainly looking beyond our shores for talent.
- What we really need to tap into is the Storms and Penrith culture and ability to turn average talent into a quality player. taking a discard like Paul Alomati and turning him into a rock solid Premiership winning outside back is impressive.

 

[captainsutto]

Very well thought out posts by all of you. I feel some negative assumptions are being made but mostly valid thoughts.

Progressing that forward have any of you contacted the club or even attended an AGM to raise your VALID concerns/thoughts?
Not having a shot at any of you, I simply see an opportunity for you to contribute you worthwhile thoughts

 

[Bully]

Very well thought out posts by all of you. I feel some negative assumptions are being made but mostly valid thoughts.

Progressing that forward have any of you contacted the club or even attended an AGM to raise your VALID concerns/thoughts?
Not having a shot at any of you, I simply see an opportunity for you to contribute you worthwhile thoughts

Honestly I can’t imagine any of them would engage in any sort of meaningful discussion about it. I h

I don’t see our approach changing whilst ever Blake and the Board remain as is. That’s not a shot at them either. I think the only way it changes is if a big dog comes in like a Gould or Ponissi at that GM of Footy level.

Maybe the approach is right and we just aren’t choosing the right ones.. I don’t know but it looks and feels off.

 

[Pplspoet]

Honestly I can’t imagine any of them would engage in any sort of meaningful discussion about it. I h

I don’t see our approach changing whilst ever Blake and the Board remain as is. That’s not a shot at them either. I think the only way it changes is if a big dog comes in like a Gould or Ponissi at that GM of Footy level.

Maybe the approach is right and we just aren’t choosing the right ones.. I don’t know but it looks and feels off.

Agreed. For better or worse, the club have made a choice about how they want to set up this element of the business. And I think we’re just along for that particular ride.

That approach is:

- Develop any talent that does happen to pop up locally, well.

- Be active in the 21-26 year old reserve grader market for value adds

- Identify a select few top prospects in key positions as needed and don’t flood your junior ranks with gambles/mouths to feed.

- Hedge your bets on a couple of mid tier worker-type prospects to supplement your shrinking nursery without breaking the bank.

And hope for the best.

That approach won’t thrill some, but you also have to remember that Tallis Duncan, Tyrone Munro, Davvy Moale and Jye Gray are all considered elite NRL prospects. That isn’t just Souths fans getting excited, pundits in general consider those guys possible/likely rep-quality players of the future.

Graham, Koloamatangi and Murray came before them.

So while I lament our outside back stocks as much as the next guy. And the fact we see so much of Host, Gagai, Chee Kam, Keppie, etc. And the fact Te Hau, Kalokalo, Karapani and Sualii didn’t work out - the existing approach has yield Origin class players and looks as though it will continue to do so.

 

[yobbo84]

So while I lament our outside back stocks as much as the next guy. And the fact we see so much of Host, Gagai, Chee Kam, Keppie, etc. And the fact Te Hau, Kalokalo, Karapani and Sualii didn’t work out - the existing approach has yield Origin class players and looks as though it will continue to do so.

The question is... do we want to develop individual rep-quality talents, and surround them with "average", hoping the team lifts as a whole?

Or... do we want to develop winning teams with a winning culture (and a healthy arrogance) from Harold Matts all the way to the NRL?

How does being a top talent, playing in losing junior sides, help develop that inward desire to succeed and want to win?