Brian Smith on ABC Grandstand just then.

[Guest]

Exactly, some of our 'young guns' may become a consistent first graders in a few years. Others may not play NRL at all.

I'd rather our young forwards spend a year or so at Newtown after the NYC to toughen them up before they play regular NRL.

Our team is already young enough without thinking about adding 4-5 NYC graduates to the mix in 2010.

2011 maybe, but not 2010. We need this year's debutants to mature for a year or so first before blooding the next lot.


NC

I agree with you on the forwards. They need to be nurtured through the NSW Cup, just like we used the Premier League a few years back.

Some clubs such as Canberra and the Dragons use their feeder clubs to help develop their best junior talent eg. Josh Dugan played a few weeks in the QLD Cup with feeder club Souths Logan in which he handled with relative ease and than the Raiders coaching staff made the decision to move him into the NRL. We need to have the same structure and relationship with Newtown because a lot of our depth players will still be relatively young.

I'd like to see Williamson, Linnett, Moeakiola, Baiteri, Naughton, Towers, Guerra etc. have a run in the trials and to see whether they're up to first grade level or not. That way we can see who still needs development and who we can call on if we have a bad season with injuries.

[Cockadoodledoo]

Exactly, some of our 'young guns' may become a consistent first graders in a few years. Others may not play NRL at all.

I'd rather our young forwards spend a year or so at Newtown after the NYC to toughen them up before they play regular NRL.

Our team is already young enough without thinking about adding 4-5 NYC graduates to the mix in 2010.

2011 maybe, but not 2010. We need this year's debutants to mature for a year or so first before blooding the next lot.


NC

That just highlights the folly of having the premier 'youth' competition limited to Under 20's.. They should go back to having an under 18's and then an Under 23's.. That way the forwards have plenty of time to mature before moving in to First Grade...

[Jollyjock]

Exactly, some of our 'young guns' may become a consistent first graders in a few years. Others may not play NRL at all.

I'd rather our young forwards spend a year or so at Newtown after the NYC to toughen them up before they play regular NRL.
Our team is already young enough without thinking about adding 4-5 NYC graduates to the mix in 2010.

2011 maybe, but not 2010. We need this year's debutants to mature for a year or so first before blooding the next lot.


NC

We also need this competition to become a better quality comp than it has been in the last couple of years so we need injured First graders to be coming back through there to help lift the standards there.

[Guest]

Greg Inglis looks just as chubby if not more yet he can certainly gallop.

"Ahhhh, ummmmm"?

[Guest]

We also need this competition to become a better quality comp than it has been in the last couple of years so we need injured First graders to be coming back through there to help lift the standards there.

I was reading the Rugby League Review from last month and two of Newtown's players, Smith Samau and Kyle Lodge, were both asked which competition was better, NSW Cup or QLD Cup, and they said that the NSW Cup is a much more skillful feeder competition but the QLD Cup was more confrontational and physical because they had a lot of older players. It also had a list of NRL players that have played in both competitions this year and the NSW Cup had double the amount of the NRL players playing in it's league than their QLD counterparts. NSW Cup is not a bad competition at all, it's just the way it's run is a disgrace.

[Kingbilly]

SG ball is U18s.
HMatts is U16s
Apparently they are looking at an U17 dev squad to go with the U13/14/15s.

The word is Smith is very keen to get the junior development back on track and that he is very much a long term coach.