General Junior development

[Orifice]

I don't know why, but I feel like I don't trust Tony Iro to do this job. I can understand Stacy because of his mana at the club. Hope these guys can pull it off?

 

[Cces]

From what I've read Murray is a Half, Waikato a #6/Centre & Tanielu is also a Centre. Am I correct? Where does Ataata play? Are any involved with the Warriors?

 

[drake83]

Listened to this today warriors should be bringing this guy home to contribute to our development and junior recruitment.
He spoke so passionately about it. Currently working with the panthers.

 

[The Falcon]

I wasn’t sure where to post this interesting article, as it is both a pathways and expansion thread.
Exciting at the thought of League finally making inroads into the rugby stronghold in NZ.

Inside the NRL's battle plan to take on the All Blacks

There has long been a fascination over the “rugby versus league war” in this country.In reality, ‘war’ is a mismatched descriptor on mor...

businessdesk.co.nz

 

[JustVisiting82]

For those who keep a close eye on our up and coming young talent, I would be keen to hear which of the following you rate as the most promising potential member of our future forward pack:

Tom Ale
Kepu twins (either collectively or individually)
Leyton Finau

These are the main ones I can think of that I hear mentioned around here, and I'm curious if any of them in particular stand out.

 

[The Falcon]

For those who keep a close eye on our up and coming young talent, I would be keen to hear which of the following you rate as the most promising potential member of our future forward pack:

Tom Ale
Kepu twins (either collectively or individually)
Leyton Finau

These are the main ones I can think of that I hear mentioned around here, and I'm curious if any of them in particular stand out.

Great call - also if anyone knows how the club are developing the wider youth set up of those not currently with Redcliffe this season 👍🏾

 

[JustVisiting82]

It’s a tough one. Unless you are in recruitment or a scout then you won’t have seen much of our younger players over the last 2 years.
If I was to rank players on potential and without playing any FG at all I would go

Kepu twins (lingi in particular)
Jacob Laban (rate this bloke really highly)
Zyon Maiuu
Lleyton Finau
Tama Whareaorere

Thanks Tony, great to hear your take and thanks for expanding on my original list.

I included Ale in my original list because although he has had his debut already, l feel he is still one of those highly touted young guys that we're waiting and watching to see if he can kick on in first grade. I understand if people feel it's apples to oranges though, what with him being further through his development.

 

[Blackdot]

In terms of completing completing our top 30, and playing fringe squad members during bad injury/covid runs, are we expecting any juniors to be NRL ready this season? I think with covid it’ll be likely that we will need to use the full squad throughout the season and I am curious if we still need to be looking for new depth forward signing or can rely on internal promotion.

Obviously Ale could be used if he can return from injury later in the season, but other than that I assume only the Kepu boys might be considered due to some decent amount of game time for Redcliffe last year?

 

[Five&Last]

Yeh He has a huge frame Laban, still very young. Has huge raps on him from Ardie Savea (done a bit of pre season training with him) With him and Zyon both getting 3 year deals I would say the club rate those two very highly.
Lleyton finau like a lot of them is hard to gauge. Last time I saw him play was Almost 2 years ago in SG Ball.
I think we are always going to produce a stable of good props. My main concern is spine players.
It’s important we lockdown Francis M and Xavier Tito Harris. I’ve heard Francis will have a contract in front of him from the warriors in November. So he has until then to decide which way he is going to go. At the moment he’s 50/50.
Demetric, I wouldn’t have a clue. He was playing fullback 2 years ago, moved to the halves then played in the centres. Looking at him now he’s going to play somewhere in the middle of the park. Ali and Eric are both quality outside backs. I would probably rate Ali slightly higher at this stage.

My list sort of incorporates how the club has prioritised their preseason training.

The club flew out Demetric Sifakula by himself last year to have a full preseason training with the first grade squad. I’ve heard the club is extremely high on him. Laban, Ali etc only joined the squad in Jan, so half the preseason training.

Yes Zyon and Laban have three year deals but neither of them have a development spot locked in yet. Sifakula is already locked in for a development spot next year and is right in the mix to potential grab the fourth spot for this year. Sifakula is the same age as Laban (still 17).

The positional changes you mentioned for Sifakula are what makes him unique as a prospect. Was small as a kid and has grown up playing halves/fullback and developed those skills. He is now massive and doesn’t look out of place standing next to the Kepu twins. They rate him as a ball playing lock.

I’ve got Eric over Ali because they are the same age (Eric played a year younger than his school year) but Eric has U21 Redcliffe experience now and again the club gave him a full preseason training and Ali only a half preseason. When I watch Ali he seems a touch slow with the ball and doesn’t really have the speed off the mark that Eric has. Both have good frames though, which is an improvement on the past regime recruiting dwarfs for outside backs

But yeah it will be massively important to tie down Francis and Xavier. Particularly Francis. Having those two as our halves long term would be game changing.

 

[Tony Martin]

The club flew out Demetric Sifakula by himself last year to have a full preseason training with the first grade squad. I’ve heard the club is extremely high on him. Laban, Ali etc only joined the squad in Jan, so half the preseason training.

Yes Zyon and Laban have three year deals but neither of them have a development spot locked in yet. Sifakula is already locked in for a development spot next year and is right in the mix to potential grab the fourth spot for this year. Sifakula is the same age as Laban (still 17).

The positional changes you mentioned for Sifakula are what makes him unique as a prospect. Was small as a kid and has grown up playing halves/fullback and developed those skills. He is now massive and doesn’t look out of place standing next to the Kepu twins. They rate him as a ball playing lock.

I’ve got Eric over Ali because they are the same age (Eric played a year younger than his school year) but Eric has U21 Redcliffe experience now and again the club gave him a full preseason training and Ali only a half preseason. When I watch Ali he seems a touch slow with the ball and doesn’t really have the speed off the mark that Eric has. Both have good frames though, which is an improvement on the past regime recruiting dwarfs for outside backs

But yeah it will be massively important to tie down Francis and Xavier. Particularly Francis. Having those two as our halves long term would be game changing.

Yeh I’m not saying sifakula won’t be good. It’s I’ve never seen him play in the forwards or in league for that matter.
He went over before the others because he was willing to cut short His schooling year.
Ali’s games for kings were a lot more impressive than his league games.He played every game for the SG ball team, Eric only played a couple. Who knows tho, will be good to see them both this year for Redcliffe.
Agreed re Xavier and Francis. Im not getting my hopes up. We normally lose out if it turns into a tug of war with union

 

[wenord 1]

Why is it many players are happy to join the warriors while based in OZ but the prospect of living in NZ they have a change of heart I.e Reece Walsh makes recruitment difficult

 

[The Falcon]

Question, can The Warriors begin to truely develop home grown talent and depth and mirror the success of the Penrith Panthers?

 

[6Again]

Question, can The Warriors begin to truely develop home grown talent and depth and mirror the success of the Penrith Panthers?

Partly it comes down to the collective desire of Autex, the ARL and NZRL to establish our own Academy, they don’t have a track record for working together in unison and there’s still a question mark around the willingness of the NRL to invest in NZ and our pathways as they said they would. We haven’t heard anything more on this and it’s obviously key to the whole thing.

The junior pathways seem obvious, I don‘t harbour any doubts around the talent pool in NZ but a lot of these kids and their parents need a bigger incentive to sign on with the club. There’s some big picture world building that needs to happen in that space and something tangible to showcase and help sell it.

Unfortunately we’re probably pinning much of our hope on the work Gus did last year. The longer we’re away from home base and the quieter the noise around all of this becomes the further away it all seems, but then I’m more optimistic than I was several years ago when it was ’crickets’ on this subject.

 

[The Falcon]

Partly it comes down to the collective desire of Autex, the ARL and NZRL to establish our own Academy, they don’t have a track record for working together in unison and there’s still a question mark around the willingness of the NRL to invest in NZ and our pathways as they said they would. We haven’t heard anything more on this and it’s obviously key to the whole thing.

The junior pathways seem obvious, I don‘t harbour any doubts around the talent pool in NZ but a lot of these kids and their parents need a bigger incentive to sign on with the club. There’s some big picture world building that needs to happen in that space and something tangible to showcase and help sell it.

Unfortunately we’re probably pinning much of our hope on the work Gus did last year. The longer we’re away from home base and the quieter the noise around all of this becomes the further away it all seems, but then I’m more optimistic than I was several years ago when it was ’crickets’ on this subject.

Nice! I totally agree about needing to get the team back in NZ first and foremost.
There did seem to be some traction with Gould didn’t there in uniting each of the respective parties- key for future success.
I wonder if the continued emergence of Tonga - shown recently at the Junior Pasifika comp last week can help here too in growing competitive playing numbers
I feel there might be an opportunity for a meaningful national junior club tournament to come out of the woodwork - 18’s - but the prize needs to be lucrative to attract the quality. Maybe this is where the NRL comes into it?

 

[J_P]

Nice! I totally agree about needing to get the team back in NZ first and foremost.
There did seem to be some traction with Gould didn’t there in uniting each of the respective parties- key for future success.
I wonder if the continued emergence of Tonga - shown recently at the Junior Pasifika comp last week can help here too in growing competitive playing numbers
I feel there might be an opportunity for a meaningful national junior club tournament to come out of the woodwork - 18’s - but the prize needs to be lucrative to attract the quality. Maybe this is where the NRL comes into it?

Slightly off topic but any chance gould comes back?

 

[The Falcon]

Slightly off topic but any chance gould comes back?

You would think it’s very unlikely while he’s in his role at The Bulldogs. It would be great to know where he got to before resigning his post though and what ground was broken.

 

[Five&Last]

He went over before the others because he was willing to cut short His schooling year.

I know a couple of the juniors that went over in January just weren’t invited to attend in November.

Not sure if it was the case for all of them, but didn’t have anything to do with their schooling.