Remember that random player?

They get them before they even enter the Knights system these days.
Nearly every week you hear about some kid from the central coast, hunter valley or mid North Coast who was never in the Knights system.
Connor Watson never played a junior game for the Knights, despite coming through the same system as the Saifitis, Starling, Cogger, Crossland etc.
 
Sam MacIntyre, beau fermor although from Qld. Pezet may play NRL. Jock madden, Nick meaney. There is a heap of juniors spread around. As Billy said there is a lot like your Liam Martin's, issaah Yeo, katoni staggs etc who should be looked at by Newcastle.
 
Most of those guys we let go, they weren't pilfered.

Trying to claim Dubbo or south west NSW as Knights territory is a stretch.

I legitimately struggle to name five that are any good

Tapine for sure.
Hudson Young is a good player but we let him go for off field stuff
Latrell trialled and we told him no thanks
 
Oh definitely. Newcastle do really well in juniors that we either debut them too early or we let them go to other clubs without much fight. They end up playing like busted arses because it's a totally different set up elsewhere. Here they play with guys 5+ years and look like world beaters.

It takes a long time to set-up successful programs from juniors to first as you don't know who's going to strive and who'll fail.
 
Jonah Pezet was the best junior we had on our books in 2020. He went 2 years without playing in a losing side in our under 16s and 18s.
In 2020 he was basically Scott Dureau's little shadow. At under 20s games he was helping out as what looked like Scott's assistant and running the older boys through plays.
He was the youngest player in the emerging blues camp, training with Johns and Fittler.
This year, as a 17/18 year old, he did a firstgrade pre season with Melbourne Storm and started the year as captain of their under 21's.

Jock Madden was our top junior on the books till 2019. He was SG Ball player of the year for the comp and played in every NSW and Australian rep side. Wests poached him by offering him a development contract when he was 17. He has done 2 pre seasons with Wests, had them as the form side in reserve grade this year, and debuted in firstgrade.
 
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danknights said:
Oh definitely. Newcastle do really well in juniors that we either debut them too early or we let them go to other clubs without much fight. They end up playing like busted arses because it's a totally different set up elsewhere. Here they play with guys 5+ years and look like world beaters.

It takes a long time to set-up successful programs from juniors to first as you don't know who's going to strive and who'll fail.
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Yeah it's this thinking that we're a crap side because all the good sides steal our gun juniors that is annoying. 20 years ago there were origin level blokes playing for other teams (like lords list) but these days you can find maybe 1 or 2 good players out there that were legit pilfered. And a whole lot let we let go and/or are fringe players for teams worse than us

I see joey and Matt Johns blowing up about juniors and that we haven't developed a quality spine player in 20 years. You'd have to fact check that but it feels right. That's not because they're playing for other teams though, and it explains why we've been bad for so long.
 
slotmachine said:
Yeah it's this thinking that we're a crap side because all the good sides steal our gun juniors that is annoying. 20 years ago there were origin level blokes playing for other teams (like lords list) but these days you can find maybe 1 or 2 good players out there that were legit pilfered. And a whole lot let we let go and/or are fringe players for teams worse than us

I see joey and Matt Johns blowing up about juniors and that we haven't developed a quality spine player in 20 years. You'd have to fact check that but it feels right. That's not because they're playing for other teams though, and it explains why we've been bad for so long.
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Yeah I guess to an extent. Some of our talked up spine players have never really gotten much opportunity to shine as of late. It's taken cleary 100 games to look comfortable. We write ours off after 10....... I'd say if we can keep and nurture rather then blast them and scrap heap them we would do a lot better. It's hard to live up to an a johns jumper and I'm sure they feel the pressure surrounding it. Plenty play 20 and die off. Clydesdale etc.
 
Cleary has taken a little while and that’s with having a Dad that’s been a pretty good 1st grade player and a damn good coach for a good few years
 
Adrian "Archie" Brunker

wasn't the fastest, biggest or the strongest winger in knights history also looked surprisingly un-athletic still managed 18 tries in 50 odd games and 3 Origins for QLD
 
Ballsout said:
Adrian "Archie" Brunker

wasn't the fastest, biggest or the strongest winger in knights history also looked surprisingly un-athletic still managed 18 tries in 50 odd games and 3 Origins for QLD
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In 92, he played 14 games outside John Schuster, who also didn't really look like a footballer either. However, in those 14 games, their opposite centre and winger scored just 1 try. I'd kill for that from our right side today.
 
Beau Scott. How funny was it that belted JT so hard for the course of a match that him and the coach were both crying in the press conference.

JT was the biggest sook ever, Pearce gets hammered just as much as JT if not more and like every other halfback knows that's the price you pay when you try to kick close to the line, just JT took getting wacked personally.
 
Never liked Beau Scott much tbh. Didn't help that he came in for the superior Zeb Taia ... and then was another that ditched the club as soon as Bennett left (albeit coz of a sick kid). Seemed to be injured or suspended a lot, too.
 
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