And no evidence Roosters could have or would have done anything for those other players in the squad either. Maybe they just ID'd one of/the best guys.Maybe, and maybe not. There were 18 other players in that squad whose team couldn't turn them in to a regular NRL player, 20 if you count Dargan and Schonig who were added to the squad later.
Of course those players had "some development" prior to that. They didn't pop out of an egg the day before being signed. The question is how much of that is attributed to the NRL team who had them previously? Maybe Nat Butcher had a fantastic u14 B's coach who put him on the path to success. Maybe he's still pissed off about Butcher missing a game because the Bunnies made him.
Matt Gillett was once cut by the Broncos NYC team because he wanted to go play the local u20's Grand Final with his mates. Broncos said no, he played anyway, so they cut him. I'm going to go ahead and say that the Wests Arana Hills coaches had a fair bit of input in to Gillett's development. No Broncos input required.
If they had an substantially higher % HM, SG and Flegg (and Qld equivalent) to NRL conversion rate there is an argument to be made.
Until I can see something like that I have no real evidence Roosters can develop a mid to late teen into an NRL player any better than another club.
And even then talent ID plays a big part.
Their pre Rooster development plays some part - different for many different people of course - and that is somewhere Roosters do seem to be weaker with a smaller junior pool (more a region issue than a fault of theirs).
There's also the questions about how relevant the NRL club is to the non-affiliated clubs in the region. Super hard to judge also.
(I have no idea where Arana Hills is, for sake of example it is in Brisbane area) Maybe Arana Hills has that good coach and an attractive team for Matt Gillett to join and stick with league for (important as teen retention can be bad) due to the influence of the Broncos. In that case does it still count as Broncos contributing to his development?
Without any evidence in front of me I can't agree with Gould the Roosters are some powerhouse who deserves extensive credit.
They may well be, I just haven't seen anything concrete.