How can so many Players(generally- not just a Sharks based observation) get to FG, without being sound defenders? I don't get it. Maybe some play in champion front running Jnr teams through the grades?
This has always puzzled me as well. Also the fact that some players can't pass well or pass at all, like from right to left or left to right. Surely they learned all this in the junior grades?
We've had 20+ years of rewarding the biggest, fastest players (early bloomers) instead of developing good footballers. This is one reason why the NRL has just re-worked their entire development framework. QRL and VRL have taken this on; NSWRL have created their own framework based on the NRL one.
Some extreme examples...
- Ryan James made the Australian Schoolboys team and was chased by several NRL teams despite not being able to tackle (this was well known by his own coaches and opposition coaches at the time)
- Ben Pomeroy came out after playing 40+ NRL games and said he never learned to pass
People like to whinge on Facebook about the removing finals etc. from junior footy, but it is backed by research that removing the ladder/finals encourages
most coaches to move kids around between roles and develop skills, rather than just slotting them in to a spot which helps the team win (fast kids on the wing, big kids in the middle, etc.). This approach improves the overall standard of players and the game in the long term across all levels. Sometimes I play my biggest kid at halfback, because he needs to learn to play footy - that physical advantage he has is only going to last so long.