Reds should stop chasing big-name signings and build the whole squad
Not dreaming, mate, you're onto something 🤡 Every time we sniff around some import winger, I'm reminded of 2021 when Wilson and McReight carried us to the title off the back of Queensland schoolboys footy. Why pay big coin for someone else's finished product when the pipeline's already pumping? But hey, what would I know, I just back my reads on the TAB 😏
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✓You might be right, on condition that you can show me one schoolboy product who's actually holding down a wing spot for us right now. Wilson and McReight came through, sure, but loose forwards are the easiest place to graduate into; outside backs are where raw kids get torched. I'd take the 2021 model as the spine of the squad, not a licence to ignore the market entirely.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Fair point re outside backs, but how quick we forget Jock Campbell coming out of the QLD pathways and looking a legit pro until injuries wrecked him 😤 the kids get torched because we never back them for a full season, we panic-sign some import instead. Give the schoolboys a proper run and they'll grow into it. Our lot never make it easy but that pipeline is sweet as 🔥💪You don't abandon your own.
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RobbedAgain has a point buried in there, but there's a nuance: outside backs take the longest to mature, so a single season of kids getting torched tells you very little, sample size-wise. Campbell's the case study, give a pathways product two full years of starts and the error rate drops off a cliff, whereas the import winger route costs you coin upfront and nothing in the pipeline. Back the kids for a proper block of games, then judge. 📊
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watching this debate from across the ditch with a smile on my face, because you mob are having the same argument we had in the south for decades 😄 the old saying goes that a garden grows what you plant in it, and 2021 proved it for you blokes, Wilson and McReight weren't imports, they were Queensland soil. and FixIsIn is right about outside backs taking longer to cook; seen worse judgments than panicking early on a young winger, but they still cost you the garden. back when rugby went professional I watched clubs chase finished products and wonder ten years later where their pathways went. give the kids a full season, cop a few torched afternoons, and you'll have a Jock Campbell or two again instead of renting someone else's glory. patience, fellas, the wall goes up one brick at a time 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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RobbedAgain's wording does a lot of heavy lifting there - "holding down a wing spot right now" is doing all the work, because a pathways kid who got no runway counts as a failure of the policy, not of the policy's logic. FixIsIn nailed it: outside backs mature late, so you can't judge the pipeline by who's starting in round five of their second season. Source on the import wingers actually outperforming, by the way? Because I can name plenty of marquee outside backs who flew in, collected a pay cheque, and left us nothing but a wage bill. The 2021 title side wasn't an accident, and nobody's seriously arguing we bin the pathway. The argument is whether we back a kid for a full season before panicking. I'm not convinced the club's ever actually tried the experiment properly, which makes "the kids get torched" a self-fulfilling claim more than a finding.
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GloryDays nailed it with the runway point, and I could be wrong, but I'd add a caveat: pathways only works if the coaching staff actually commits to two or three seasons of growing pains, not one. I mark a few of those schoolboys up here in Southland and you can see the difference when a club gives a kid proper game time. Campbell is the cautionary tale, in my view.Do the math before you argue.
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FrontRowFan copped the nail on the head I reckon. The pathways argument dies the moment a coach panics after six weeks and ships in a import winger on decent coin. Honestly I'd put NZ$ on the kids getting game time over some overseas name any day of the week, Wilson and McReight were proof enough for me. Worst case we lose for a couple seasons with our own blokes, which beats losing with someone else's mercs, no? 😏Any stat can be bent.
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All true till the coach panics, then it's back to square one 😅 gon need more than six weeks of patience from BGS old boys too ah well, nowt to do 🔴On the terraces since I was a kid.
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My old maths teacher used to say a graph only tells you something once you've got enough points on it, and that's where I land on this one. The 2021 title side is the strongest data point we've got, Wilson and McReight coming through the Queensland schoolboys system and playing the best footy any of us have seen in years - but GloryDays and FrontRowFan are right that a pathways policy measured over one season is a small sample though, and it'll flatter or damn whoever happens to be coaching through the growing pains. So my honest read: the two positions aren't actually opposed. Homegrown core, yes, absolutely — but it only holds if the club budgeted for the ugly middle seasons and someone above the coach has the spine to say "she'll be right" when the import winger rumours start flying in June. Whether the current setup can actually sustain that patience is the bit nobody's answered yet, and I reckon that's where this argument should stay open for another round or two. 📊Numbers > vibes.
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Coach panic is the whole problem tbh, six weeks and they're shopping for an import like BadBeatAndy says 😅 we saw the same thing here with provinces chopping juniors the minute they drop two on the bounce. Back your kids for three full seasons, Wilson and McReight didn't fall from the sky 🔴In the stands since I was a kid.