Current young players

[Saint Toppy]

16 hours ago, Davo5 said:

How many of the 10 or so first grade games have you watched the “20” year old play to reach the conclusion he’ll never make it as it seems the Knights scouting/coaching staff don’t share your opinion.

You have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is I don't see him making it. The Knights will recruit and I don't see him even getting a place in their team next year and within a year he'll be back in the UK. He'll no doubt find a SL club and get regular game time but even then I still don't see him progressing to international level.

Farnworth I do think will progress a lot further with his career and probably will play for England further down the track. The cancelling of the WC could be just what he needs though if he stays with Brisbane I can't see it happening for him next year either. He needs to change NRL clubs and work under a better coach to push on in time for next years WC.

Pryce may only have a couple of games under his belt but for me he already looks way ahead of Young. The way he reads the game and reacts to whats in front of him puts him light years ahead. The next WC is way too soon for him but IMO this kid can go on to achieve anything he wants in the game if his heads in the right place

[Davo5]

2 hours ago, Saint Toppy said:

You have your opinion and I have mine, and mine is I don't see him making it. The Knights will recruit and I don't see him even getting a place in their team next year and within a year he'll be back in the UK. He'll no doubt find a SL club and get regular game time but even then I still don't see him progressing to international level.

Farnworth I do think will progress a lot further with his career and probably will play for England further down the track. The cancelling of the WC could be just what he needs though if he stays with Brisbane I can't see it happening for him next year either. He needs to change NRL clubs and work under a better coach to push on in time for next years WC.

Pryce may only have a couple of games under his belt but for me he already looks way ahead of Young. The way he reads the game and reacts to whats in front of him puts him light years ahead. The next WC is way too soon for him but IMO this kid can go on to achieve anything he wants in the game if his heads in the right place

That’s fine,I just can’t understand how you can write off a player at 20yrs old after seeing him play such few games,especially as most of those games were in the NRL which has proved such a tough nut to crack for even established British backs but time will tell I suppose.

[Dunbar]

Must be tough at the moment for Dom Young, Harry Rushton and Bailey Hodgson.  They are young kids a long way from home and just the Rugby for them to get stuck into but the NSW Cup is suspended with fixtures cancelled for the foreseeable future.

[Davo5]

43 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Must be tough at the moment for Dom Young, Harry Rushton and Bailey Hodgson.  They are young kids a long way from home and just the Rugby for them to get stuck into but the NSW Cup is suspended with fixtures cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Very tough I’d have thought but hopefully Gould’s idea of a summer NSW cup comp will come off to aid their ongoing development.

[Lowdesert]

20 hours ago, meast said:

Dom Young is a raw talent, I always said watching him for the Giants, he has great natural ability, he's an athlete, but he needs to learn the game better.

I haven't seen much of him since admittedly but I still get the impression from people who have that he still has a lot to learn.

Great talent though if he can sharpen his game and his "smarts" up though.

He is a big lad and although not super quick, is quick enough.  I think he has a shot at going up a few levels buts it’s down to him.  Is good but can be very good.

I’ve seen the ‘he makes errors’ comments on here for most players.  All I can say to those comments is that SL announce 22 (maybe 23, so what) player stats, the NRL stats are around 54 with about 40 (ish) relevant to all players.  In addition, some clubs will use heart rates, function ability numbers, times available to receive a pass, times in support, kick chase stats, pressure stats, positioning etc etc.  We could go on.

Errors, without more detail, are a really, really poor way to indicate a player has had a poor game.  Good coaches, like  Bellamy, Bennett, McNamara, Smith and plenty more, will use  positive stats rather than just ‘hey Dom, you’ve made 3 errors.  Sorry son, your dunnage. Your dropped’.  

Sure, they will know the guy has made errors but they will focus on developing the positive stats and specifically develop those that will cut out the errors in the future rather than even mentioning the word ‘error’.

Apologies for the rant

[OMEGA]

It’s easy to just write him off because you’ve seen him for a couple of games and he made an error or two but as the post above states, you have to look at the context.

Before you’d even begin there’s an acknowledgment that he’s just turned 20 years old, he’s living away from home for the first time and due to injuries you’ve fast tracked him into 1st grade before he’s 100% ready.

Now you look at the errors and what might have contributed.

Hypothetically, let’s say he’s dropped a ball cold with no pressure on him.

So, for this purpose let’s set aside the possibility that his team mates might have contributed to the error and just focus on the player in question.

You check his GPS and heart rate and see what work load he’s had just prior to the error. On doing this you discover that in the 3 minutes before the error he’s made 4 back to back maximal efforts in defence including a 50m chase back to prevent a try.

His heart rate tells you at the point of the error he was sucking air in through every orifice in his body and the error has come through short term fatigue.

So now you question how well embedded his core skills are, does he need to work on these more and even further do you replicate what caused the error by putting him under fatigue during a part of that work. (the answer is yes)

Secondly, you might look at his fitness regime and in conjunction with that you’d look at his diet to see if it’s contributing to his negative energy levels.

At the end of the day this is why a Coach at NRL & SL levels has a team working under him. Analysts, Nutritionalist, Conditioners, Welfare Officers and Skills Coaches, that’s their job.

At the end of such a process there eventually has to be a decision made about whether the player is engaging enough and putting the effort and time in, ultimately does he have it or not?

By the way, that’s not at age 20 after just a short time at the club!

 

[Dunbar]

By the end of Round 15, Dominic Young was the 4th fastest man in the NRL. Not sure where he stands overall today but he is plenty fast enough. 

[Davo5]

On 16/08/2021 at 20:23, Dunbar said:

By the end of Round 15, Dominic Young was the 4th fastest man in the NRL. Not sure where he stands overall today but he is plenty fast enough. 

He’s also scored 4 more tries than a England great & current Superleague leading try scorer managed in 2 seasons in the NRL.