ANYONE who watched a thrilling NRL Grand Final on Sunday morning our time would have seen Penrith Panthers grab a late winning try, scored by their star player Nathan Cleary, to win the Premiership for the third year in succession.
And it’s no surprise that the Panthers have become the dominant team in the NRL.
Back in 2011 they adopted the mantra ‘Built from Within’, which means that they have created a squad comprising almost entirely players who have been brought up through the Penrith junior system.
There are 24 clubs in membership of the Panthers Juniors and the feeder system into the NRL club’s first-grade squad is so strong that it can lose players at the end of every season to other clubs and replace them seamlessly.
For example, they will be losing Stephen Crichton to Canterbury Bulldogs for next season, while Spencer Leniu will join Sydney Roosters.
The Panthers’ recruitment from outside their own area is limited to one or two players each season. Next year they have signed Brad Schneider from Hull KR, but signings like that are few and far between.
The English clubs most like the Panthers in terms of trying to make most of their recruitment from their own internal sources are of course St Helens and Wigan, although they don’t have the volume of junior clubs to select from, nor does any other Super League club, which is why so many feel compelled to sign overseas players from the NRL.
What they should be doing in order to secure a more stable long-term future is generating more junior players in more junior clubs.
The Panthers have set the template but how many clubs, including in the NRL, can follow them?
Heading into the sunset
There are quite a lot of things that are impressive about the NRL Grand Final.
But one of them is the respect they give to players who are retiring from the game.
Prior to the main game, they put on a presentation of retirees to the Accor Stadium spectators, with some returning stars from Super League involved, including Lachlan Coote, who retired at Hull KR earlier this year.
In recent years, Super League has included articles in its match programme identifying and paying tribute to players who have played their last game.
But it would surely be better to introduce them to the crowd, as they do in the NRL, and that would perhaps encourage more fans to attend from clubs other than those who are appearing in the Grand Final to pay tribute to their heroes.
It’s just a thought.
The players who are retiring at the end of the 2023 include the following, although I’m sure it isn’t an exhaustive list: Kenny Edwards (Castleford), Mitchell Pearce (Catalans), Sam Tomkins (Catalans), Josh Jones (Huddersfield), Chris McQueen (Huddersfield), Nathan Peats (Huddersfield), Jamie Shaul (Hull FC), Scott Taylor (Hull FC), Lachlan Coote (Hull KR), Shaun Kenny-Dowall (Hull KR), Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook (St Helens), James Roby (St Helens), David Fifita (Wakefield), Keegan Hirst (Batley), Kyle Amor (Widnes), Chris Clarkson (York), Kyle Wood (Halifax).
Apologies to those I’ve missed out, but I would love to see the members of that group come together at Old Trafford as honoured guests on October 14.
Big-city Rugby League
It’s quite noticeable that of the clubs finishing in the top six positions in the Championship, five of them represent big cities.
In order of size, from the biggest to the smallest, we have London, Toulouse, Sheffield, Bradford and York. Only one club in the top six – Featherstone Rovers – isn’t based in a big city.
On the other hand, of the top six in Super League, only Catalans and Hull KR represent cities. The other four – Wigan, St Helens, Leigh and Warrington – represent quite modestly-sized towns.
It’s an unusual pattern for a major sport.
What’s wrong with relegation?
Several readers noted my comments in this column two weeks ago about my dislike of relegation, which were contrasted with my comments in the same column about how exciting the Championship relegation battle was as we approached the final week of the season.
There were several letters in our Mailbag to that effect last week suggesting that there is a contradiction in my thinking.
One reader in this week’s Mailbag has this week written with an alternative view, which is the one that I hold.
A relegation battle can be very exciting, as this year’s battle in the Championship undoubtedly was, but it can lead to massive problems for clubs affected by relegation when there is a massive differential in the amount of funding each club receives at different levels in the pyramid.
In fact there probably isn’t a massive difference between the Championship and League One and my comment were more directed towards relegation from Super League to the Championship, with no announcement yet having been made, as far as I’m aware, about any parachute funding that Wakefield Trinity will receive next year following their relegation.
Fortunately for Trinity, their new owner Matt Ellis has pledged to invest heavily in the club next season to secure a quick return to Super League, so the club will not suffer in the way it would have done if a new investor hadn’t come forward.
But a club that doesn’t have a wealthy owner would be in far more trouble than Trinity look likely to be in.
50 Wigan legends
Richard de la Riviere, the author of the book ’50 Wigan Legends in Their Own Words’, will be speaking about the book at Waterstones bookshop in Wigan this Thursday, from 5.30pm for an hour.
He will be happy to autograph copies of the book and answer questions about the interviews contained in it.
If you happen to be in Wigan on Thursday afternoon, my advice is to get along to Waterstones to hear what he has to say.
