What went wrong after this NRL triumph

Andrew Johns has lamented the decline of Newcastle's junior development systems as the key factor behind the club's ongoing mediocrity.

The Knights were beaten 36-18 by a struggling Wests Tigers team last weekend, leaving coach Adam O'Brien fuming over the club's losing culture. The loss dropped them to 4-6 for the season, 11th on the ladder.

Johns said that there was a key difference with modern Newcastle teams compared to those which he led to premierships in 1997 and 2001: far fewer local juniors. Only one of the Knights' representative players, Daniel Saifiti, is a local product.

Johns said that the lack of local talent in the spine was the most glaring example. Not one player in Newcastle's current first-choice spine – Kalyn Ponga, Blake Green, Mitchell Pearce and Jayden Brailey – are local products.

The 1997/2001 teams had virtually all-local spines; Queensland fullback Robbie O'Davis played his entire career with the Knights, five-eighths Matthew Johns and Sean Rudder were local juniors, as were hookers Bill Peden and Danny Buderus; and then there was future Immortal 'Joey' Johns at halfback, fresh out of Cessnock.

"When the Knights started in 1988, they had a junior coaching base; David Waite, Allan McMahon set it up, a guy called Keith Onslow did a lot of the junior coaching and oversaw it all; a guy called Allan Bell," Johns said on Wide World of Sports' Freddy and the Eighth.

"Anyway, they had all these structures in place and philosophies about how the juniors should play. Very similar to Penrith, what Gus (Phil Gould) did.

"Five years after that, in the early to mid 90s, all these local juniors started coming through. In '97, Newcastle won the comp with, I think, 15 local juniors. In 2001, they won the comp with about 14-15 local juniors.

"Where are they now? They're there but the coaching, something in the juniors isn't working. Whether it's the transition from juniors to seniors … in my opinion, it's the coaching of the juniors coming through."

Johns said that the lack of local playmakers was the main concern, with Phoenix Crossland the only local halfback on the roster. Back-up hooker Chris Randall is a local but has played only one game this season thanks to a wrist injury.

"They're there, but the coaching is wrong, for whatever reason," Johns said. "I'm purely talking … halves, hookers. Where are they?"

Johns said that he suspected Newcastle's junior coaching was not encouraging kids to play the right way at an early age.

"Not only at Newcastle, right through [rugby league]. They're structuring up kids too much," he said.

"Perfect example of this is Sam Walker. If you want to produce a halfback, go and talk to Ben his father and Shane his uncle … how they mentored their son or nephew to play footy.

"You've gotta let them play and you've got to let halves play touch footy. They can learn their trade without being bashed."

Johns said that the existing Knights team had obvious deficiencies; not helped by injury problems for Ponga, Pearce and gun centre Bradman Best this season.

"When Kalyn's [not] there, they are very one-paced. They lack creativity. But then there's the other thing, you look at the Roosters, you look how they're going without their best players," Johns said.

"They've got to work out how to bring Bradman into play. You've got a strike player out there … I remember a few years ago, I was talking about Latrell when he was at the Roosters. I said, 'You've got a Ferrari in the garage and you don't bring it out to drive it'.

"They've got to work out plays and how to get him the ball, where to get him the ball, how to manipulate defences where you get him one-on-one or going at different angles. At the moment, I don't think they know how to bring him into play."

The Knights have rebounded from the nightmare period that saw them win three consecutive wooden spoons from 2015-17, making last season's finals, but they still look far from a premiership threat.

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