{"id":73420,"date":"2021-05-20T03:45:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T03:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=73420"},"modified":"2021-05-20T03:58:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T03:58:50","slug":"what-went-wrong-after-this-nrl-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=73420","title":{"rendered":"What went wrong after this NRL triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Johns has lamented the decline of Newcastle's<\/a> junior development systems as the key factor behind the club's ongoing mediocrity.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. The loss dropped them to 4-6 for the season, 11th on the ladder.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"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.<\/p>\n

"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.<\/p>\n

"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."<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/p>\n

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

"Not only at Newcastle, right through [rugby league]. They're structuring up kids too much," he said.<\/p>\n

"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.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

"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.<\/p>\n

"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'. <\/p>\n

"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."<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73420"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73422,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73420\/revisions\/73422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}