The Football Factory

[Coxy]

Good article in the SMH about Penrith's junior production line.
Very interesting comment from Matt Elliott too:

Elliott said he learned by watching Brisbane develop as a club that the surest way to succeed was by concentrating on junior players.

"The Broncos are the best model of a club in the last 20 years, and that's what they did," Elliott said. "Our juniors are our greatest strength at Penrith."

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/th ... 37870.html

They're not the only club that has modeled themselves on the Broncos. Melbourne's entire structure was a carbon copy of the Broncos when John Ribot established them, and they have a similar system of junior identification.

The Roosters remodeled their business structure similar to the Broncos.

It's just evidence of how the Broncos probably have had the biggest influence on the sport in living memory.

 

[Bucking Beads]

This is one of the reasons why there should be concessions for clubs that produce their own talent.

If that were the case the Broncos would run riot IMO.

 

[Major JW Hochstetter]

Indeed. The salary cap is in place not only to promote the spreading of talent but also to prevent clubs from throwing away money that they can't afford to spend. Other clubs simply wouldn't be able to compete with our buldging bank account and thus we would have no troubles retaining our talent and attracting the best from around the comp (not neccessarily a bad thing!).

But it does show that the game is being held back by certain clubs whose idea of a vibrant, money-making business model is keep the punters at the League's Clubs spinning the chocolate wheel.