Most NRL clubs don't get that either.

True and they say as much in the interview. Participation is so important. Shows why Australia have been so dominant internationally since the 1970s when participation went through the roof. It's in contrast to over here. I bet there are more juniors playing RL in Penrith than there are in the whole of Yorkshire.

Get the right systems and pathway and with a hinterland like Penrith it's difficult not to see them in the top 2 or 3 for the foreseeable future.

You're probably right. Covid really hit the amateur game hard. Thankfully, it looks like participation numbers are starting to recover, but are still below pre-covid levels, but are still below 2017 levels.

Just reading "The Invincibles" by Mark Flanagan. It's the story of the 82 Kangaroo tour, but it starts out with the rebuild the Australian game underwent after GB had won the ashes in 1970. Interesting stuff. For anybody who is not as long in the tooth as me, I would recommend watching what you can of those tests on youtube. The game has changed of course, but that team were truly remarkable. Wayne Pearce still looks like a 2nd row from the future more than 40 years on.

Thanks for the recommend Arthur. A while ago I read "Reilly" the biography of Malcolm Reilly by Ian Heads. That has a bit where he remembers seeing an explosion in participation in Sydney in the early 70s with kids playing RL all over the place. That, along with the climate and the lack of competing winter sports meant that the game down under was always going to surpass that over here. Their interest in new coaching ideas helped too. I read in the biographies of Roy Francis and Jack Gibson how they used to swap notes. While Francis didn't stay long at Norths his approach to the game appealed to Gibson who then went to the USA and came back and revolutionised things. They've been ahead of us ever since. That bit in the podcast about who Penrith learn from and who learns from them was interesting.