It is what we’ve needed for a long time. You want your coaching and philosophy to work throughout the club. Youth development and the First Team seemed like separate entities.

Other clubs are able to put youngsters in and it looks like they’ve been in the 1st team for years.

Solid relationships are required in the community, especially with amateur clubs. Gary has done a lot of work while Head Of Youth and I’m sure that will get even stronger.

Recruitment and retention has been all over the place so hopefully Gary is able to greatly improve that area. Players should only be brought in if they are able to make a big difference, we need to have more trust in the players we have developed ourselves.

Happy with the appointment.. However, who was doing this sort of work before? Powell? Fitzpatrick?

Who are we taking work away from here?

I believe it was Fitzpatrick and they would then speak to the board and coach.

Karl can now concentrate more on off field stuff like why is our stadium dirty, rusty and even damaged in places. Also try and get a decent kit supplier so items are actually available in the club shop.

happy days

Very happy with this, hopefully he will help keep us level rather than leaning too far one way or the other

If Burgess does want to come here as a stepping stone to an NRL job (which is fine), we need some continuity in the recruitment and planning of the squad, from bringing in overseas players to domestic recruitment and bringing players through the Academy. It can't just be a case of "replace Powell's squad and bring in Burgess' squad". So if we have a more permanent presence as DoR that should enable more continuity and let the coach focus on just coaching the first team squad and not worry so much about the overall planning of the club's future.

He's already telling Chambers things he wants doing with the youth side already so he clearly wants to change things at a base level. Never heard Price or Powell talking about the youth side development plans, so this coukd be the Golden ticket for the Future, fingers crossed

If burgess does end up being successful and leaves after 2 or 3 seasons for better things I'd rather gary Chambers be planning for a suitable successor than KFP, leave him to the silly gimmicks.

I would prefer that KFP and GC work independently from each other and report direct to Middleton/The Board.
That would make more sense to me than GC reporting to KF. Does anyone know which way round it actually is?

Gonna stick up for Price here. He came and looked at the structure at the time and wanted it to mimic the NRL path. What (if anything) changed while he was here I don't know, but we have seen some better prepared youth players come through IMO. I think that side of things is Price's forte. He's getting a good rep down under, and turned us halfway into a Wane-style against-the-odds team who played better when we had the stars out injured. Maybe he just couldn't sort out the soft culture?

The demands of the club need to change is the bottom line & higher standards need to be set . We have too many comfort zone players ,happy to amble about on the pitch ,knowing the fans will clap them off at the end & be back the week after.