Quote: Dita's Slot Meter "The point is, from the outside, during the Moran era, we have always looked like a club that prefers a high profile signing, rather than one that wants to invest as significantly in its academy and the production of more lower profile individuals.'"
So when do you define the start of the 'Moran era'?
Do you mean when he first became a director in 1998 or when he took ownership in 2004?
Before he became a director in 1998 we were the club that was selling off our Academy products Harris, Sculthorpe), and chasing signings like Andy Currier, Martin Dermott, Mike Ford, Richie Eyers, Paul Hulme. I'm not sure this was a particularly long-term mentality.
In the years between 1998 and 2004, we were a club who went for ageing internationalsreal talent[/i in the Academy. We've churned out a lot of so-so SL standard players and been willing to give them chances, but only Wood, Cooper, Currie and Riley really worthy of being in a title-challenging team.
b) The recruitment of outside players improved from 2004 to 2013 but has gone backwards since. Recruitment has become harder for all clubs as the market from the NRL has tightened and there's real scarcity of props and halfbacks but some other clubs (Wigan, Cas, Salford) have been notably better than us at finding underrated gems. Wigan in particular signed a number of players that we scoffed at like Blake Green, Matty Smith, but then went on to win Grand Finals. The quality of recruitment also seemed to decline after Andy Gatcliffe left.
