Waikato and the Chiefs
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Can we please stop all pretending Whetu Douglas was a star that the Chiefs missed. No-one else spotted it either and everyone was caught unawares.
Personally, I still don't think he's that good, but just hit form in a form team at a good time. Half a season and he's a star! Or maybe he's as good as his many years at Waikato suggest.
And now the bleating is how they're stupid to leave out Mitch Jacobson. Can't see it myself. I'd pick Karpik over him any day. I don't care how good he was as a kid -- loads of U20 stars turn out petty average.
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I don't rate Karpik that highly myself and I've seen plenty of him up close. Boshier will be the backup to Cane - he's a much better player.
As to Mitch Jacobson, I thought he was the best performed Waikato player in the games I watched. I didn't see the BOP-Waikato game, which I assume he went head-to-head with Karpik. Jacobson was the captain of the Chiefs Dev team so is there or there abouts. He's still young so has time given an opportunity.
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@chester-draws Yes all he did was hold his own, nothing special about him at all and the Chiefs had better players anyway.
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Interesting to raise this thread again now that the super squads have been announced.
The Chiefs have two thirds of their players from within their boundaries (which is about par I imagine)
There are 4 Mitre10 Cup teams to select from and the split is Taranaki 8, Waikato 7, BOP 6 and CM 4.Only HB gets on par with selections from outside, with their 4 equalling CM.
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@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
Interesting to raise this thread again now that the super squads have been announced.
The Chiefs have two thirds of their players from within their boundaries (which is about par I imagine)
There are 4 Mitre10 Cup teams to select from and the split is Taranaki 8, Waikato 7, BOP 6 and CM 4.Only HB gets on par with selections from outside, with their 4 equalling CM.
And, a few of our worst selections a 'local' players. Fuck that, I want the best team for the Chiefs. I can support both Waikato and the Chiefs as different things.
I'm already pretty non-plussed with Cooper.
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@gt12 said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
@crucial said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
Interesting to raise this thread again now that the super squads have been announced.
The Chiefs have two thirds of their players from within their boundaries (which is about par I imagine)
There are 4 Mitre10 Cup teams to select from and the split is Taranaki 8, Waikato 7, BOP 6 and CM 4.Only HB gets on par with selections from outside, with their 4 equalling CM.
And, a few of our worst selections a 'local' players. Fuck that, I want the best team for the Chiefs. I can support both Waikato and the Chiefs as different things.
I'm already pretty non-plussed with Cooper.
Well the Naki wanted their own franchise and it looks like they may have one.
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https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/provincial/100175971/moohoo-where-are-waikatos-all-blacks
This story from stuff this morning is a good companion piece to this thread. Waikato's recent history makes dismal reading, and seems to have gone hand in hand with the Chiefs' improvement in Super Rugby using central contracting to it's full extreme.
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The issue with the article is that if the players were out there, and Waikato weren't picking them up, then they'd be coming through in other provinces,and if they were good enough for the ABs they'd be making the ABs. The fact they're not tends to point to a dearth of talent at the moment and sometimes schoolboy success doesn't automatically mean those players come through at senior level.
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@nepia said in Waikato and the Chiefs:
The issue with the article is that if the players were out there, and Waikato weren't picking them up, then they'd be coming through in other provinces,and if they were good enough for the ABs they'd be making the ABs. The fact they're not tends to point to a dearth of talent at the moment and sometimes schoolboy success doesn't automatically mean those players come through at senior level.
Yep, totally. I posted this story tongue slightly-in-cheek, as if the Chiefs are sabotaging Waikato, and while there's no doubt the lack of Waikato players in the Chiefs really hurts Waikato, the crux of the issue seems to be the inability of the union to develop players beyond the U20 level.
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shame that article didn't go into deeper detail about player numbers.. a part of Waikatos decline is that i reckon there's fcuk all people playing rugby on a Sat anymore - but would love to see some actual stats compared to history and across regions to see if that's true or not.
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The online article is more comprehensive than what I had read in the newspaper.
@WillieTheWaiter What has Waikato spent on player salaries in recent years compared to other provinces? I remember reading that it was well below the salary cap, largely due to the historical debt owed by the WRU.
As mentioned it is hard to keep players (and develop them) if there are better offers in Europe/Japan and they are not getting a SR contract.
. It will be interesting what the make up of the development team will be.
