2020 NRL Season

I feel like exposing young halves as starting halfbacks is always a recipe for disaster.

There may be one or two prodigious talents who prove me wrong but its such a position of experience and knowledge I don't feel like any kid could actually be mentally equipped to deal with the position in the top grade. Certainly not for any sustained period of time anyway.

5/8 with a dominant half and/or hooker sure we've seen kids come in and do well there but never at halfback.

 

Without getting too deep into it I think typically a 5/8 is your creative player who plays off instinct, physicality or flair, that’s something you can be born with or something you can develop at any level of the game. Once you reach the top grade it’s more about refining your game, limiting your mistakes and learning the value of timing.

A halfback is typically your decision maker, he decides where the ball is going, who’s getting the ball, what speed you want to play at, what’s the structure of the set, where & how you’re going to turn the ball over on last etc. that’s something that can only come with experience and an education you just can’t get at the junior level of the game. You hope around that decision making you’ve got a player who’s technically gifted in some other aspect of their game like Nathan Cleary is with his kicking game or Mitchell Pearce is with his passing otherwise you just end up with Jeff Robson but ultimately a good decision maker is the core attribute of a good halfback and that only comes with time.

I don’t actually think there’s any real thought process behind recruiting kids who are going to be good organising halfbacks I think they’re just recruited and thought of as a halfback because they’re typically an on the ball player who likes to progress the ball around the field through kicking and passing more than any other player. Because of this a lot of the time we just end up with a player like Ben Hunt who has a bunch of really handy skills but just really struggles with the pressures of having to organise a side around the park. I think DCE also falls into this category although to a much lesser extent.

Not only do I think you’re not going to get what you need as a side out of a young halfback but forcing them to learn on the run in the elite grade with the type of attention & criticism the number 7 receives surely is detrimental to their development.

I think it’s really interesting to see 5/8’s like Darren Lockyer, Trent Barrett, Jonathan Thurston, James Maloney & Blake Green really start to develop into organising halves in the back end of their careers. Its just something you learn purely through time and experience, I think if clubs just looked at their halves as a senior and a junior they would be so much better off than trying to recruit a teenage halfbacks and thinking they’re going to be ready in 3-5 years time.

 

Yeh I worry about it, not like Robinson hasn’t had his fair share of failings in trying to develop a half. Jackson Hastings, Jayden Nikorima & Kyle Flanagan all young kids who didn’t last very long.

I expect Keary will be the dominant half next year, not that he wasn’t this year but I expect it to be more pronounced maybe even take the 7 jersey..

He really seems to like Walker though, from day 1 he took him over to Barcelona on the pre-season tour of Europe in a 23 man squad even though he was 17 at the time and they’re never far from each other in photos so I do worry he’s thinking this is the one.

 

A lot of things made a lot more sense after hearing that news.

Not sure discipline will really help the situation though, I imagine theres something a little deeper there and has been taking it to deal with the pressures of game day. Probably plenty more out there doing similar.