Enjoyed this. The shame was that in each episode, there really was usually an element of suspense about who was going to be cut. But Lou Goodwin has been the certain winner since about four episodes ago. You could tell by the way Freddie Fittler spoke about him. Couple that with his dad being an ex-pro, and the fact that he'd already been a junior at St George who left of his own accord, rather than because he wasn't good enough, and the rest were making up the numbers from the start. I guess that's why the TV producers kept him very much out of the spotlight for the first episodes - to create the sense of a real competition.
I agree that there are advantages to having it restricted to those who've never been on the books of a pro club, but the problem in Australia is that their talent development pathway is such that all likely players get spotted. It wasn't a coincidence that in the final we discovered that all three of the finalists had been juniors at NRL clubs. In the UK, that'd work better, because RL clubs get to see only a fraction of the possible talent available.
More importantly, though, if they're going to decide that 28 is too old (!!!), then they need to restrict the age of the competitors before they start. Otherwise, what was the point of leading Chris Hyde on?
Finally, I was also a bit bemused about how the majority of clubs must have voted for Goodwin, but only two were willing to sign him. That's a huge flaw in the concept. The clubs have to be willing to play along, even if they think they'll never use the recruit as anything but a squad filler till the contract runs out. I assumed that the contract doesn't count on their salary cap, and they're under no obligation to play the recruit if they don't want to. The NRL could surely incentivise them to be a bit less churlish about it all. There should be a rule that whoever they vote for as their top choice, they will automatically be offering a contract to if chosen.
Or just invite the SL clubs to be there at the end as well. Because all three of those guys would be better than the current wings/second rows/hookers of at least one or two SL clubs!
