THE Wayne Bennett blueprint has taken another significant step with the establishment of the Dragons' high performance unit's new elite junior pathway program.
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Devised by the master coach, St George Illawarra recruitment manager Craig Young and high performance manager Jeremy Hickmans, the program will streamline the Dragons' sports science and player management systems down to the age of 14.
The Dragons development squad's season kicked off last weekend when they took on Queensland schools representative outfit Brothers Confraternity.
Young said the new structure is specifically designed to monitor playing and training workload, nutrition and education, while giving juniors an insight into life as an NRL player.
"It's pretty exciting really, it's good for the kids," he said.
"It's about how they manage themselves reall. At that age group they'll have three or four growth spurts and we're advising them by managing their workloads and we'll speak to their schools and parents to help co-ordinate it."
The Dragons have appointed Ben Haran as a full-time junior development coach, as well as Marcus Kain as strength and conditioning manager.
The students will continue to train in their junior, intermediate and senior squads twice a week and once a week with the high performance unit until the end of the junior representative season in May.
"Our junior rep kids will then play on the weekends and we'll get the tapes and go through them and edit them on the individual," Young said.
"That will be part of the program when they come together with the HPU once a week."
The program is also linked to the recently established partnership between the Dragons and the University of Wollongong to develop sports science programs.
While the club has had a long-standing junior program, it is a significant change of direction by bringing the junior age groups closer to the Dragons' senior squad.
"It creates pathways for players," Young said.
"You can see how many back-rowers and hookers you have coming through and then say we've got a good crop of back-rowers coming through.
"So you can target other areas of development and recruitment.
"Then we can give them on to Wayne when they graduate to take the next step."
