It’s one thing to put your hand up for a coaching gig when you hang up the boots, it’s quite another to make a decent fist of it. Time and again you see ex-players strolling straight into a mentoring role, at all levels of the game, as if it was merely a rudimentary extension of their on-field career. But more of than not it is a position for which they are wholly unsuited, totally unprepared for, and leads to a rapid disappearance from the game before they’ve even started.

There is an inevitable sense of déjà vu as I sit down to write this piece. Trying to put together as positive a story as possible on Penrith – in spite of their parlous position at the foot of the Shute Shield ladder, their lack of wins on the board, lack of players through the grades, lack of sponsors, and lack of money as a result – is a challenge I have taken up pretty much every year I have been covering Sydney club rugby.

And so, another promising young lamb, or in this case, Western Sydney Ram, leaves the flock in search of greener pastures. But while I can be nothing other than thrilled that Southern Districts’ utility back Paul Asquith has finally picked up a full professional contract, the news does bring with it plenty of nagging frustration that his well-deserved jump to the next level will take place on the other side of the world.