The tragic deaths of two young players have prompted master coach Wayne Bennett to re-open the NRL draft debate, saying it will help shield rookies from crushing expectation.

Ahead of Friday night’s All Stars match on the Gold Coast, Bennett agreed that the pressure to perform had never been greater on youngsters in the NRL.

The issue was sadly highlighted again last month when North Queensland junior Regan Grieve and Cowboys feeder club player Hayden Butler died suddenly within 24 hours of each other.

But Bennett believed an external rookie draft that included set contracts would alleviate the burden on youngsters.

“There is a lot of pressure on young players at the moment,” he said.

“I think through the draft…it can take some of that pressure off.

“How can we keep them 18 and enjoy what most 18-year-olds do in this country, instead of being under a huge microscope?

“They just aren’t geared to handle it.

“All of a sudden they are out negotiating for big contracts at 17, 18 years of age and listening to the manager talk them up, their mum and dad talk them up – nobody is talking them down.”

The seven-time premiership-winning coach knew only too well about paying too much for youngsters.

“I remember at the Broncos, we had $450,000 taken up on four players,” he said.

“If I put the four of them on the field at once, we would have lost games because they needed the older players to get the job done for them.

“And they were well overpaid but we had to pay that because other clubs wanted to pay that.

“In a draft situation, that scenario is gone – everyone’s on the same fee.”

Newly-appointed NRL head of strategy Shane Richardson will be working on a draft model but Bennett believes the league can do worse than take a leaf out of the AFL’s book.

Bennett said his former NRL club St George Illawarra injected $1 million a season into their juniors and would not take kindly to having their youngsters poached via a draft by rivals after years of grooming.

Bennett believed one solution would be the NRL or state bodies taking control of junior leagues.

“Clubs carry too much weight, to be honest with you,” he said.

“The AFL has a much better model than we have, in terms of what happens below the elite level.

“You’ve got clubs in Sydney paying an awful lot of money to their junior leagues… then you have a lot of clubs that aren’t paying anything.

“If you’re paying a million dollars a year for your junior comp then you get no reward, because everybody can take your players, that’s pretty unfair.

“So the game has to come in and take all of that over.

“The point is, the draft is workable, it can be made and it would be the fairest thing for the comp.”

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