The prop issue is an obvious area where we've failed. From what I've been told, we have been very close to signing at least two quality ones, but for whatever reason they didn't come. Then there's Asotasi who didn't want to be here. I'd like to know why, but I suppose I never will.

Invariably when this comes up, someone is here to give the club "lines to take" which will be:

- at X age group we have more international representatives, than Saints, Wigan OR Leeds

which we've been hearing for about 15 years now

I wonder why these players aren't making it through to the 1st team?

Someone on Facebook a day or so ago was calling our youth set up "rotten" and "a cancer" because we are losing all these promising players to other clubs. I asked which players we had missed out on and was given 1 - Danny Walker who is actually now in our squad. Are there any we have missed out on? Also I thought we had poached Peter Riding from Castleford for this talent identification job? https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ves-590878

Someone on Facebook a day or so ago was calling our youth set up "rotten" and "a cancer" because we are losing all these promising players to other clubs. I asked which players we had missed out on and was given 1 - Danny Walker who is actually now in our squad. Are there any we have missed out on? Also I thought we had poached Peter Riding from Castleford for this talent identification job? https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ves-590878

Certainly our output from the Academy has been well below where it needs to be in recent years. 2011 was the last time we had a really strong group of players in our U20 squad; James Saltonstall, Ryan Shaw, Ben Currie, Danny Bridge, Gareth O'Brien, Rhys Evans, Rhys Williams, Brad Dwyer, Ben Evans, James Laithwaite plus a few others. The following year roughly the same group finished top of the Academy league and beat Wigan in the GF. I can't remember if / when Wigan have lost a GF since then. If you think about that group, then there is probably only GOB that was a local lad and the rest were brought in from the far flung regions of the empire. I don't have the proof to back it up, but it's my belief that not having a strong contingent from our local clubs coming through the Academy is one of the main reasons we have had such a poor return from our youth system.

Another factor the club has to contend with is competition from it's near neighbours. In SL the dominant clubs over the recent past have been Wigan, Saints and Leeds. So kids in the NW will traditionally gravitate to Wigan and Saints because of their track record and success rate.

Have we lost many good juniors from the Academy ? I don't think so, not in the past 10 years. Every club will miss out once in a while, even Wigan, hence Ben Currie was signed from the Wigan Scholarship. But I can't think of many SL players at other clubs that were lost from our Academy. And there is probably a very good reason for that; we didn't have a great deal of outstanding talent in the first place. Similarly we have lost some pre scholarship juniors to other clubs, but that is a much more common occurrence as its difficult to guess / judge who is likely to succeed at that age. Yes, Danny Walker (Rylands) went to Widnes, but eg the same club recruited Keanan Brand into their Scholarship, and he was a Wigan St Pats lad. BUT, in general Wire have been picking up players from both the Saints and Wigan Academies in recent years to fill their scholarship and academy teams. Last year alone we brought in Callum Green, Reece Hamlett, Ellis Longstaff and Aaron Pimblett from the Wigan academy and scholarship squads. How much of that is Wigan releasing an excess of talent from their books, and how much is down to the lad being offered a bag of sweets I don't know (Thanks very much for Ellis Longstaff though Rogues).

The bottom line is we have failed to leverage our youth system over the past 10 or so years. However (just for Sally C) we do have a good crop of U18's at present....