Broomfields still only play Rugby Union as their head of PE has no interest in League. Lymm only play Union as well.

St gregs regularly have lads wanting to play RL but their teachers choose to go to football matches regularly leaving the RL Lads without anyone to take them.

Sankey actively promote RL and have competetive teams at most age groups. Sankey have 2 or 3 pe teachers between 5 rugby and 5 football teams. How do they get round to do a training session for each age group once a week. The lads at penketh whilst keen are regularly let down by their head of PE who will not do training sessions.

As far as the community clubs are concerned RL is accesible with no one being more than a couple of miles away from a club and none of these clubs are at capacity other than the odd team.

This forum has been the same for years.

For about the past 6 years there have been threads on here saying Warrington have 5/6 players in various school age representative teams, with various posters saying how good our youth system is.

Then there will be some story on the main club website "Wolves sign up 2 new scholars" with pictures of some 14/15 year old lads - cue more posts on here from people who had never heard of the kid before saying "the future is looking bright for us".

Then at the end of the season when it gets announced who of the young players has been retained and who has been released we get some bitter parents on here saying "Warrington's youth set up is rubbish they just do weights not proper training thats why all our best youths go and sign for Saints instead"

Then there will be some cockmeasuring contest from fans of other clubs going "you had 2 ex Academy players in your team on such and such a game we had 5" together with some argument about eligiblity for counting someone as an academy player "this lad was born in Runcorn so he doesn't count".

I find it boring and personally I never get that sold on this hype about "young English talent" coming through Saints Leeds and Wigan, it always gets a hiding in the internationals at the end of the year. I prefer watching the Aussies that are over here to top up their pension funds like the Monaghans, King and Hodgson, they actually play entertaining rugby league and don't get constantly overhyped by Eddie and Phil Clarke.

It's Bridgewater, not Broomfields.

I went to Bridgewater, and played Union. The school always has, and probably always will. It's classed as a mid-cheshire school, and play teams such as Hartfrod, Grange, Middlwhich, leftwhich etc.

Not sure why it should change after this long.

[url=http://www.squadbuilder.co.uk/newsstory.asp?news_id=211[size=150See this article[/size[/url

14 Squadbuilder Players Prepare For 2011 In The First Grade

SquadBuilder, the fund-raising arm of Warrington Wolves Supporters' Trust, continues to help the club develop home-grown talent.

The SquadBuilder scheme has gone a long way towards making the club the success it is today by supporting many players over the years, including current first team squad players Mike Cooper, Chris Riley, Tyrone McCarthy, Lee Mitchell, Matty Blythe, Ben Harrison and Rhys Williams as well as the young squad members hoping to break through: Rhys Evans, Ben Evans, =#FF0000Jamie Peasnell[*, Craig Harvey[*, Gareth O'Brien, James Laithwaite and Ryan Shaw.

SquadBuilder was established as a means of keeping local players local and fulfilling the need to develop Warrington trained players. In the early years the members looked to incentivise and help local players within the sport, working from the bottom up to build a pyramid of talent within the club.

Warrington is renowned for being a Rugby League town and by supporting and investing in home-grown players the club could, and continues to, raise this profile and interest in the game.

Paul Wood has spent all his career at Warrington

=#FF0000[* No longer with Warrington Wolves

i know someone connected with Warrington

he has said exactly the same as Rogues. you have a team capable of competing at SL level but are a few years behind Wigan, Saints and a couple of other clubs in terms of producing your own youngsters in good numbers

he has said that you have some fantastic prospects gaz o brien and the evans brothers but need to be producing more

Is this person by any chance the groundsman, or the guy in the shop, or maybe the guy who cleans the seats in the north stand?

Sounds very simplistic; if I say so myself.

Might be simplistic, jd, but the fella's right...we need to be producing more young talent, than the odd one or two.

The last PROPER wave of talent coming through was nearly 20 years ago (Penny, Harris, Hilton, Roper, Sculthorpe, Wainwright), THAT'S A LONG TIME AGO. We had a mini flurish a few years back, but only Harrison has really kicked on....Blythe and Cooper flatter to deceive at times, Penny has been and gone, Riley has spent a bit of time 'out in the wilderness' and as for Mitchell and McCarthy, they need to buck their ideas up, or it's stagnating career for both of them.

Mitchell and McCarthy have done nothing of note yet.

Mitchell is still living on the reputation of THAT try THREE years ago

McCarthy is the Emporors New Clothes. Loads rave about him, but I just don't see it

I agree.

Arguably, it was our recruitment tactics to that wave of talent that ended up with us in the financial doodoo.

It is true that the first team is somewhat baron in terms of warrington youth. I I think riley, cooper and harrison are the only worthy ones (in that order)

But I cannot imagine someone close to the warrington youth set up only mentioning GOB (already played for first team), rhys( played many of times for wire) and his brother it sounds like it is something an outsider who has just read this board occassionally would say. No mention of burke or peasnell or currie or anyone. We have a grand final competition youth team and many of those (I feel) would be endorsed by someone close to the team.

I don't think it's anything to do with the lack of quality players at youth level. I think it is more down to coaching. The service area set up has recently brought in under 12 players into the system this year which is good as they get quality coaching earlier. I have done coaching badges and they are not worth a carrot. They tell you about child protection, health and safety, how to fill in a session plan but they do not tell you what skills each child should have at a certain age and how the game changes and how to coach aspects of the game. There are some really good coaches at club level but most coaches are the father of one of the kids who have great enthusiasm and puts a lot of effort in but can't identify simple things like if a kid only steps off one foot or never passes to his right. It is the standard of coaches that let's the system down.
How difficult would it be for a wire player to adopt a junior team between the age of under 8 to under 12. With a squad of 25 that would easily cover all of the junior teams in Warrington and if they turned up at a training session every couple of weeks and watched the odd game. They could then pass on info to the coaches for them to implement.
Sorry rant over

I think Mike Cooper has really kicked on this year, in previous years he seemed to be just about strutting about, puffing his chest out thinking he's 10 men (which he probably is to be fair lol) but he's come on leaps and bounds this season

Coops has come on leaps and bounds, impressed with him and...i think the word is TRUST, i trust him to do a good job now.

cooper has everything he needs to be a top forward..... every season i think that this is the season he is going to deliver...... this season he has really started showing that he can be that man.

im not sure he is a prop though.

maybe this new '13' role is made for a player like cooper

His brother looks half decent too.

Hopefully Jack Cooper, Ryan Shaw, Ben Currie, James Laithwaite, Ben Evans and others will break through soon. Yes we have an ageing squad but I'm confident we do have talent coming through that can be promoted.

James Laithwaite is especially a player I've been impressed with recently, he could push for the Loose Forward role.

While I agree we have some outstanding players coming through the youth, I just get the feeling they will get overlooked as always due to us buying in overaged stars looking for the money. Look at saints how they bring in the youth and some of them we should have spotted such as Dixon and their u20s player of the year walker both from warington. Also watch out for mellor at Wigan nxt season another one we let go. I'm sure fans would rather see local talant in the primrose and blue.

From the looks of his Twitter account, Jack Cooper is leaving us, he tweeted last week: