To be fair to Agar, injuries normally result in the young kids been given a chance, something we didnt really suffer from last year. Didnt Tomkins get his chance when a certain Tim Smith was injured?

Agree completely with Try scorers post above. From the final winning side you would have expected at least a couple to come through and make a place there own. Why this hasnt happened i dont know but youve got to say the buck should stop at the coaching teams. Dont see how either the old or new board can be held responsible. They set the budgets, it is up to the coaches how they are used.

As for Chris Annakin, im sure he would be the first to admit his attitude and commitment have not been at the levels they needed to be at, to be seriously competing for a 1st team place. I think the potential move to Dewsbury and seeing the other lads going off to pastures new outside of Super League may have given him the kick up the backside he needed.

Just out of interest where do people see him playing? Personally after watching him for a few years now i dont think his hands are good enough for the back row and im not sure how he will hold up propping regular? The modern day loose forward/3rd prop maybe?

I'm going out on a limb here and saying that as yet, I haven't seen anything from this kid to make me think he is anything other than a run of the mill youngster finding his way. Granted I don't watch the A team or Academy but so far he seems to me to be in the "Ben Cockayne" mould, 100% effort and endevour maybe leading some to have an inflated opinion of him.

He seems to take the ball in with great gusto and be a really willing worker but got caught out in the tackle and ended up being turtelled. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for developing the youngsters and am a firm believer in the fact that the money wasted time after time after time on low grade imports (often part way through a season, Hickey, Winterstein, Leano etc wouldn't have got here on a day rover and come for peanuts) could and should be used for players like him, up to know I just don't see the fuss specifically about this player yet - but the wider issue is a very interesting and valid one.

Was he putting money in it or taking money out though!!

I wouldn't underestimate how hard it is to play out of position in the pack at such a tender age. Most prop forwards cannot hold their own until their 25-27. I agree with the rest, but he could be a "keeper" from what I've seen so far.

I appreciate that, and playing within a depleted pack missing many senior players makes it even harder - not knocking the kid at all, just making an observation. I find it a little strange that the one facet of the lads game/make up that those who are "closer" to him question is the one part that I thought was his greatest strength.

You may be joking or I hope you are. No one (intelligent) could seriously be suggesting he didn't come out of it all seriously out of pocket - when it went bust he was a creditor and I doubt he was one of those who got his money back.

Well said. It doesn't pay imo to over hype a young player (see Westerman) so a bit of balance is welcome imho.

Just to be clear, when I say 'previous regime,' I'm talking about coaching, not the owner or CEO; as far as I understand it, there was a serious disconnect between youth and 1st team set-ups in the past that damaged the progression of young players through to 1st team.

Surely not a prop - without starting a debate again about the size a prop should be - Annakin is mobile enough to be a loose forward to me, I think that's where I see his position.

Fair enough but I don't think Agar has been as brave as he could have been though clearly far more open minded than Hull fans would have you believe.

Didn't our youth setup win some kind of award not too long ago.

They won the championship, however that was at some cost as many believe we held the players back a year in order to have an edge, as I recall.
Either the way the number of players going on from that squad to get SL opportunities is low - for what ever reason.

I think it was the Rugby League 9's you were talking about?

I think you might be thinking of the Community department that were put up as some kind of example for other clubs to follow

Seem to remember that our youth set-up/structure was billed as one of the best not long back too. And other clubs were encouraged to follow suit? Sure I read this in league express some time back.

The trouble is a young player can look like being a blinding prospect at an early stage and not go any further.I remember years back we had a certain player in our colts side who looked like the real deal and went on to play for the Great Britain colts alas things went no further and he ended up playing for Doncaster when they were at the bottom.He played centre for the colts and when he was at donny he ended up playing prop any one remember David Noble.

Noble is the record points scorer for Donny scoring 1751 point In a 16 year career in south Yorkshire.

He played prop in the very last period of that time.

Mark Endersby is probably a better example of genuine youth talent that ever made the transition into first grade from that time

I know you might want to emphasise the point you're making - but posting 4 times is a taking it a bit far







!!!!

iPad stutter....ooops

Didn't Noble score lots of points for........oh wait, has that been said before?

Anyway, we will always have this issue, as said above, 19 year old super stars are not always open age super stars.
Saying that, the likes of Edwards, Farrell, Tomkins who were all spotted early, were well coached at amateur and pro with Wigan (not the only example of course) and took full advantage of their talents.
I'm not sure we do that but there is a lot of infrastructure needed to be able to do that....including a team around them that can protect them through that early period.
Edwards was an easy spot as he was captain of both RU and RL England team but Tomkins had to work hard to get his chance, but when he got it the right people were able to bring it out of him.

I don't know, so I can't say for sure, but I'm thinking our setup isn't as good as that, certainly in at least some areas if not all.
I'd love to have a club that the best youth were drawn to because of our setup, but if that isn't matched with a profitable club we will just lose them anyway so may not be worth the investment until later in our building process.

The Billy Conway, Garry Spencer era of colts were outstanding with Trevor Bailey, but only a few made it to regular top flight rugby and in my opinion, the best prospects were the half backs, Moules and Green and neither made it. Who can say if they would have done elsewhere.
I reckon Billy would have played for England if he'd been at Wigan like Martin Dermott.

There was a Fev colts team (which I had a trial for and was utterly out of my depth) the year before that was even better and won ever game I think. Not one player from that team ever made it, I'm not sure but I don't think any of them ever played in a first team fixture. They had a scrum half whose name was O'Toole who was the best player I ever played with and seemed like a genius to me but I never heard of him again - strange how it works.

Just shows that there's a huge gap from junior to senior rugby. I just wish we could unearth another Nigel Wright or Toppo - a traditional stand off, or another Nigel Bell for scrum half. The thing is with players like those you knew as soon as you saw them they would make the grade -they were the up to it as soon as they made their first team debut.

Another ex-Stanley Rangers local lad like Kevin Ward in the red, white and blue (instead of going to Cas)would be better and would really bolster our front row....

after a couple of trials with trinity the chairman at that time said hed never be a rugby player while hed a hole in his - our judgement aint improved much

Did i hear a similar story regarding Jamie Peacock??