On Saturday both Saints and Wigan had ten players who played in that game that have come through their respective academies.



Leeds had ten on Friday, Warrington had two.



Wire are getting there but it's not an overnight process.

Well said Rogues. Developing a decent youth system takes time & in the 3 years that John Bastian & Ben Lazonby have been in place they have started to produce players that are breaking through to the 1st team. It will take quite a few years to get to the same position as Wigan & Saints

I've said it before, giving up the youth side of things in the DVDV era and then just paying lip service to it for the next 5 years really hurt us. It will be at least another 3 years before the current work being done really pays off. Once it does though, we'll be laughing.

It was coach Doug Laughton's car. Apparently.



Apparently he booted the wing mirrors off it.

Our problem with youth is the lack of accessability youngsters have to RL in our town.



Granted, we have

Woolston Rovers

Crosfields

Rylands

Latchford Albion and a couple of newish ones in the last couple of decades , but that's about it. Wigan and StHelens are brimming with clubs.



Couple this with amount of RL played in schools (good Lord, five years ago, when Cullen was our coach, his son went to Broomfields school, just a couple of miles from our ground, and they played RU, FFS). Unless I'm mistaken, all schools are interested in, is playing football (I stand to be corrected) as their main sport. WE'RE A RL TOWN.



Until this changes, we'll never get much town-grown talent in our first team.



Lets look at the amount of Warringtonians that have played in my RL watching lifetime that have come through our youth

Cullen

Duane

Forster

Thorniley

Wainwright

Penny K

and (iirc) Riley, not a great deal after those, is there.



Off the top of my head, our more celebrated youth players have come from out of town, in this era

Mike Gregory (Wigan)

Mark Roberts (Oldham)

Sculthorpe (Oldham)

Harris (Oldham)

Penny L (Wigan)

Hilton (Wigan)

Roper (Cumbria)



Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.

But that doesn't explain why so many Warrington youffs sign for Saints though does it?

We had 11 actually:



1. Paul Wellens

28. Tom Makinson

22. Jamie Foster

25. Lee Gaskell

20. Jonny Lomax

10. James Graham

9. James Roby

16. Paul Clough

14. Scott Moore

17. Gary Wheeler

19. Andrew Dixon



plus Wilkin played in our academy too (albeit after playing for Hull KR first team!

)

The outstanding bit about that is that 6 of them have come through in the past 2 years.

Wheeler didn't play, which is why I said "played"

So I was correct.

Quote lefty goldblatt="lefty goldblatt"snip Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.'" Good post. Despite RL being the number one sport at town level, football has definitely ruled the roost at junior level. Hopefully things are changing though. I have heard of some football clubs struggling for numbers as they have lost lads to RL, inspired by the teams success in recent years. Also, I know the club has increased it's efforts into youth development every year for the past 10 years and now invests significant amounts of money and time into it. Squadbuilder helps play its part with that too. Timely article on the website today: www.warringtonwolves.org/rugby-l ... hools-4740

Quote lefty goldblatt="lefty goldblatt"snip Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.'" Good post. Despite RL being the number one sport at town level, football has definitely ruled the roost at junior level. Hopefully things are changing though. I have heard of some football clubs struggling for numbers as they have lost lads to RL, inspired by the teams success in recent years. Also, I know the club has increased it's efforts into youth development every year for the past 10 years and now invests significant amounts of money and time into it. Squadbuilder helps play its part with that too. Timely article on the website today: www.warringtonwolves.org/rugby-l ... hools-4740

I was involved in a discussion a couple of months back regarding junior RL and how the switch to summer would effect the game at that level.

TBH there were more against the move than for it, citing rock hard pitches, kids being away on holiday etc.



However there were a few who thought that teams may be able to pick up some players who played football and Rugby Union in the winter months.



It'll be interesting to see if participation increases or decreases.

True.



Thank god Harrison Hansen played in both the games though