I dont' think that is the reason.

We had a set up from 2000 to envy the rest of super league, and we got great success from it.

When Powell departed, we continued with an excellent academy set up with Wilkinson, who was a fantastic coach for youngsters. From that we went with Hallas, who although not as good IMO still continued the good work. When Hallas went we went with Bastian, who did not have at the time the abilities of Wilkinson or Hallas, but he grew into the role, and for the club he was the usual cheap option, because he already worked for our partners.

During this time we then replaced good coaches at the different levels with former players, or in the case now current players.

I see many many junior games at amateur level and there certainly is not a shortage of players or potential star players. So nothing as changed there.

Yet by coincidence with the coaching changes our production line, and ability to produce the next level of players to fill in, as completely dried up.

By comparison, Saints inparticular have completely gone the other way. They have planned for what they have now, and are excelling not just in one age group, but all age groups. They have sent out on loan to super league sides, players who were been held back for a short period in order to gain necessary experience. Now they are ready to come back in for first team duties to replace previous 1st choices. That is an enhancement on our blue print even, because we never did that loaning out to super league sides, at the same success as Saints.

There's still plenty of "potential" and "talent" in our acadamy sides across the age groups.
Just because we haven't been dominating the relevant leagues doesn't mean there isn't potential stars within those teams.
I agree the numbers aren't there as before and you may have a point re-the coaches involved but the investment and recruitment is still there just not on the same scale as before.
As for sending players out on loan to SL sides a lot of these teams are now trusting their own youth set-ups because they don't have to worry about relegation anymore.
You know yourself the club "prefer" to send out players on loan to get experience but you can't force clubs to take them.
I do agree with some of what your saying but i don't think it's as straight forward as "jobs for the boys" scenario you describe.

I was simply a little confused by which of our rivals are now doing things so much better than us. Saints continue to set the standards in the regular season, nothing new there, although they are not finding life so easy this year either. A few others are catching up, that will happen in sport, the challenge for them will be to sustain it long term.

Which issue with the academy do you refer to? For me, while the Academy Grand Final wins were very nice, it is the ability of the academy to produce a couple of players a year to feed into the first team squad, and every so often produce a real gem. We don't have the need to find so many as we did around the period when McGuire, Burrow, Mathers, Diskin et al came through (which really wasn't a great period for the club in the first team) but we now have a good squad of home-grown players of varying ages, and we are still bringing players into the first team from the academy, and continuing to compete at the top with them.

The trouble with all the doom and gloom at the moment, not you in particular, yours was just the post I happened to choose to quote, is that I've heard/read it all so many times over the past few seasons. I can't help feeling that, once again, reports of our demise may have been exaggerated.

Incidentally, we did loan players to Super League sides during the golden era around 2003/04, I recall Richie Mathers (Wire) and Nick Scruton (Hull) going out on loan around that time.

So what!!

Smith is better coach the BM imo and what i said i stand by because thats is how i see it, We have the quality in our team to beat every team in that league and its just not happening, But to me it boils down to training methods and the coaching,

saints have the hardest run in of all the top teams this season imo, plus they have at least 1 game in the cup maybe 2 so i think saints have their toughest run of fixtures coming into the end of the season,

Warrington Wolves vs Saints

Saints vs WT Wildcats

Harlequins vs Saints

Saints vs Wigan Warriors

Hull Kingston Rovers vs Saints

Saints vs Huddersfield Giants

Leeds Rhinos vs Saints

Saints vs Catalans Dragons

imo saints have to play all the teams that will be in the top 8 on the bounce with perhaps 2 cup games. this will be a real test of how good they are and what kind of depth they have.

I am not saying it is doom and gloom for the first team, or in demise.

I am saying we have an issue with the foundations, which will eventually hit the first team. As I said above, the clubs decision to go with jobs for the boys instead of putting in place respected and experienced personell, when replacing leaving coaches, was a big mistake.

I agree that an academies job is not to win trophies every year. But we are nowhere near that level, we are not even competing against lesser clubs, and that should be a worry. That is a big drop down in the ability of the academy levels at our club. As I said above, IMO that is not down to a shortage of players in the amateur game, far from it. So either we are not picking the right players to come into the club (which considering we have a top scout I doubt), or we are not developing as well.

Producing 2 players per year, should not be an aim. There is far more talent available than that.

When I said our rivals, I was specifically referring to Saints. Again, not from a 1st team level, because I dont think they are that much in front of us, but from an academy level. At all levels in the academy they are far ahead of us, and they have done this despite loaning our better players from that set up for long periods of time. They have damn good coaches at Saints throughout the levels.

Wigan for all their faults with Nobby in letting go thier produced ones, are still producing damn good players. With a different coach they would be a far superior team with the effects of that production. What they have is a good coaching set up at Wigan.

Yes, we loaned out Scruton for a short period, and look at the effect that did for us. Why have we not repeated it at the same level? Why is Watkins pishing around in our losing academy side when he good be out there playing super league for some other team untill is time arrives for us?

i have to say it seems like a lot of people still think we have some god given right to win week in week out and if we arnt winning every week the club is f**ked!!

if its not the coach its the squad,

if its not the squad depth, its infighting,

if its not infighting its that the acadamy and youth system has ground to a hault.

if its not the acadamy its GH not spending full cap and not caring about the club and only wanted to make the biggest wedge possible (when in reality he has worked his knackers of to improve everything at leeds)

please people when are some of you just gonna have some faith.

and if you have no faith just try and enjoy the game win or lose.

you left out salford at the willows...

A reasonable observation given the squad available for the last two seasons compared to this?

Now that Kirke is out for a while it's to be hoped that JJB and Burrow will be fit to return (to release Sinfield back into the pack) unless Senior (our only strike back) is to be a regular in the second row with Gibson taking his place at centre.

Basically this year's squad is down on bodies and that will inevitably impact on performance this season and continue to do so.

What is the point of Worrall at the moment if Gibson is preferred to replace JJB within the seventeen?

No. I would call it hoping that a players contract is honoured despite being injured before playing a game for his new club.

HTH.

Next.

Smith made the first team shirt his halfway through last year.
Hall continued on his progress from last year to become the leading winger at the club THIS YEAR.
Burgess made himself a regualr over last season to move into becoming a key pack member THIS YEAR.
Ablett went from fringe to 08 regular (thanks to injury).

Watkins, BJB, McShane and Simon Worrall all have/have had the oppertunity to make a first team shirt theres this year. And our production line is screwed??? bah

If anything our problems are down ditching our tried tested method of bringing youngsters through in a fuller more experienced squad to a smaller less experienced squad that forces the youngsters to be ready now without being tested (and having the same luxury of time to adjust) or if they don't then errr... well we didn't prepare for that... coaches fault mentality

Of course.