Quote: SaintsFan "You speak as if we have stopped producing players! This season we have promoted some new players to our squad, many of whom had their debuts but some didn't. Of the three that didn't, two were second rowers and one a prop. We're still producing. It was right to give Ashurst and Dixon a couple of seasons to show the club what they have to offer. Personally, I don't think either of them are up to the standard we need (jury still out on Magennis as he hasn't had as much game time as the other two). Personally, I'd like to see a couple of the newly promoted guys take their places now and again during the remainder of the season to see whether they offer us more.'"
The problem with Saints is that they do not appear to know how to develop the youth!
Let me make my case before everyone jumps down my throat -with regards to Lomax, Foster, Gaskell etc. my opinion is that the youngster we have in the team have made a name for themselves in spite of there lack of development at the club, at the beginning of the season Foster was on the bench and only played 10 minutes if that at the end of the game he only started to get real game time due to injuries and due to the fact that we had no one else to replace him he had full game time. Due to this his game has come on leaps and bounds this year. The same with Lomax and Gaskell.
With our second rowers/loose we have plenty of cover and this is the most challenged position in the squad. Royce has the luxury of keeping his first choice players at those positions on the pitch longer and therefore the youngsters in those positions are player less minutes, for example Magennis played 25 minutes on Friday and Ashurst less than 20 minutes. The previous week they were 18th & 19th man and Dixon played at Bradford for around 30 minutes. Not only is this not developing those youngsters but it is also putting an extra burden on the senior players in those positions as along with playing in the exiles games they have to play longer than necessary at Saints.
Wigan have developed a more structured approach which seems to pay off. All the players that have been mention Mossop, Farrell, Tuson, J Tomkins all had loan spells or dual registration, Wigan also have a lot of youngster like Mellor, Crosby, Tomkins etc either on loan or dual registered this year. In the past year I can only remember Frodsham and Armstrong on loan or dual registered.
When you look at the benefit Scott Moore had playing at Huddersfield you can see that this short term investment can give you a long term gain. I though that Dixon looked a good prospect under Potter and, in my opinion this was down to game time and playing regularly but I seriously think that the current method of playing the three of them short minutes and rotation is detrimental to their development and they should be loaned out or dual registered. If they are on loan they can be recalled back so what would be the harm?
As far as number of games played Ashurst has played the most at 46, Dixon 30 and Magennis 17 which doesn’t really equate to 2 seasons with perhaps the exception of Ashurst but they are still only 20/21 years of age which was about the same age as Wilkin was when he broke into the team so I think it is a bit early yet to be writing them off.
