Prescott will probably stay but O'Carroll? He's a fringe first 17 at best. Mossop is a good shout but we've produced Graham and Clough during the same time.



Change the essential to critical and the argument remains. You're more likely to be there or thereabouts if you have a better academy system which you could say is evidenced by the fact the previous six Grand Finals have all contained at least one team with a significantly better than average academy system (this year's having more homegrown players than any other previous Grand Final). There will always be exceptions to the rule but as a general principle a good academy is arguably the strongest foundation for success. Having some money behind you may help but it is only a short-term solution because of the nature of the cap i.e. retention of players is normally cheaper than an acquisition so the creation of a good youth programme becomes a key investment area for clubs with money e.g. Warrington.

How many players have come through Wigans academy and got more SL titles than the club itself? Bet theres a few. Long, Gilmour, Forshaw off the top of my head. Definatly a few with more cup medals too.

Scott Naylor?

You tell that to Warrington!

O'Carroll is a solid, grafting prop. I never claimed he was a world-beater.



Having a good academy will indeed give you a better chance of success. But the issue we're debating is whether it is "absolutely necessary" to win a GF. This is patently not true.

Given what seems like a century of underachievement I'm fairly certain Warrington fans are happy with the results recent injections of money have secured.

So a couple of solid grafting props and a kid who is only just making an impact qualifies Wigoon as having a production line of props? I have to disagree.

Going back to the OP. I concurred next year I would actually expect us to move on from where we where this year.

I'll get to the youth debate in a minute.

If we start at prop.

We have lost Graham and no doubt we have not replaced him, but I would argue we don't need to, if anything Graham spent the last 5 years doing too much of the forward work and that needs to be shared around. So we have lost Graham, but we did not see anything much of Perry he will be like a new signing. We have also added with Laffranchi. Megennis will be a year older and more experienced and bigger. Clough will be fit (please). We have a bunch of Props LMS, Clough, Megennis who are 20 somethings and will get bigger and better with age. That is a strong basis to go forward, with the experience and talent of Perry/TP and Laffranchi to back them up.

2md row. Wilkin back to his best, Sia has been mostly great this year and again is a 20 something forward with the potential to improve even more. Add to this Flannaghan for Moore, Dixon who was getting better and better at the end of the season. Flannery offers solid back up and of course Laffranchi who we are not sure but is a 2nd rower, but may play prop.

Roby hooking enough said , but with Flannaghan, Lomax and Lance to back up this posistion is strengthened.

Wings we have 2 great young lads, with back up from Gardner, - I can't recall when we had 3 wingers competiting for positions. Foster and Makinson will get better after their first full year.

Centres for me it has to be Wheeler and Shenton. If Wheeler strikes out, then Meli to cover. And we go shopping in 2013 to find a centre.

Halfbacks well they got us to a GF and CC semi pretty much on their own, next year they will have Lance to add experience to that energy and raw talent.

FB well the good money is on Wellens, but we have people just ready to take that jersy off him.

All in all I think we have added depth in a few positions and the youth stepping up this year, will be better for it next year.

Yes we all think another prop would ice the cake nicely, but whose to say we are done signing people.

There are plenty of other people on the move this week.

It was getting a bit long that last one.

For me the player developement discussion misses the point. Teams with strong youth set ups have a key weapon in their armoury. But with the Federation ruling this has become more critical than previously. Mugwup uses wigan as an example and points out their titles to back up his arguement.

I would say that's fine, but in the past other teams would just go and get several pacific islanders to compete as their youth was not as strong. Now they can no longer do this and this leaves those with poor youth set ups at a disadvantage. They will only get 2nd dibbs on the talent emerging at other clubs and will not be able to fill gaps in their aging overseas quota players without forking out transfer fees.

Hence we see clubs now searching the championship like they have not do in about a decade to find players, we have seen more transfer money coming back after years of clubs not paying transfers.

Those with youth have a head start and the rest are playing catch up. I would not be surprised to see Wakey stronger next year after being forced to expose more of their youth to top flight football as they could not afford to get ozzie or Kolpac journey men to fill their ranks.

Money is essential, but once you reach the cap, having more does not offer any difference in the quality of player you can buy.

The problem for a club with 'new money' is that at first they become a home for players that have been moved on from top clubs, who can secure a big deal on the back of their "trophy winning experience" and then just play out a few years going through the motions. This happened to us from 2004-2008. How many players did we sign from Bradford/Saints that had won things there...and never won a thing with us.

I wonder whether Hull FC will experience this in the coming years...

Well players are not daft, they can see where the money is, if I was a player with a decent history, but realising that the current club are getting ready to move on, I'd be looking for a chairman with a big cheque book.

Wigan's problem has never been producing talented kids, but in taking them the next step, and integrating them into the first team squad. This is an area of development that teams like Saints and Leeds have been far more successful at, and also clubs like Huddersfield have benefitted from taking the Wigan failures, and turning them into first team players.

It should be noted that Wakey finished 4th in the under-20s which was higher than Saints and Leeds.

I don't think we can really assess where Saints were up to at the u20s level due to the degree of disruption caused by first team injuries. I think they went down to a loss, for example, when a bunch of them were taken off to London to play for the first team against Quins. After all, the u20s is there to produce first team players, not to win u20s grand finals or league leaders (even though competing is obviously part of a player's development).