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).