My simple answer and I’ll admit I haven’t seen much of Wilson since he left and he didn’t play that many games for us but at the moment I’d be happier with Scurr in the side if we were picking a team for a game tomorrow

You never know with Levy out for majority of remaining season and Wilson not quite getting the game time....,,,

What's been the point of developing him then? It's worse than a waste of money in that we're improving our competitors and further ensuring we can't compete with them. I understand players leaving amid financial chaos - it's gutting but it happens. But if we cannot compete for our youth players at age 20, and who will not be considered first choice 17 at any SL club, then we need to shut the academy now. Were he 22/3 and going into a good side's 21 man squad fair enough - but he isn't.

Give over. We're a part time side, if any player is given the chance to go full time and they want to take it then there is nothing we can do about that. The same goes for any other side in the same situation. It happens in all facets of sport.
That doesn't mean we should just throw the toys out of the pram and 'shut the academy now' as you suggest. One quick glance at all of our homegrown players in our current squad should tell you why that would be a terrible idea.
Some players will leave, that is unavoidable. But not all of them, and it will always be more beneficial to develop your own players rather than pay fees to bring them in from elsewhere.

Some would prefer us to produce garbage players then we can keep them!!!!!!

You look at the likes of Doyle, Scurr, Pickersgill, we've got outstanding players for this level of comp and I'd imagine we're paying a damn sight less for them than some of our rivals spend on players they have to bring in.

How much more would we have to spend to attract players of the calibre of Doyle, Scurr Gallagher from opposition sides.

Scurr aside, they're not outstanding. Pickersgill is much improved and the others have potential to be good players. Oakes and Brown are good championship players but not outstanding by comparison with Lilley, Hallas, Nzoungou, England. Unless we're prepared to invest in a competitive wage up to age 22/3 and we see 2 or 3 full seasons, then the investment to that point is unjustifiable as it only benefits our competitors.

We've had this academy trumpeted since the early days of Mcbanana and whilst it's great to see a Scurr, I'm not sure it's a great deal more than a distraction.

If we hadn't had so many balls ups off the field these academy lads wouldn't have left.

Unfortunately we're in the championship for good IMO this talk from Wood about aiming for SL is just that..

Spot on for my money. We haven't the money to compete in SL, so what's the point?
I can understand Wood, and other high ups talking about SL as many won't agree with our assessment of the situation and it's in everyone's benefit to keep people 'on-side'. All that said, who knows what plans are being made in Rot Hall? All other club's fans seem to think they're just trying to pop us back "where we belong", so who knows?

Yes I find it quite amusing how many other fans seems to be cooking up the conspiracies that we are to get parachuted in to ‘save SL’...

On topic. Surely the underlying problem in all of this is a lack of money in the game. If Scurr wants to go full time we can’t stop him but (his out of contact situation aside which voids this) we should get money for him if he’s in contract.

So should all teams who develop players. Then that money is used for 2/3 decent players etc rather than the developing team being left out of pocket.

Is the special ‘super league clause’ still a thing? Ie if a super league side come in for a championship player they can leave no questions asked? That to me was always wrong and I know Bradford have benefitted from it in our glory days but it didn’t make it right then or now.

Rhino

If he’s offered a full time contract and more money then how on earth do people expect us to compete with that?

If you were 21 and could pick between slogging a day job and then training on an evening, or being paid as a full time professional with more money and free time....... how many would pick the first option?

Best case scenario we get him back on loan. We need to accept that we’re a championship club with no realistic prospect of promotion for the next few years.

I thought we were hybrid, thereby with full time and p/t players. We'd have to compete with clubs offering him a salary for squad number 25/6. I don't know what that is. And sell the ambition of the club to get promotion. As he's the only player we have in this situation right now I wouldn't think it'd be a huge increase across the board.

But being FT with us is different to being FT with Leeds. Leeds he'd train in the day, with his team mates and have the rest of the day off.

With us, I don't know how it would work but he would presumably do fitness work and work with the foundation during the day, then training at night. Id imagine it's much less free time.

I'm sure the club are trying everything they can to keep him. He may well decide to stay as he's playing reguarly, playing well and came through our system. But we're behind the 8 ball here and it's not just a case of the club working hard enough to keep him.

I know we were hybrid previously but I thought we were PT now (might just have been an assumption on my part)