Played for the academy,does that not count.
Did Walmsley come through your academy?

Great work answering your own questions champion.

But why are we insisting the tail should wag the dog? Surely we would want Wakefield to spend the same amount as Wigan and Saints for a decade?

That’d work too, and would be less mean spirited.

I am quite bitter, in a light-hearted kind of way.

A couple of questions that makes me think about…

What’d be the timeline of decline for a rich club that started to struggle financially? I think the success of Saints and Wigan is sufficiently embedded/entrenched that they could continue to glide if the engines shut down for 3 or 4 years before starting to dip. I guess Bradford would be the best example, but Wigan and Saints have now had another 15 years at the top and there’s a greater sense of exhaustion and hopelessness… on my part at least. I’ve learned to take pleasures in small mercies and consolation in the misery of others. Wigan winning 60-0 is ignorable background noise. Hull losing 60-0 is the music that soothes my withered soul.

Conversely, how long would it take Wakefield (or it could be Rovers) to start competing? That feels like a two-step process. Change the perception of the club and ‘put the roof’ by strengthening the first-team immediately. You’re looking at 5 years to see the first fruits of a revamped, optimised and well-funded development pathway, and 10 years before the full benefits are felt - if all goes well. So they could get most of the way fairly quickly (2 or 3 recruitment cycles)… but it’d take a long time to catch-up fully.

The other point is the threshold at which it all stops being fun or interesting as a sporting entertainment, and when is unreasonable or not sensible to expect more ‘patience’. For me it is around winning less than one game in three for an extended period, with not much prospect of improvement. Below that nothing is sustainable, imo, and you can’t build anything.

They didn't you,ve not read my post properly. If you read it correctly your team would be stronger with the inclusion of Bateman.

You are correct that we wouldn't have none of those players, though.

We are already doing it in the Ladies Game by way of York, Leeds and Saints, hats off to York who are doing stuff to promote the game whilst the usual suspects missing from that particular input to the game.

That is why I didnt use Bateman but yes both sides are not bad.
I see why you wanted to include Champion ship players as you are not as strong.

London produced him

As Judder pointed out I didnt read his question as you obviously didnt KPP fits his criteria as would Bateman

Wigan have strengthened one of their 2 real weaknesses by bringing Cooper in immediately. Wouldn't expect to see much of Partington for the rest of the year now.

That is a great signing brings a wealth of experience for the young lads -Havard,Byrne etc.

White flags flying over the Halliwell Jones Stadium today, wonder if Saints can borrow Matty Ashton for a couple of weeks until Tommy Mak is back.

Good move by Wigan look a lot stronger now ready for the business end of the season.

Wigan V Wire should be tasty,more than normal you would think

There’s nothing you need from Warrington Wolves trust me.

We could coach Ashton to pass properly when running at top speed, Woolf can improve him quicker than Powell and you would get a better player when he returns.