The England Academy squad to tour Austrialia has been named. There are 6 players from Wigan, 5 from Leeds, 3 from St Helens, 3 from Warrington, 3 from Bradford, 1 from Hull FC, 1 from Huddersfield and 1 from Salford.

There are no players from Hull KR, Wakefield, Castleford, Widnes or London. When are these clubs going to wake up and realise the benefits of investing in youth development. I think its not coincidence these are the clubs regularly finishing outside the top 8. Maybe its time to start being a bit more forceful, something like 20% of all players wages must be spent on those eligble for U20's.

think there is 2 from huddersfield in the squad -johnson and aspinall, and to be fair to wakey they do seem to bring lots of young players through only to have them pinched by other clubs.

clearly widnes need to invest in youth
I would just like to point out that The widnes academy team won the valvoline academy competition a year or two back, twonking all the 'big' teams in the process. jack owens has played for England academy in the past couple of years and we also had a lad in the squad against france, was it last week?
we have also given superleague debuts to half a dozen academy products this year.
also, how can we 'regularly' finish outside the top eight? its our first season back in superleague.

That would be the Wakefield academy that topped the nines league table? And that's sees the likes of Walshaw,Trout playing in the first team last week.

We don't need to wake up Thankyou. We are doing just fine in that dept.

cas have a decent academy set-up and have alot of cracking players coming through

The facts are there to look at, Leeds and Wigan combined have 11 players in the squad and won trophies last year.

Wakefield, Cas and Widnes combined have 0 players in the squad and will be nowhere near a trophy again.

Could this not be down to the fact they're both probably the biggest clubs on their side of the pennines therefore hoovering up a larger portion of the talent pool available

hardly, it's not like we cherry pick the best stars, 5 of the 6 picked from wigan are wigan lads

I think that this is a little unfair on some of these clubs.

In recent years Castleford have produced players like Westerman, Shenton, Arundel, Clark, Owen who are all good players.

Hull KR have players such as Taylor, Watts (kinda Castleford too), and Welham, who are all decent players.

Can't comment too much about Wakefield but I know that they've been doing well in the 9s competition (although I don't know if they've been fielding a lot of 1st teamers or whether it's been mainly academy).

London's brought through players like Clubb, Sarginson and Krasniqi. I think that London have bigger problems than their academy, tbh.

You can't say that Widnes are a club 'regularly finishing outside the top 8'. This is their 1st year in SL.





On another note, people should keep an eye on James Cunningham who has been named in the squad. He's a young hooker with a future that looks very promising.

If everybody produced as much talent as the top clubs then we would have a player pool in super league which would see us compete 'better' at international level IMO.

I simply won't take the 'top clubs get the best players' argument, because West Ham have a cracking academy in football but don't attract the best players. This is about facilities and the ethos the youngsters are brought up in.

The current Wigan academy train just like the first team with the same goals etc. that is the way it should work.

Imagine if each club had 6 players good enough to get into this squad...

Widnes have had 2 lads in Jack Owens and Tom
Gilmore in that group for the past few years. Gilmore had a torrid year with injuries but was back in the side last week and also made his SL debut against London.

No idea why Jack has somehow dropped out tbh.

We are also missing the simple point that only do many players can be selected! As I just said Widnes have 2 lads who just missed the cut and that could be the same for other sides.

Maybe they do have players 'good enough' just for whatever reason that bunch has been selected. Congratulations and Good luck to them too!

It is pretty much always the same with these team announcements though, they are often dominated by Wigan, Leeds and Saints etc. if the other teams were producing enough good players then surely you would see it even up by now.

It depends who picks the team

Just look at the current England squad and which academy the players came through (I may have made a couple of errors here but had a go) again not one player from Castleford, Wakefield, Widnes or Hull KR. No matter what there fans try and claim the facts are there to see, they produce virtually no international players, If every club put in the same effort as Leeds/Wigan we would have a far greater pool of quality players to pick from and stand a much better chance against Aus.

England: S Tomkins (Wigan); J Charnley (Wigan), C Ablett (Leeds), R Atkins (Bradford?), R Hall (Leeds); K Sinfield (Leeds), R Chase (NZ); E Crabtree (Huddersfield?), J Roby (St Helens), J Peacock (Bradford), G Hock (Wigan), D Tickle (Halifax), S O'Loughlin (Wigan)
Replacements: R Burrow (Leeds), G Carvell (Leeds), L Mossop (Wigan), J Jones-Buchanan (Leeds)