Thompson now plays for Oxford.

I think developing talent for whatever sport is essentially a numbers game. For every e.g. 1,000 kids playing the sport you might get 3-4 elite sportsmen / women. This assumes that they have access to the right coaching and facilities. Yes, they have to have the correct genetic make up, but it is really a numbers game - it's a pyramid, and the bigger the base the more top flight players you get at the top. Back in 1998 Wire spent quite a lot of money to re-connect with the schools and clubs in the area. I can remember Paul Darbyshire was tasked with the job, and he said that out of 80 primary schools in the area, only 10 were playing rugby league. There must be a lot more than that now, but presumably we have paid the price for that over the last 10 years or so.

Why do wigan have a bigger pool than us, we are talking about players that are not from Warrington anyway, the like of Harrison, wood. Once we get to the acadamy structure players are signed from all over. We could say watkins came through the warrington system as he played for Latchford?. Its not about the pool its choosing the correct players and seeing the potential and developing the potential in the correct way.

We used to mine Cumbria quite a bit for talent. Rudd, Roper, Dave Elliot, Roskell, Chambers all came from that area (Kells I think) and proved to be very good players (though Ruddy never quite lived up to his considerable potential).

Don't know whether we no longer scout that area or the production line has dried up a bit but it certainly produced quite a bedrock of good amateur players who came through the ranks.

Not sure if that is sympotatic of the amateur game in general or not. Certainly watching promising young players in the A-team at Wilderspool and arguing about who would make it and who wouldn't was a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening.

its how we used to recruit, we'd identify lots of kids with potential, and throw a lot of money at them to sign with us on professional terms.

its one of the great stories Derbs told at a squadbuilder meeting many many moons ago.

kind of upsetting at the time to hear it.