Quote: Alffi_7 "I should hope the club are looking to target the best young players from around the country irrespective of what club they are at or how old they are, that should just be a given regardless of the success of your own academy.
Warrington are hamstrung somewhat in the fact that the amateur game in Warrington historically isn't particularly strong - it's a football town, so we have always looked at surrounding town teams to attract young players (especially Wigan). That said there are FAR more amateur clubs playing the game in Warrington now than when I was playing amateur RL 20 years ago. When I was growing up there was one team (Woolston Rovers) who had a team at every age group, now there are 5 or 6. So things are improving and there are far more Warringtonians in this squad than I have seen in my lifetime.
So IMO things are improving but still aren't good enough, but even if we had the best youth set up in the country, I'd still be wanting us to target the likes of Walker, if we saw him as a standout player for the future.'"
Football town?
The strongest amateur clubs around our town are rugby league based.