1 - Probably a fair call-out. An academy is only as good as the quality of first team players it produces. In which case by my own logic, it's not a very good academy! I am still of the view that our academy itself, and our effort (be it financially) to bring in talented youngsters from around the country is up there with the best. I did a quick search for a couple of articles I remember reading about the make-up of the England Academy Squad a few years back, from around the time I was describing (Currie, Laithwaite, GOB, the Evans twins all there etc), and in 2010 we were the second most represented club behind Wigan. In 2011 we were the most represented. I guess there are more barometers of what makes a good academy, but certainly that crop of players were identified as the most talented young English players at that time.

2 - Has he progressed under Price this season? Honestly difficult to answer, as he's not played enough in the halves. If you pointed a gun at my head, I'd have to say no, based solely on what I've seen on the pitch. In my view, our best HB paring last season was Roberts and Brown, so Dec doesn't play when all's fit and available.

But what have you seen that encourages you that he will flourish in 2019 and is a raw talent worth persisting with?
Price did single him out when he arrived as someone he was very excited to working with (or on). Dec signed a new contract this season. The noises from both him and Price were positive. I would wager Price has been working with him on the training ground to fit better into his style, with the trade-off being he had to be patient last season, maybe slot in at interchange 9, but he will get his chance. He'll no doubt rotate more with Brown getting more rests this season. If Steve Price talks the guy up, and thinks he's worth persisting with, then I'm on board with that.

Price?"

Then why bother if we are trying not to play those exceptions

Our squad is currently 30.

"I'm pretty sure you can do the maths", take away a match day 17 from 30 and that means the 'A team' would need to find 4 more players. take into an account of injuries ect, an squad of 40 players could sufficietly field 2 teams a week.

30 from 40 is??? 10 players like I said.

We want to play the exceptions, the likes of Wigan must have done very well with U21's coming in to the first team squad and not counting on the cap, but we need them to be ready for the first team when they are called upon.

The club believe a reserve competition is the best way to turn 19 - 23 year olds in to regular first team players. As a bonus it also keeps fringe players match fit and allows players returning from long term injury somewhere to play rather than being thrown straight back in to first team action.

I think the reason we have seen a plunge in the quality of rugby league in the UK is down to the low numbers of school age kids playing the game. Fewer players coming through results in fewer SL quality players at the top of the pyramid. For some time there have been club reports of matches being played with only 13 aside and even a few with 11/12 a side. I think releasing the Scholarship players back to their clubs will help somewhat, but lets remember that they only play 6 competitive games for the U16's during the year anyway. And of course ideally we also want the best quality coaches (Wire ?) overseeing their development if possible such that we at least get the full potential from the smaller numbers that continue to play.

If we had plenty of youngsters we could have U16, U18, U21 and Reserve sides, but we don't. So the problem we face is not really about what age groups we need, it's how do we get more local youngsters playing the game. Until we ( all RL clubs) solve that one we will continue to see 35/36 year old players extending their contracts and more poor quality matches being played out. If the sport fails to hold the interests of the viewing public we could easily see a fall in the Sky monies that underpin the game over here, or as has recently been announced with the Sky cycling team (with Froome and Thomas), Sky could pull out altogether.

I think to be successful and not come up short towards the back end of the season injury and fitness you would need 45-50 players in the squad. We got 30 now for one team and still get headaches injury wise through the season how will ha bing another 17 members of the squad playing a competitive game help this? We will have 34 players in a 40 player squad playing competitive games every week how many will be fit come the end of the year.

I want every team to have a reserve team but not if its not practical financially.