We have a much better squad than Wigan, Leeds, Catalans and Salford and we’re behind four of them and the other team knocked us out the Challenge Cup.

This gets said a lot but I don't see any real evidence that it's related to whether a player came from the academy.

During my time as a Wire fan we've generally been behind Wigan, Leeds, Saints in terms of the share of regular first teamers that came through our own academy, but there were two periods where we did have a lot of Academy products in the team.

One was in the earlier Cullen era where we had Hilton, Paul Wood, Stevens, Noone, Wainwright, Sibbitt, Mark Gleeson, Hulse and then he introduced Pickersgill and Riley.

The second was in the later TS era where we had Cooper, Currie, Evans, O'Brien, Ormsby, Penny, Patton, Livett, King, Philbin, Dwyer.

Some of these players were good, some were ordinary, some would obviously run into the ground for the shirt, others were just run of the mill in terms of attitude. But I don't remember thinking in these eras that these guys were noticeably better than the players around them or noticeably more committed.

I think there is an important point around doing due diligence when you sign a big star, either from the NRL or SL. I remember reading something about Sir Alex Ferguson's approach to recruitment, that he never followed a 'galactico' approach and the one obvious time he did (Juan Sebastian Veron) didn't work out. He liked to sign players on the way up who had the hunger to win things, rather than players who had already won a lot and were mentally in a position where they could have coasted.

Sometimes Wire have been in a position where we have signed players who had won SL or NRL Grand Finals, and we thought it was great we are getting someone with 'winning experience' but they probably looked at Warrington and thought we're probably not going to win a GF, it's more about securing a good contract (maybe the last big contract they will get in their careers). With some recent NRL signings I've wondered whether we were really just signing players who were out of contract, couldn't get what they wanted from an NRL club and their agent wanted to park them in SL for a year or two on a good deal, hoping a club with a vacancy in their position would have more cap space a couple of years down the line.

Some big stars have great attitudes and bring that wherever they go. Jamie Peacock won everything at Bradford, went to Leeds and wanted to achieve more. We had that with Adrian Morley, Brett Hodgson. In the NRL you get a certain type of Aussie competitor personality, who even if they aren't a big name, will identify with the team they are in and buy in: Greg Mackey, Nat Wood, Chris Hicks. These are well worth finding.

I think we need to do a lot more due diligence into the attitudes of players that we target and not just get hoodwinked into agents' marketing, but I don't think this is an issue about whether players come from the Academy or not. If we had an Academy that produced better talent (better than those players listed above) then in a salary-cap constrained league its an advantage because we'd always have a pool of low-cost young players to bring into the squad, and even when they get future contracts, its easier to keep a unit together like Leeds did, where most of those individuals were paid less than they could have done had they gone to other clubs (inevitably the odd one will leave like Calderwood did). Although if you do produce world class stars like Harris and Scully you can't expect to keep them on the cheap in a team that's not competing at the top, just because they came through the Academy.

So when do you define the start of the 'Moran era'?
Do you mean when he first became a director in 1998 or when he took ownership in 2004?

Before he became a director in 1998 we were the club that was selling off our Academy products Harris, Sculthorpe), and chasing signings like Andy Currier, Martin Dermott, Mike Ford, Richie Eyers, Paul Hulme. I'm not sure this was a particularly long-term mentality.

In the years between 1998 and 2004, we were a club who went for ageing internationalsreal talent[/i in the Academy. We've churned out a lot of so-so SL standard players and been willing to give them chances, but only Wood, Cooper, Currie and Riley really worthy of being in a title-challenging team.

b) The recruitment of outside players improved from 2004 to 2013 but has gone backwards since. Recruitment has become harder for all clubs as the market from the NRL has tightened and there's real scarcity of props and halfbacks but some other clubs (Wigan, Cas, Salford) have been notably better than us at finding underrated gems. Wigan in particular signed a number of players that we scoffed at like Blake Green, Matty Smith, but then went on to win Grand Finals. The quality of recruitment also seemed to decline after Andy Gatcliffe left.

I think there is a real danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water. This season isn’t over yet, why are people talking like it is? Where is that desire to win?
I enjoyed the game on Friday as a contest between 2 very committed teams. We were dominant in the first half and didn’t get the rewards that the effort deserved but it was fine margins between scoring and not, some days you hold the ball sometimes you lose it (or it gets dislodged). Wigan showed on 2 clear occasions that they were prepared to risk everything to prevent a try (I’m still unclear why the second didn’t warrant yellow) but this isn’t a rant about refs.
Of course I was disappointed by the result and the efforts of our halfbacks in particular, Widdop was a real curates egg, Austin MIA.
The reality is that our squad is fixed for this season and at this late stage so is our coach.
So my answer to the question is “ we don’t go anywhere”. Price is aware as the rest of us that to keep his job and any future r3turn to the NRL he needs to win big. There is still a chance to do it. The squad for Tuesday shows changes that I had hoped to see (maybe not Akouala), buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.


(Personally I would be casting out feelers for a new coach if I was in charge, just in case.)

“where do we go from here.”

Well, I for one am going to get that haircut, got to stay one haircut in front these days.

Wherever we go, let’s not go to the same place we went last time we were wondering where do we go from here