Some good articles in the Guardian about the success of the club's youth development following the Boxing Day win over Widnes. It's great to see the fruits of all the hard work of those involved and generates at least a small sense of pride knowing that the Supporters Trust via Squadbuilder fundraising has helped them on their way We at WWST would really love to see more of you join us and help us provide even more help to the club's great youth development work. Are you a member? Join as a Silver WWST member for £5 / year www.squadbuilder.co.uk/wwstjoin.asp OR Join as a Gold SqB member for £5 / month www.squadbuilder.co.uk/sqbjoin.asp Members Benefits www.squadbuilder.co.uk/newsstory.asp?news_id=252

Some good articles in the Guardian about the success of the club's youth development following the Boxing Day win over Widnes. It's great to see the fruits of all the hard work of those involved and generates at least a small sense of pride knowing that the Supporters Trust via Squadbuilder fundraising has helped them on their way We at WWST would really love to see more of you join us and help us provide even more help to the club's great youth development work. Are you a member? Join as a Silver WWST member for £5 / year www.squadbuilder.co.uk/wwstjoin.asp OR Join as a Gold SqB member for £5 / month www.squadbuilder.co.uk/sqbjoin.asp Members Benefits www.squadbuilder.co.uk/newsstory.asp?news_id=252

Whilst I agree that our youth development has paid off, I wouldn't use this as the yardstick! Fielding a large component of Academy produced players in a pre season friendly is nothing unusual!

The real evidence our youth development is paying off is
1) We are defending Academy champions

and even better

2) Wood, Riley, Harrison, Cooper and McCarthy have got a collection of Challenge Cup winners medals

I think too often people make the claim, look how good it is, that we have fielded x amount of home produced players in a team, but we were never short of home produced players. You could go back to our darkest days fighting relegation, and we were fielding Wood, Alstead, Maden, Noone, Hulse, Gleeson, Callan and so on (and I am sure back the people were saying 'the future is bright with all these young stars') but what really counts is not can you produce 10 players for the first team but can you produce 3 or 4 genuine quality that are capable of being in a side that wins trophies.

And another point that is often missed with youth development: youth development means nothing without the infrastructure to keep them. Talented home produced players want to be able to be paid the market rate in wages, play in a team with strong enough first teamers around them to compete for trophies, and have a good enough coaching set up to develop them as players.

In the 1990s we brought through Harris and Sculthorpe but didn't have that infrastructure so they left. Wakefield have brought through guys like Ellis and Westwood but all they did was produce players for the benefit of other clubs. Now we have got the correct infrastructure it means we can produce players for our own benefit, like Leeds, Saints and Wigan do.

This isn't an attack on SEBs post and the Squadbuilder initiative by the way - I just wanted to put some more evidence up to support the case than that article which I thought was based on a weak claim!

Thanks, you are right with what you have added, all things we've been saying for ages ourselves anyway. My post wasn't intended as a thorough summary of where we are, just pointing people to the Boxing Day article.

I think most fans would now acknowledge that youth development is now better than its been at least for a generation.

The one thing I think we're short of is a real top class Warrington produced player. In the 80s we brought through Gregory and Roberts, in the 90s, Harris and Sculthorpe. Since then we've not produced any real top notch players, in recent years the top ones have come out of the academies of Leeds, Saints, Wigan, Hull or Wakefield. What we have done more recently is produced more in the 'pretty good' bracket rather than great. Was Scully the last Warrington Academy player to play a Test match?

Very good progress being made, no tranfers yet that ive heard? - I hope we can keep the players coming thru and, the people running it happy too

we will need to replace a few players due to retire in the near future but, we have got some class youngsters coming thru and hopefully the system will mean we won't have to pay thru the nose for players.

COME ON THE WIRE

Didn't Ben Harrison play for England in the Four Nations a couple of years back?

Terry Newton, Paul Wood?

Yes, we've had the odd one come through our Academy that has gone on to play International RL at the highest level. But sally's point remains valid - it is true that we are not producing as many players of that calibre as our rivals do. Further - we aren't producing as many players born in our own town as our rivals are. I may be wrong but I think Harold Palin remains the only Warrington born player to captain us in a major final and is also the last Warrington born player to play top level internationals (both over 50 years ago).

So, back to my original post - get joining WWST (or even better, SqB) and help us help the club improve what it doesn even more. It's clear that there has been great improvement but still great scope for more. But often these improvements cost money and need the local RL community to pull together. Don't we all want this?

Does Bobby Fulton count.

I think the most hopeful we have at the moment is Currie O'brien and dwyer

Got to think this is way off the mark SEB. I can certainly think of Ronnie Duane and Bob Eccles. Did Mark Forster ever play for GB?

Of course, yes, I have missed those, I did say I may be wrong. I'm sat here researching engineering stuff for my MSc and glancing at RL stuff at the same time. Also you have to look at England lists and GB lists so it's not that easy to check. That said - Eccles only got 1 cap and Forster only 2.

Sadly, it's indisputable that as a town we are not (and probably haven't ever) producing enough top level players actually born in the town. It's something I've always wanted to see improve but never found a magic answer to.

Hear Hear - could be 'world class' AND arn't they Warrington born?

btw - This reply was to wolfinwidnes

The magic answer SEB to producing quality Warrington born and bred players lies with our community/amateur clubs ,more help from the professional club maybe making one a feeder club like Wigan do with St Pats and Ince could be the answer we are looking for.

Bobby Fulton