The argument that historically we haven't done well with youth development, and that the current crop of youngsters may never go onto match the achievements of their peers ar WIgan, Leeds etc. is irrelavent to my original point, which is this.

As we sit here now, today, Sunday, our squad is down to the bare bones and yet despite that the youngsters are lifting their and the teams performances and results to unprecedented levels this season. They deserve credit for that, or at least recognition that they are showing huge potential, continual improvement and maturity and some rollicking good rugby league. The media seized on every opportunity to deride us as Dads Army so we deserve some credit for the transformation.

Only history will tell us whether the Warrington youngsters of 2014 were as good as Leeds or Wigan's current crop but in terms of potential, results and week-in-week-out endevaour in this current moment they are at least their equals and deserve credit for it, not a symphony of silence.

Does Tony Smith deserve any credit for it too?

He was criticised earlier in the season for not recruiting established players to replace the big names that were leaving. My take on it a couple of months ago was that we were struggling because Smith had put his faith in giving opportunities to players that weren't as good as he thought. But maybe TS was right to leave us reliant on young players?

Absolutely, and I'll be honest I for one thought he'd gambled on youth and it had backfired big time but I was clearly very wrong. On that basis I'm going to stop questioning Tony and stick to Asotasi, who seems a safer target.

No point in spending a lot of time, energy and money on developing youth if we keep buying in proven players that gives youth little chance of coming in and proving their ability.

You also need to be able to let them fail as bigger lessons are learnt through fixing up failures than if you win every week. When bringing youth through you have to have patience and give them time so that we can reap the rewards.

Unfortunately fans EXPECT to win every week which means the kids are under pressure to perform from day 1 without being offered a bit of understanding that they may make mistakes initially but they will work damn hard to fix them up.

Made up with the youngsters this year, they really have stepped up to the plate and proven they are SL standard.

The average ages of Saints and Leeds for the round were around a year higher.

And Wigan.... As you are doing the sums..

I've worked it out to be 24, so only a bit younger than us.

Nne thing about SL being currently poor by comparison, is that we are having to produce our own, and they are getting more opportunities. But whether it affects the overall quality of the league, is another question, and one that should interest us all.

I think these days clubs are producing quite a good number of well developed professional players that prepare themselves well and are physically not outclassed by senior pros.

What is missing at the moment is star quality in the backs and halves. There have only ever been a handful of those players at any one time but there don't seem to be many coming through these days, apart from Tomkins and Eastmond a few years before that.

You can't deny the quality of guys like Sam Burgess and James Graham, up there with any of the games best forwards, but the question is where are the guys like Offiah, Davies, Schofield, Edwards, Andy Gregory, John Woods?

In 2012 a poster from another club, did the same average age maths with our then squad. The point they were making was that we had a squad of old codgers and within 2 years the squad would be broken up and we would be back to the Wire of old.

They were right about our then squad being broke up.



I cant find the post but I think at that time our average age came out around 29.