That's not what I was getting at.

It's already been proven time and time again that expensive Aussie signings are not 'quick-fixes'. Warrington have had a track record of bringing in big names that, regardless of how they play, stay for a handful of years then move on or retire.

Why do Saints do so well? I think a major factor is regardless of the small changes they make each season the core of the St. Helens squad stays the same. You have the veterans: Long, Cunningham, Wellens, Gardener and, until recently: Joynt, Newlove, Sculthorpe etc etc. Even with those players retired, and the oncoming retirement of Long, Cunningham, you can see Saints bringing through the replacements and the players that will continue the legacy: James Graham, Kyle Eastmond, Roby, Wilkin...
The Aussies that are brought in are to compliment the core team, not define it and that makes them sucessful. There is no pressure, they don't have the hopes of an entire club riding on them as, everyone knows, Saints will be sucessful even if one or two Aussie signings don't play up to standard. They are not just a team of players wearing the same shirt, they are a team in the truest sense of the word.

If you look at the positions of Saints core squad: scrum half, hooker, full back... That is what we should be doing. Developing our own players in key roles. That's why I don't think bringing in Aussies is the answer. We need to be developing our own talent in key positions and imports, if needed, should be brought in to compliment those players. We put far to much emphasis on imports and what they can do for us. It's not the answer.

As you've said Sally, we've not really had a huge amount of academy players setting the first team alight recently. Maybe then, in that case, we should be looking at the coaching set up across the board. I don't profess to be an expert on Warrington RLFC, I don't know who signs academy players, but maybe changes are needed there.


Rugbychick

I agree with you to an extent, the problem is that if the talent isn't there in the first place you can't develop it. There's always people saying that we don't give players a chance and if they got the chance they would develop, but we gave Hulse, Gaskell, Mark Gleeson and Bracek lots of first team games and they never got significantly better. The Saints players like Roby and Graham have real raw talent and can develop into top players, same goes for the Leeds ones. Paul Wood turned into a top player at Warrington but the others were limited by the limits on their ability.

There's a lot of infrastructure which has been put into our junior set up, and players get all sorts of supervision and coaching, but players are only going to be as good as their potential. Talent identification is the most important thing. The good news is that the club knew this and what you said at the end of your post, about the coaching set up needing looking at across the board, has already happened. Peter Farrell (Andy's Dad) joined us from St Helens a couple of years ago as head of talent identification, and at the end of last season John Bastian came in from Leeds as Director of Youth Development. We've signed two of the top people in the junior set ups of the two clubs whos youth systems we need to be emulating.

The benefits of this won't be clear for 2 or 3 seasons yet because of the age of the players they sign up, at the start of the year we announced five junior signings aged 16

Interesting idea and one I think Warrington should implement. To do so we will need to:-

- Recruit a head of youth development, maybe from one Leeds?
- Recruit a top coach who has a proven track record of nurturing young players, maybe someone from Leeds?
- Sign up a lot of highly rated young players and blood them through our reserve and academy sides - maybe those teams winning a few games would help demonstrate this
- Start to clear up squad places and cap room by releasing or selling players where appropriate
- Have some sort of system whereby our fans can contribute financially to youth development. Some sort of 'SquadBuidling' system maybe?

Just some ideas. Hope someone at the club is listening...

You know the salary cap isnt 3 million, right?

Your having a laugh, his last try was from a Paul Cooke pass. He's lost without him.

Michael Shenton
Stephen Myler
Daryll Goulding
Joe Westerman
Sam Tomkins
Ryan Atkins

These are the types of players we should be looking at, not your Lyon's and Orford's.

Why would we want some gash RU player, who couldn't hack it at RL?

I opologize
Richie Myler i ment to say.

Quote: Rob Wire "Thats some comparison lol, Richie Myler was up against one of the worse teams in super league and Sam Tomkins was up against the team that have been the best side in SL this year. If i remember right from the reports i read Richie Myler did nothing worthy of a mention in that St Helens game either, i wouldn`t want either at Warrington at this stage as both are still inexperienced rookies, were a team that needs experience at present and proven class. Salford have had little choice but to chance a rookie and Wigan are the same after Tim Smith has flopped so far. I hope both make a top flight career in RL as ive nothing against either player, its just based on what ive seen of both and what ive been told about Tomkins i view him as having more potential especially attacking wise as Myler to me seems more of a support half back rather than a creator based on what ive seen of him overall.'" forums.rlfans.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight= I think going off this, he did a fair bit against the SL Champions today. Looks like his stock is on the rise, pretty much a love-in, this thread.

Quote: Rob Wire "Thats some comparison lol, Richie Myler was up against one of the worse teams in super league and Sam Tomkins was up against the team that have been the best side in SL this year. If i remember right from the reports i read Richie Myler did nothing worthy of a mention in that St Helens game either, i wouldn`t want either at Warrington at this stage as both are still inexperienced rookies, were a team that needs experience at present and proven class. Salford have had little choice but to chance a rookie and Wigan are the same after Tim Smith has flopped so far. I hope both make a top flight career in RL as ive nothing against either player, its just based on what ive seen of both and what ive been told about Tomkins i view him as having more potential especially attacking wise as Myler to me seems more of a support half back rather than a creator based on what ive seen of him overall.'" forums.rlfans.com/viewtopic.php? ... highlight= I think going off this, he did a fair bit against the SL Champions today. Looks like his stock is on the rise, pretty much a love-in, this thread.

He did naff all, scored a try when the game was 40-14 to reduce the deficit. He just passes the ball along, team orders ? Not sure, but he doesn't try to create anything.

Tommy Loo played well in parts. The Catalans pack just dominated wiggin, couldn't get any good field position in the opposition half.

Tomkins didn't do much. Eastmond and Myler are looking to be good prospect at half-back at the mo. Ainscough is a very good prospect on the wing.