It was coach Doug Laughton's car. Apparently.

Apparently he booted the wing mirrors off it.

Our problem with youth is the lack of accessability youngsters have to RL in our town.

Granted, we have
Woolston Rovers
Crosfields
Rylands
Latchford Albion and a couple of newish ones in the last couple of decades , but that's about it. Wigan and StHelens are brimming with clubs.

Couple this with amount of RL played in schools (good Lord, five years ago, when Cullen was our coach, his son went to Broomfields school, just a couple of miles from our ground, and they played RU, FFS). Unless I'm mistaken, all schools are interested in, is playing football (I stand to be corrected) as their main sport. WE'RE A RL TOWN.

Until this changes, we'll never get much town-grown talent in our first team.

Lets look at the amount of Warringtonians that have played in my RL watching lifetime that have come through our youth
Cullen
Duane
Forster
Thorniley
Wainwright
Penny K
and (iirc) Riley, not a great deal after those, is there.

Off the top of my head, our more celebrated youth players have come from out of town, in this era
Mike Gregory (Wigan)
Mark Roberts (Oldham)
Sculthorpe (Oldham)
Harris (Oldham)
Penny L (Wigan)
Hilton (Wigan)
Roper (Cumbria)

Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.

But that doesn't explain why so many Warrington youffs sign for Saints though does it?

We had 11 actually:

1. Paul Wellens
28. Tom Makinson
22. Jamie Foster
25. Lee Gaskell
20. Jonny Lomax
10. James Graham
9. James Roby
16. Paul Clough
14. Scott Moore
17. Gary Wheeler
19. Andrew Dixon

plus Wilkin played in our academy too (albeit after playing for Hull KR first team! )

The outstanding bit about that is that 6 of them have come through in the past 2 years.

Quote: lefty goldblatt "snip Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.'" Good post. Despite RL being the number one sport at town level, football has definitely ruled the roost at junior level. Hopefully things are changing though. I have heard of some football clubs struggling for numbers as they have lost lads to RL, inspired by the teams success in recent years. Also, I know the club has increased it's efforts into youth development every year for the past 10 years and now invests significant amounts of money and time into it. Squadbuilder helps play its part with that too. Timely article on the website today: www.warringtonwolves.org/rugby-l ... hools-4740

Quote: lefty goldblatt "snip Until we get more local amateur clubs, and more RL representation in schools (yes I know the club goes round schools, all the time) we're a bit stuck.'" Good post. Despite RL being the number one sport at town level, football has definitely ruled the roost at junior level. Hopefully things are changing though. I have heard of some football clubs struggling for numbers as they have lost lads to RL, inspired by the teams success in recent years. Also, I know the club has increased it's efforts into youth development every year for the past 10 years and now invests significant amounts of money and time into it. Squadbuilder helps play its part with that too. Timely article on the website today: www.warringtonwolves.org/rugby-l ... hools-4740

I was involved in a discussion a couple of months back regarding junior RL and how the switch to summer would effect the game at that level.
TBH there were more against the move than for it, citing rock hard pitches, kids being away on holiday etc.

However there were a few who thought that teams may be able to pick up some players who played football and Rugby Union in the winter months.

It'll be interesting to see if participation increases or decreases.

Anyone read the story of the wire website - touches on lefty's assertions,

Broomfields still only play Rugby Union as their head of PE has no interest in League. Lymm only play Union as well.

St gregs regularly have lads wanting to play RL but their teachers choose to go to football matches regularly leaving the RL Lads without anyone to take them.

Sankey actively promote RL and have competetive teams at most age groups. Sankey have 2 or 3 pe teachers between 5 rugby and 5 football teams. How do they get round to do a training session for each age group once a week. The lads at penketh whilst keen are regularly let down by their head of PE who will not do training sessions.

As far as the community clubs are concerned RL is accesible with no one being more than a couple of miles away from a club and none of these clubs are at capacity other than the odd team.

This forum has been the same for years.

For about the past 6 years there have been threads on here saying Warrington have 5/6 players in various school age representative teams, with various posters saying how good our youth system is.

Then there will be some story on the main club website "Wolves sign up 2 new scholars" with pictures of some 14/15 year old lads - cue more posts on here from people who had never heard of the kid before saying "the future is looking bright for us".

Then at the end of the season when it gets announced who of the young players has been retained and who has been released we get some bitter parents on here saying "Warrington's youth set up is rubbish they just do weights not proper training thats why all our best youths go and sign for Saints instead"

Then there will be some cockmeasuring contest from fans of other clubs going "you had 2 ex Academy players in your team on such and such a game we had 5" together with some argument about eligiblity for counting someone as an academy player "this lad was born in Runcorn so he doesn't count".

I find it boring and personally I never get that sold on this hype about "young English talent" coming through Saints Leeds and Wigan, it always gets a hiding in the internationals at the end of the year. I prefer watching the Aussies that are over here to top up their pension funds like the Monaghans, King and Hodgson, they actually play entertaining rugby league and don't get constantly overhyped by Eddie and Phil Clarke.

It's Bridgewater, not Broomfields.

I went to Bridgewater, and played Union. The school always has, and probably always will. It's classed as a mid-cheshire school, and play teams such as Hartfrod, Grange, Middlwhich, leftwhich etc.

Not sure why it should change after this long.

rl[sizeSee this article[/sizerl

14 Squadbuilder Players Prepare For 2011 In The First Grade

SquadBuilder, the fund-raising arm of Warrington Wolves Supporters' Trust, continues to help the club develop home-grown talent.

The SquadBuilder scheme has gone a long way towards making the club the success it is today by supporting many players over the years, including current first team squad players Mike Cooper, Chris Riley, Tyrone McCarthy, Lee Mitchell, Matty Blythe, Ben Harrison and Rhys Williams as well as the young squad members hoping to break through, Craig Harvey[*], Gareth O'Brien, James Laithwaite and Ryan Shaw.

SquadBuilder was established as a means of keeping local players local and fulfilling the need to develop Warrington trained players. In the early years the members looked to incentivise and help local players within the sport, working from the bottom up to build a pyramid of talent within the club.

Warrington is renowned for being a Rugby League town and by supporting and investing in home-grown players the club could, and continues to, raise this profile and interest in the game.

Paul Wood has spent all his career at Warrington

[*] No longer with Warrington Wolves

i know someone connected with Warrington

he has said exactly the same as Rogues. you have a team capable of competing at SL level but are a few years behind Wigan, Saints and a couple of other clubs in terms of producing your own youngsters in good numbers

he has said that you have some fantastic prospects gaz o brien and the evans brothers but need to be producing more