I don't think Kibula has been match fit since i first saw him play at 15 years old to be honest, always had the same deficiencies which have stopped him progressing to the next level whilst showing enough spark to warrant further time until Wigan gave up on him.

How many games did Livett play for Hull KR this year?

Ten.

Although admittedly kr ended their season early,

Harvey had a fair crack at it here, but apart from goalkicking never really did enough with the chances he got

We can use the same analogy for 20 years ago.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ian Sibbit

Scored tries.my granny could have, gets a good number of tries in a short space of time, Aussies come sniffing, realise they've signed a dud, and he's back home before you can say Pommie waster.
Nothing wrong with being [iJohnny on the spot[/i, but he wasn't any good.
Hype indeed

As the old chap who used to stand next to me at Wilderspool uaed to opine "That Phil Blake, all he does is score tries".

And whether it's a chip over the top, 40 yarder in one boot or leftys gran scoring the more straightforward ones they all have to be scored and you have to be in the right place to score them.

I await similar try scoring exploits from some of our undroppable fraternity, easy or not.

Different situation altogether, sibbit was killing it in the academy as a wide running 2nd row.

He got promoted to first team and spent 2 years being shoe horned in at centre by DV2.

And also 2003 when his leg was hanging off at the knee

... and he really wasn't any good

Sibbit played in the second row for about six years when he was at Salford and he didn't pull up any trees. It's not like he was old and washed either, I think he was 24 when he left us. If he had really been a good second rower he would have done it then.

Compare to Westwood, who spent the first five years of his career being played at centre/wing at Wakefield and with us. Cullen put him in the back row and his career took off. No lasting damage for him through being played in the outside backs.

There's always an excuse for some players, about how unlucky they were, how badly they were treated at Wire, could have been a great if only....

We never had excuses for Grix and Bridge - both of whom had to deal with bad injuries, and were shunted around different positions. You could easily have had stories saying "this lad had all the talent in the world, but Wire ruined him by never letting him settle in a position", but they weren't needed, because like Westwood, they were quality players, whereas guys like Sibbit, Livett were no more than average SL standard.

Livett showed promise in the beginning, as a youngster came in and played some good games. But he had 50 games for us plus time at Hull KR and in that time he’s never shown enough to suggest to me he is good enough to be a starting back rower for a club with final aspirations.

He’s a good utility and I agree could play a good role off the bench, but he’s 23, he’s going to want / need games where he has a chance as a starting regular.

We have shown in the past if a player is good enough he will get the game time, Currie, King, Philbin all had plenty of game time and have proven to the club they are good enough to make themselves a regular in the 17.. Even those that haven’t made it, Patton, Livett, George King etc have had plenty of time and opportunity to stake a claim, but never made it.

Wigan and Saints have plenty of Livetts & Pattons coming through too, they get chances and eventually the coaching staff decide they’re not quite going to reach the level that they expect of a first choice player. See the likes of Burke, Hampshire, Swift, Matty Ashurst and many more. Difference is Wigan and Saints produce them in much greater numbers, so there is more of an acceptance when one has to move on to make way for the next Livett / Patton off the production line.

We need to be producing more Livetts and more Kings / Philbins to compete with the top clubs. We always seem to put things in place, Paul Anderson as coach for the U19’s I’m sure is a big investment and we constantly hear about us throwing money at young Wigan/Leeds/Saints youngsters to get them here. The frustrating thing is it takes time to see whether what you have put in place is making a real difference, it takes years to show what the results have been. Wigan & Saints know what they are doing and they will keep doing it and fine tuning it. We seem to rip things up and start again every 3-4 years.

We need more kids playing the game in Warrington to make that pyramid of players bigger. That seems to be improving to me, when I was playing 25 years ago I think there was only 1 team in the town at my age group for much of it. At my sons age there are Latchford, Woolston, Crosfields, Culcheth, Bank Quay, Burtonwood and Rylands, youth development is just slow to materialise and goes against the clubs usual method of chuck some money at it to see improvements. Of course it needs investment, but it’s more the processes that are put in to place that will deliver.

I don’t think the issue is the club not playing these players in the first team, the problem is their identification and development. If they aren’t good enough, the coach has to look externally for signings. Which is what we have done as a club for 20 years.

Great Post, spot on. If they're good enough we keep them, simple. Young players have to take their opportunities, see matty Ashton, thewlis, longstaff and Dean when they played.

How many of our youngsters have moved on to teams that are competing the finals? I can only think of rhys Williams and tyke and that's in a Salford side that punched well above its weight under a fantastic head coach. We aren't failing the academy emergers IMO, lots of them have had a lot of game time, the trouble comes to when they come to the end of their first contract and we have to decide whether they will be good enough to be starters or need to move on. Importantly we aren't losing the better ones like King, Currie and Philbin to our closest rivals either so we must be doing something right.

Brad Dwyer.

Another player not good enough to hold down a starting place for us, right decision for Dwyer and us for him to move on. We’ve had more players recently move on to other clubs, but I don’t think I’d regret any of them leaving in the past ten years - other than Cooper, who came back anyway. Patton and Livett will be two more, we’re getting better in that regard, but a long way to go.

Dwyer isnt doing anything at Leeds he didn't do here, run around a lot like a headless chicken, looks busy and energetic, doesnt do a huge amount