Over the period 2004-2016 (13 years) we had a total of 32 academy players making a SL debut. Rating them is difficult and we would never agree on a list of the best products. Perhaps a fairer way of looking at their value might be to set a figure of say 100 SL games played for the club ? If we did that we would end up with;

Chris Riley 181
Ben Harrison 211
Mike Cooper 219
Rhys Evans. 105
Ben Currie 161
Joe Philbin. 120
Dec. Patton 102

Even here there are anomalies as I would say both Evans and Patton have benefited from a lack of quality players in SL available to take their place. Notable exceptions to the list are Brad Dwyer (who must have played over a total of 100 SL games if you include his Leeds stint) and Toby King who will surely reach 100 by the end of the 2020 season. If Laithwaite hadn't been plagued with injuries I suspect he too would have got into the list. But overall, I would have to say that other than Currie, we have not really seen any stand out players in the Sculthorpe /Harris bracket. I think what is very obvious though is the decline in available talent pool for SL, perhaps typified by Rhys Williams getting back to SL with Salford and Kevin Penny making a return with us.

According to SL stats published a few years back, out of a SL Academy intake, only 2 youngsters will make it through to SL standard. From our 32 academy players I would say 16-17 could be said to have played at SL standard for a reasonable period - but we should have seen 26, so we are behind the curve in comparison to other clubs. Similarly, if you look at the '100 club' above you would probably say we have really only produced 5 good quality players that have featured regularly in our 1st 17.

Where have we gone wrong ? Is it lack of intake quality to the Academy or the standard of coaching and training facilities ? As already pointed out, if the coaching was mediocre then there would surely be some players that left the Academy and flourished elsewhere, but that has not happened. Also, we seem to change the Academy head coach every 2-3 years, so you would have thought that at least one of them would have made a difference or that we would have seen years where good quality youngsters came through. So the most likely cause (for me) is the intake, and in the past, having insufficient numbers of youngsters playing in the locality could well have been the most damaging factor.

The game as a whole has suffered since doing away with the two academy age groups. All the "top tier" players mentioned are products of the two age group system. Hopefully the reserve team competition can address this.

I think we were close to catching up at the point the change pushed through by Leeds and Wigan was made.

Has any club produced one of these "top tier' players since we changed to just u19s?

Whilst it's right we measure ourselves with the Wigans, Saints and Leeds in youth development then I suspect we compare well against any other team in the league eg Hull, Cas. I suspect we would head that section of clubs.

Leeds quality has dropped right off, they got very lucky with their golden generation, and only needed to compliment that squad with occasional outside signings, as much as sky and bods that side of the hill sing the praises, their current crop over the last few years have been very average, oledzki has been pretty awful every time he's played against us, i've yet to see what they keep banging on about with Ward, singleton was a bench prop at best, golding was the next best thing for about 5 minutes till they booted him out for jack walker who looks undersized and also unimpressive.

I thought we had reached a consensus view that we recruit nationally. There seems limited correlation between where the player was born/amateur club and recruitment.

i.e)

Ben Harrison (Barrow)
Rhys Evans (Brigend)
Ben Evans (Brigend)
Toby King (Huddersfield)
George King (Huddersfield)
Sam Wilde (Shevington)
Mark Gleeson (Wigan)
Ian Sibbit (Wigan)
Lee Penny (Wigan)
Paul Noone (Widnes)

....

Iestyn Harris (Oldham)
Paul Sculthorpe (Burnley)


What we need to be able to do is attract the very best young talent, rather than the 2nd draft after Wigan, Saints, Leeds have recruited. Then when we have them, maximise their development.

Absolutely, we need to look across the whole national talent pool and bring in the very best if we are to compete without always having to reach for a cheque book.

But just to be silly, lets say 90% of all the available national junior intake is located in the Humberside region, how will that affect our scouts and coaches;

Kids coming through school and local clubs in Humberside will be spotted first by the Hull clubs.
They cam be easily monitored during the week.
It is easy to determine their character ( durable, hard working, committed, refusal to give up) because the coaches are in constant contact.
They can be encouraged to join local clubs where the Hull clubs have their own coaches in attendance (and where they can build a relationship).
Because they are local, they are probably fans of one of the clubs and their dream is to play for their home team.
If they sign up for Wire they will have a long 6 hr return trip just to train once a week, let alone play a competitive game. And at Scholarship age, that is a significant barrier when they are still at school/ college.

Yes, you can mitigate all of the above and Wire do recruit from everywhere. But imagine what a big advantage you would have if you were the Academy head coach of Hull. Now look at the list of 100 SL game academy players that we have produced over the last 13 years; only Riley, Cooper, Philbin and Patton came from our local clubs. And I can't think of too many that were poached and became stars at other SL clubs. I don't have the data, but I am pretty sure that is due to too few local kids playing RL whilst Wigan and Saints easily retain their own starlets (apart from Currie) because of their successful past.

So for me, we need to work hard with the local schools and clubs to ensure we have a sizeable pool of local youngsters to choose from, as well as looking across the rest of the country and perhaps France as well.

Perhaps we are also missing the impact that the old works teams used to make with providing talent able to fit in at least at open age A team level. Many such players could at least hit the ground running & had the bulk & size to deal with seasoned pros.

Whatever happened to that lad A.N. Other never saw him get regular game time just the odd one here and there.

Hull - Hodgson, Briscoe...going back a bit further, Yeaman, Horne, Cooke
Cas - Clark, Shenton, Westerman, Milner
Hudds - McGilivray, Cudjoe, Connor, Crabtree, Bridge
Wakefield - Westwood, Ellis, Johnstone
Bradford - Bateman, Burgess x 3, Whitehead, Atkins, Ferres

All clubs whose Academy production I would have preferred to ours.

Would be interesting to count GB and England international caps and see how Warrington score.

I do agree though on your points that in recent years the 'elite talent' production has dried up everywhere and that there's a general problem across the game following the change to running academy teams.

I have read a lot of what has been said and I have a couple of points to throw in the mix.

Since the demise of Bradford we have been dining at the top table. OK the big one eludes us but our record of CC, LLS and finals indicates that we are competing with the holy trinity. So on that basis how many players have moved from Leeds, Saints or Wigan in the last 13 years and had a big impact (exclude moves to NRL). None have moved on and won a grand final. OK Mccillorum has picked up a CC winners medal along with Benjamin Jullien. Before 2005 ish we we lost our best players (Andy Gregory, Sculthorpe, Harris etc) to the teams that were dining at the top table just like Salford have done for the last god knows how long. So unless our players move on to Saints, Wigan and Leeds (to a lesser extent recently) then they are not going to grab a man drawer full of grand final rings.

My second point is that we are a buying club. Look at our signings since Gleeson. We go and try and buy our way to success. The list of big names is probably just as or if not more impressive than the big 3.
That does put us at a disadvantage in recruiting young talent. Why would a 16/17 year old halfback look at signing for us when in the last 5 years we have had Sandow, Brown, Gidley, Austin and Widdop. They stand a far better chance at pretty much any other club.
An interesting theory to consider is just imagine for a minute that we won the GF in 13. Would some of the younger players coming through then have been given more of a chance if we had lifted the SL trophy. So when Briers retired would GOB have been given more time to develop because the monkey had gone.

That is a very good point and probably one that contributes to not only the you not recruiting the best young players, but also to your eventual lack of success in the Grand Final. Wigan and Saints can lose 3 or 4 players and still bring through players who are instantly comfortable at Super League level. That hasn't been the case at Warrington.

I think there are a few other factors at Warrington. Historically it was the amount of effort in the youth system, for years players used to choose Wigan or Saints as they trained more days in the week than Warrington did. Things like that have improved since Moran arrived. Now it seems the player pool is smaller than it used to be in most areas and I know from my own son's development this year that at his age level (Pre-scholarship) the same group of kids has been identified by Saints, Wigan and Warrington. The training camps for all three clubs have predomnantly the same kids from St Helens, Warrington, Wigan, Widnes, Runcorn, Leigh and even Leeds and Cumbria. And they've all noticably sorted them into groups based on talent. That suggests it's not identification of the players that is the issue for Warrington. Speaking to the parents, there is a general preference towards the local side, but things like Saints touring Australia at academy level are brought up, as well as the amount of players that make first team, particularly at Wigan. Perhaps the biggest thing however is herd mentality. Quite a few of the parents have asked me where I think my lad will go if offered a place with all three and to let them know if he makes a decision on that. There is a definite desire to get their kid in the same academy squad as the perceived top players. If it plays out like that one club will likely start the academy pathway with a very strong team, which may explain why there are often really strong years at certain clubs but it not being the same club each year.

I'm less concerned over hb than I am in the depth...or lack of it...of out and out props.

And how long have us observers at Warrington been saying that ..... 3 years now possibly and still no genuine quality back up at prop .... philbs excluded

Patton has played 100 first team games over that time period.

How many would he have had if he was at Saints, where they've had Lance Hohaia, Travis Burns, Luke Walsh, Theo Fages,...they played Jordan Turner at stand off for a while, they brought Matty Smith back, Danny Richardson, Jonny Lomax....

Look how quickly they moved on from Richardson - would Patton have been given more patience or would they have dropped him behind Fages and Lomax?

What about if he was at Wigan, where he'd have been competing with Tommy Leuluai, Matty Smith, George Williams, Sam Powell. Wigan didn't exactly show much patience with Josh Woods, last year they brought in Jarrod Sammut rather than give a young lad a chance.

Would Patton have got over 100 first team games at Wigan?

Would Patton have got over 10 first team games at Wigan?

I see the found Sandow's very good mate over in Dubai...according to the WG.