Ha ha sorry 1977!

Focus certainly seems to be on youth - it’s a nice refreshing change. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... tor-rugby/

Focus certainly seems to be on youth - it’s a nice refreshing change. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... tor-rugby/

From 2012 to 2022 we have had only Currie. Philbin, King, Thewliss and Wrench through the academy system that seem to have embedded themselves in the 1st team squad. That's really poor, and I know that we seem to have finally understood just how important home grown players are to our future success. But.... even allowing for the focus on player development and apparent success, I really hope we are going to see a balanced approach to the external and internal channels of squad recruitment. That may seem strange coming from me as I have been banging on about youth development for years, but I really hope this doesn't swing in the other direction and we end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

Hopefully it means agents will use other teams as stalking horses when trying to get their NRL players better terms.

That would certainly be a positive, we need to spend our cash wisely. Who knows when our benefactors may fade away and the cash pot disappears.

There has been a lot of talk inside the club on how the player market is lacking in quality and highly inflated. Over the past couple of weeks the Agents of 2 average English players have offered them to Warrington requesting laughable wages, which were immediately rejected. So I can see why the club have used the Guardian to dampen any fan expectation of big name signings with the spare salary cap we have, and to send a clear message to prospective players and there Agents.

The good news is Matty Nicholson has again turned down the chance of a 'big money' move to the Dolphins and will be staying on an improved contract. Spare salary cap spent very wisely imo.

Excellent news about Nicholson, I was resigned to losing him to the NRL when his current contract expired.

With the massive difference between the Salary Caps of the NRL and Super League, it is inevitable that we will lose some of our young talent to them in the future though.

We will just have to keep growing our own and competing for the youth talent in the UK.

Wish we had gome along this route a few years ago.

I can't see that Guardian link, it's behind a pay wall. Headline says not many signings for 2025. Does anyone know who's off contract this year?

Quote: Philth "I can't see that Guardian link, it's behind a pay wall. Headline says not many signings for 2025. Does anyone know who's off contract this year?'" There you go:- https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ev ... nd-of-2024

Quote: Philth "I can't see that Guardian link, it's behind a pay wall. Headline says not many signings for 2025. Does anyone know who's off contract this year?'" There you go:- https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ev ... nd-of-2024

I don't mind Sam Stone from Salford though I think we're fine for 2nd rowers.

Can he play prop?

For me from Warrington view

Definitely Keep
Leon Hayes
Adam Holroyd
Max Wood

Definitely Release
Josh Drinkwater
Gill Dudson

The rest I could be persuaded either way depending on their demands and what's out there.

From the list of available players from other clubs Amone might be worth it played with Sam had a great season last year.

I would add Thomas and Whitehead to your definitely keep list.

The way that Burgess has given youth it`s chance, Thomas would have been playing in our 1st team except for his season ending injury.

Whitehead could do with playing Championship RL regularly now to develop him. He is a very classy 2ndRow/Loose forward who will probably fill-out to be a prop.

Not sure about Jake Thewlis and Lynch.

Glad someone else has to make these decisions, it must be heart breaking for the kids and their parents when they are given the bad news.

Reading that George King is available. Did he leave under a cloud?

King was released by Wire when we signed Lama Tasi to replace him.

Tasi would probably have cost double the salary that King was on, and was an inferior player to King.