Shopping List For Mr Moranovich ???

Quote: Uncle Rico "
My proposition is that we need to be aiming for promoting from within as a first alternative rather than a last resort and that the chequebook isn't the only answer particularly given the state of RL generally and certainly care should be taken when paying out for 'the finished article''"

Is that any different from what we have done anyway?

Wood, Riley, Harrison, Cooper, McCarthy, Blythe, Evans, O'Brien, Williams, Currie - all of these have come through our Academy and been given their chance in the first team. Then there are guys like Penny, Pickersgill, Mitchell and going back further, Noone, Sibbit, Hulse, Alstead and Mark Gleeson, all of whom played significant time in the first team.

Some of these players were not up to being in a top side and you could also say some of the current ones that are being given a chance are not up to being in a top side either, but at least they are getting their chances. You cannot accuse Warrington of only seeing promoting academy players as a last resort - if anything we tend to promote too many and would benefit from being more ruthless, there are some lads who get their chance at Warrington that would be filtered out sooner at a club like Leeds or Saints.

As for the finished article, it comes in two forms:
- high promise that has come through other clubs Academies, that just needs polishing (Westwood, Grix, Hill, Atkins, Ratchford, Myler)
- established top class players (Morley, King, Hicks, the Monaghans, Hodgson, Waterhouse).

All successful sides that win trophies have a balance of the three types of player - promoted academy products, high promise from other clubs, established top class players. Go back and look at every successful side - Wigan in the 80s and 90s, Bradford/Saints in the 2000s, Leeds in the past 10 years, they all fit that bill and so do we under Tony Smith. We are not underpromoting home grown players compared to them.

But you will not win trophies without those finished article players.

Fans like the idea of a team full of home grown products but it will not win trophies. Even Man United when they brought through Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, Nevilles etc would have not been successful without the likes of Cantona, Schmeichel, Keane.

The alternative reality in the past few years would have been that rather than sign those finished article players we could have stuck with Sibbit, Noone, Penny, Pickersgill and so on instead. We would have won nothing.