Really

Are Leeds and Wigan really this far ahead of us in terms of having a juggernaut of young players ready to come in whilst we don't....didn't we win the Academy last year?

Is there any truth regarding Ryan Atkins to Union? I can see if he gets a decent wage then his partner won't have to work so she can look after their child etc. I hope it's not true ad he stays at Warrington. (Sorry to Ryan's partner)

Well Wigan certainly are doing well with their youngsters this year, and have some top class youngsters coming through the U19's. Leeds are reported to have a strict pay band system for their players, which they can impose because players wan't to sign up with a successful team. Leeds are a magnet for young ambitious kids. So for different reasons, I would view both these two as a major threat now that we can not get Oz stars.

The U20's competition sieves out the likely SL players and championship standard players. We need 'top 4' level SL players which is another big step up.

Atkins can probably double his money in Union, or at least add around £50k-£100k to his income. He'd be nuts to turn that down. It's like when Fozzard was with us - he tripled his money when he went to Saints - as confirmed by Cullen on GMR one year.

I've supported Warrington all my life. I went to my first game over 25 years ago. But if I was a player, and the chance came to set myself up financially, I'd go and play Union in a heartbeat. It's a short, brutal career and they need to extract every last penny out of it. If this rumour is true, and he goes, good to luck to him. Everyone is important - no-one is necessary; we'll find a replacement.

This is true, but they still had to get Matty Smith and Blake Green to replace Thomas Leuluai and Brett Finch.

True. I would hope as a club we would always look to bring in players from outside to complement those from our youth. In any case, if you look at our U19's, we have 20 from other parts of the country rather than local lads.So you could argue that these are imports anyway.

I'm hearing Tommy Leuluai is going back to Wigan next season with Tomkins going the other way plus two other players, rumoured to be a full back and back rower. It's on fb, if i had my laptop i'd link it.

Back rower is Andy Powell, isn't it?

Locke is the fullback

a back rower from NZ Warriors.

They look like losing Mossop, add to that players they've lost/losing and they're taking a big hit in the pack.

Fielden, Hock, Lima etc, rumours of Harrison too

I'd like Daryl Clark and Tim Smith. I know a lot of people will question the Smith one but the guy is full of talent and young.

They've got juniors playing in other areas that have come through and doing well.

Scarily well if you take a look at them, i never expected them to be as high in the table as they are, especially with a few first choice forwards out over this period of time.

Well he's younger than Briers, but he's still 28.

Wigan are fielding 11-12 former academy players each week now.
Leeds have been selecting around the same for about 4-5 years I think.
Not sure how many you or Saints have out there but I don't think they are far off.
I can understand why you didn't expect Wigan to be where they are in the League but neither did many Wigan fans either, including me.
The younger forwards have been excellent with Crosby, Farrell, Tuson, Burke the obvious ones. In the backs Thornley has been very good with big boots to fill as Carmont IMO was a class act.
It's the way they have all stepped up a level which has impressed.
When they played at HKR and got that blow out score the forwards missing from Wane's original squad named in Oct/Nov were - Lauaki, Mossop, Prescott, Hock, Hansen and O'Loughlin. None of thos guys played at HKR.
The lads have been very good but credit must go to the coaches.
Whether Wigan are ahead of anyone else I don't know but as has been said Taylor, Smith and Green were brought in close season. Still, if we run with 11-12 academy lads from now on I'll be very pleased.

The 2013 Squad thread at the top shows we have 11 "Club Trained" players in our Top 25, although realistically about 6-8 appear regularly in the first team. On that measure, we are still someway behind Wigan, Leeds and Saints, despite the massive progress we have made in youth development in recent years. Of course we have similar numbers with Swinton and lots of potential in the u19s and u16s to follow on. So hopefully we will see our 6-8 getting to more like 11-12 over the next 2-3 seasons as some of our older players inevitably reach retirement. We'll need to bring in a few star names from outside, but we are now much more self-sufficient than previously.