I know where your coming from Red chemic. In my starting 17 I would include 1/2 homegrown players maximum. However we will have injuries and this will make way for the likes of gore, Gilmore, craven and mellor. It's hard also because at our halves we have hanbury and brown, two brilliant players.

Before we introduce the youngsters we need to be winning on a constant basis and not getting hammered every week. This is where it's easier for the likes of Warrington to bring youngsters in, they have a lot of talent throughout the team where we don't have as much.

This will be a defining Samson for widnes, if we pick up a few signings for next season and win lets say 10 games this season instead of 6 last year, we will then start to feature our homegrown players on a more regular basis.

7 pages for a friendly, impressed.

I thought Carvell was our stand out player. He looked to be a man playing with a bunch of school kids for most of the game. Obviously his knee op has gone well and he has come back with a bang. Look forward to seeing him this season. Our other stand out was Higham. He made a lot of good yardage and his solo try probably turned the game when Widnes were starting to get back in the game.

Paul Wood looked a bit tentative, but soon got into his stride, and Coops was not very prominent despite his try. Riley was very busy, but well marked most of the time.

I thought GOB had a few nice touches showing off his handling skills, and was 100% on his kicking duties.

In the forwards, Laithwaite and Currie got through a fair amount of work. Currie looked the more dangerous and accomplished player. He scored a decent try and showed some good handling skills.

I quite like Mendeika, he is developing quite nicely and is always on hand when someone makes a break. His try required a bit of finishing off (as opposed to a straight run in ).

I am afraid I was not too impressed with Williams, he seemed too quiet.

Although the back line was very disjointed, Rhys Evans looked very solid. I much prefer him at centre, I don't think he is a natural winger ( just as Riley is not a natural fullback). He is dangerous with ball in hand and of course has pace to burn. I hope we see him play a good number of first team games this year (at centre please TS).

Finally, the Widnes pack look far too small to me. I think they are really going to struggle against some of the bigger packs. However, they do seem to have some good backs.

Is there any highlights on the net from the game ?

Good in it!



I'd say that Morley, Monaghan x 2, the aforementioned Waterhouse and Hodgson won't have been playing for free.

I take your point about it being easier for youth to get into a team like Widnes but that is part of what I'm getting at. IMO, considering Wire have been at the top table from the off, you should have more youth products in the team than you do at present. You only have to look at what Wigan, Leeds, Saints and to a certain extent Bradford have done.



Pretty much in agreement

We've been out of SL for 7 years or so and are behind virtually every other SL club on the field. We have to inject youth into our side along with more experienced signings in order for us to not go through a full season of mullerings like we did in the 1st half of last season. Are you saying the youth you produce isn't good enough for you? Fwiw, there is a rumour that Brown was wanted by Wigan.....not sure how true it is mind! We too have youth products at SL level, not least at your club, so basically at one stage we were producing youth which was too good for us!

Regardless of how good your academy is now, you simply should have more of your home grown talent playing I your 1st team. Sorry if that's hard to accept.

It has been explained and accepted that at the club's lowest point we closed down the A team ( under the old system ) to save money. That was a very bad decision in terms of bringing through young players. On the other hand, Wire did not go into admin, or get close to admin, because of ruthless cost cutting like this. Perhaps we should have allowed ourselves to go down the Bulls or Salford route, spending more than we had and leading to the crises at these clubs.The current youth set up has only been operating since around 2004, and is now working. We do not accept that we '[ishould[/i' have more academy-produced players in the first team squad: I named seven for you earlier in the thread. Would we like more? Sure, and we're working on it, but it will take years to catch up on Leeds, Saints or Wigan, who did not have our dire financial crisis to face ten years ago.

Sorry, but that is not a sensible statement. The coach is charged with winning silverware, and will choose the team he believes will win it. If any of our young starlets is capable of displacing existing team members, then they will be picked. We do have a very strong 'home grown' youth side. You may recall that they won the U20 league and GF last year. But they will be introduced gradually as existing players are retired. Hopefully this will allow the team to continue its run of success into the future. But if our younger players are not up to the standard, I am sure we would look around and bring in replacements.

You are to be applauded for bringing through young players, but the object of the game is to bring through a high quality group of young players AND win silverware. You are currently succeeding with one of those objectives at the moment (providing they reach a high standard). If you look around at the likes of Leeds and Saints though, you will still see overseas players and imports from other clubs in a mix with their own youth. So it is a question of balance, whilst hopefully continuing to contest finals.

Sensible statement? IMO it's not sensible to have great youth and not give them a go. I don't mean throw them in as a job lot but they should be playing more often. With the games current format it is a perfect opportunity for teams to do so (top of the table not being the be all and end all & no relegation per se). The coach of course is charged with bringing in silverware but he also must introduce the youth more regularly than TS is as I feel that a lot of your lads are more than ready. The other teams mentioned have indeed got a number of imports but they complement the academy lads they produce. I agree fully it's about balance but it should be home produce balanced by supplementary signings for the future health of the game, not silverware first and development later.

Good chat this, I'm enjoying it!

Well if we look at the result of what you are suggesting, it would mean leaving out Michael Monaghen and playing Brad Dwyer at hooker. Monaghen is head and shoulders a better player than Dwyer, and I don't think there are many coaches that would make that choice, not the least because you have a highly paid, high class star kicking his heels on the sideline. Similarly with Briers and OBrien, Chris Bridge and Rhys Evans etc etc. Yes, you should play these lads when you have injuries or games that you can afford to lose, but the coach is primarily paid to get results, and similarly the speccies want to see high class (winning ) rugby from their England / Aussie stars. We did play our youngsters against London and Salford (and received a lot of complaints on here), so I think by and large TS has the balance about right.

Your 'silverware first' comment is an interesting one. The heart may agree with you, but not the brain. Professional rugby is a tough financial world, and IMHO the financial aspects of the game must take precedence over everything else. If you are lucky enough to have a Moran as owner, you can afford to buy high quality players, win competitions, and gain a healthy business with money from sponsors, ST holders,prize money etc etc. That money allows you to develop both a strong back room staff and develop your youth system. Without the silverware, sponsorship money would be lower, ST money would be lower, hospitality would be lower etc. So the 'silverware first' approach has resulted in a financially strong club that can afford a good youth system. The challenge now is to keep the club in the top 4 and hence the finances in a strong position, as we transition to a situation where we will hopefully have a good mix of home grown talent and (fewer) imports.

I don't think we are disagreeing about much here, it's just that I don't think you can afford to endanger the clubs success by playing too many of the youngsters. Don't forget you have a different perspective on this. O'Brien would probably be a first choice pick in your team (last year anyway), but he is not at Wire. Similarly, I suspect Rhys Evans would also probably walk into your side. Give it a few years when hopefully you are at least in the top half of the table, you will undoubtedly see a big ability gap between your youngsters and the first team.Then you will find it much harder to make the decisions you are suggesting.

Where is Mick Burke's Boots by the way ?

Not much disagreement on this thread about the need to bring young players through. It's only your assertion that Wire aren't doing this enough that is in contention. Given our 'academy resurrection' only started about eight years ago I reckon Wire are doing a pretty good job already, with a bright future it seems from the success of the under 20s side.

i love the way this 'academy lads' is like a badge of honour here. We have plenty of good young players in the team... some came through our youth system.. some came through other clubs youth systems... Some of the players that came through our youth system go on to play for other clubs....Im not sure what the problem is... apart from jealousy.

Agreement on not much disagreement but it will take a strong coach and understanding chairman to change the status quo.....on the Monaghan quandary why not use Mick Higham and Dwyer as understudy... just a suggestion?



Agreed .

Had a few beers this affer but I've enjoyed this chat. Best of luck folks. See you next season

I'm pretty much like you, all i care about is the 17 i support beat the other 17, they can all come from the moon for i care.