Disappointed that another Warrington trained youngster has not made the grade. Injuries have not helped Ben, hopefully he realises his potential elsewhere.

Is this another piece of fiction from Hilary Mantel or do you have a reference ?

So far that is 5 out & 1 in.

Here you go Mr Winslade www.totalrl.com/smith-to-allow-e ... arrington/ Regards, Hilary.

Here you go Mr Winslade www.totalrl.com/smith-to-allow-e ... arrington/ Regards, Hilary.

Do you think with our long and established track record of rarely developing players that make the grade, or the team, we should just admit defeat and concentrate on signing established players ...

I think we are suffering from a period in our history when there were not enough schools and clubs bringing through juniors in our local area. In 1988 apparently there were only 10 junior schools out of 80 that played RL. In contrast Wigan have a constant stream of talent coming through and Saints have always had a reputation for their junior system. So I think it is going to be a long slog, but you can see some of the groundwork being done when a different local club is invited to the HJ on game day and there is a lot more being done behind the scenes particularly raising the standard of coaching.

If you look at local grown players that are well established at Wire then its a decent list; Harrison, Cooper, Penny, Rhys Evans, Currie, Dwyer, George King plus a clutch of very promising kids that are just starting to get game time in Toby King, Declan Patton, Jack Johnson and most recently Morgan Smith. Even those players that we release find their way to other clubs including HKR, Salford, Hudds and there are plenty in the lower divisions such as Mendeika (Bradford), Riley (Whitehaven), Williams (Broncos). So we are doing our bit for the sport as well.

TBF I think the club needs a pat on the back for all the work it does.

Agreed WO, the clubs puts a lot of work into the juniors. However how many are from Warrington? Cooper, Penny, Patton, Johnson and Livett but the rest are from elsewhere. Perhaps the Warrington kids prefer football? Encouraging youngsters in Warrington to become a Wire rather than a red or a blue needs to be sustained with the correct opportunity and rewards for doing so.

Yes, you are quite correct, quite a number of our juniors have been enticed from 'abroad' with the promise of future glory and a bag of sweets. I suppose it's tough if you are the owner. You need success to get your local area to come and watch and to encourage the young kids to play footy, but how do you get success if there is only a small local talent pool ? If you look at the kids being promoted from U16's to U19's though you will see that there has been a steady increase in those from our local clubs. I think we have 7 promotions plus two recruits this year, so it is moving in the right direction - just taking a long time following years of neglect.

Welcome to the board btw, you seem to have a very good good knowledge of the club. Mind you, you don't need that on here really as we all talk a load of rubbish most of the time.

We tried to get him in for the 8s so I could hazard I guess we might want him for next year. He would join O'Brien who's been outstanding a fb and Murray who's an unknown.

Wigan and Saints don't own the junior clubs in their areas, maybe we need more/better talent scouts?

Winslade Offload said :- Welcome to the board btw, you seem to have a very good good knowledge of the club. Mind you, you don't need that on here really as we all talk a load of rubbish most of the time.

Thanks for the welcome been watching the Wire since 57/58 and amongst other things seeing the real Charlie Winslade making his debut for the club. I have watched this board from afar for many years but feel strongly about local lads playing for the club. There has never been enough which hopefully will change. Oh, and don't worry, I can speak a load of rubbish as well!

I don't think we've done too bad scouting the Wigan amateur clubs over the years - you'll always start off on the back foot trying to attract them away from their hometown club though.

I think the club has improved immensely since the Wilderspool days. I remember the Cullen comment of loading from above and below, hence the signings at the time of the likes of Bridge, Grix, Westwood etc.

When I was a kid playing in the town there was only one club that had a regular team at our age group, and that was Woolston. Now Latchford, Crosfields, Burtonwood and even Culcheth have teams throughout (be nice to see one in the Birchwood area....).

On Evans, he's obviously a victim of his recent injury, and due to the number of payers we have in that position. I think he will pick up a contract with a bottom 4 SL club and kick on. I hope he does.

I hope he goes well elsewhere, for me he was injured way too often to be an effective backup and way too often to ever show us what he could do. I hope he can sort his injury problems out and make a career from the game. Its a shame but there is no point wasting your cap space on having cover for your first team that's never available.

And how many Wigan kids get binned off?
It's fortunate for many clubs that they do!
Ben will find his level elsewhere.....
....just like Matty Russell, not good enough as a Wigan winger but good enough for us.