Quote: Mookachaka "Where did Hill, Taylor, Grundy etc play before they reached the first team? They all played in the academy.
Work hard with the ametuers? I'm sure Pownall and Hopkins have played academy rugby, which has no doubt benefited their careers. You can't just jump from ametuer to Pro, to big of a leap.....
This is a backwards step in my opinion! All the top teams have the best academies, Wigan, Leeds and Saints. They build their team around youth products, a bit like we did a couple of years ago.
Let's hope the boom and burst works!! Or else we could be left with no youth players, ageing players with massive salaries and impending debt.
If a club like Leigh can't afford an academy, what does this tell you about the state of their finances???'"
I realise that your a Wigan lad and your son played in the Academy, but you need to cease winding folk up on here. To build a real conveyor you need to compete for the best kids both financially and with a proven pathway, neither can be done at Championship level and hence you simply turn a side out and tick a box.
There will be loads of kids with better potential than we can attract shown the door by SL clubs every year, as it stands we can only attract the kids SL overlooks and that isnt going to feed you.
Lets focus on the youngsters at East/Miners/Parkside etc and get the club into a position we can offer a decent opportunity for the better players who now are snapped up by the established SL clubs in the area, and that means SL.
20 years of sky funding has only created a few decent SL academy's, we have no chance without being in SL