Wigan and Warrington have a situation whereby they can cherry-pick quality youngsters from a good catchment are. These young guys will probably be living at home with their parents in the immediate vicinity. They can get them onto to a directly complementary course like Sports or Physiotherapy or another training course like a day release scheme or a few A-Levels part-time at an Adult Education College. The club is funding them with a relatively low payment, and supporting their education and paying them under £10,000. This will be based very close to the club's training ground and thus can train in a similar way to the fully professional players, thus they will develop to their full potential physically, versus guys who might only train two or three times a week.

When they start to develop, the chances are that they will join a nearby partnership club such as Swinton and thus play against grown men, which will take their development on at a higher rate of progress than just playing against other youths. They will also look to loan them out to a middling Super League club with an injury crisis or generally weaker squad such as St Helens or Bradford. The more cunning deals give the lender the opportunity to pull back the player at relatively short notice. Season long deals may occur when the player is third or fourth choice for one position and is insistent about first team football. But generally the deal suits the lender.

This gives these clubs far more depth to their pool, because they have a first team squad, their own academy which can progress more players more quickly as other players go out on loan, arguably a feeder club and achieve the seasoning process through other clubs, versus suddenly throwing in a player who are part-time and with only age-specific experience against grown men, some of which are internationals.

The difference between training a couple of times a week and daily can be seen.

If you look at players we have had, like Dave Williams, he was two metres tall, but he only played about 15 times in a few seasons for us and arguably did not build the strength and bulk that could have made him a man mountain. He could have been 19 stone and another 50 games at a better level than the Academy would have done him the world of good. I am sure that a nearby Championship club and a PE style course to help bulk him up would have been ideal for his progress, but none was available.

Whilst Dan Sarginson does not look noticeably bigger than when he first came through despite being an A-Level student two years ago and training full time. You could argue that he is joining Wigan not to play first team football, but to have the opportunity to build himself up for two or three years, and then break into the team. If he does this he will probably be an international. If he does not he will probably be like others we have had. If you look at the likes of Worrincy, Caro, Sharp etc they are now Championship players because they left too soon but did not develop through simply playing first team football because arguably all had suspect tackling technique. The thing is for our youngsters over the years, there have been a fair few guys who have left at the first sight of a more lucrative contract, and who have been reasonably well regarded at the club. But when you are overpaid relative to your ability, you'll go at the end of your contract.

It is the old story, the more milk you produce, the more cream you produce and if you are patient you can see more than you will if you rush in and fail.

Cheers
Rammo

You could argue London has much greater potential for finding young players under schemes like this than any other location. We have a huge potential talent pool compared to other clubs and no shortage of educational establishments.

Yes, but are the club doing ths ? London Irish run the scheme, but I find nothing on it when googling the broncos.

Imagine that Tony Rea spotted two good 16 year olds from e.g. St Helens and Wigan.

He could put down £5000 on the table and do the education programme as per Wigan.

But would £5000 be enough with travel and accomodation to pay for?

I know the club owns several houses, so in theory this could be used.

I wonder if the club could also seek host families for players?

The club owns several houses? I don't know where they're hiding them on the balance sheet.

the club dont own the houses they are seasonal rentals and each year terms are renegotiated occassionally a house is rented year on year for the contracted players