But not one of your five overseas players under the age of thirty.

Your concern about Warrington's aged team is appreciated. With the number of youngsters being developed by clubs reducing in the years ahead it is something we are all going to have to get use to.

We'll be o.k.
Example. We'll have eleven or twelve academy produced players in the side tonight and not one of them is yet 30.

That's the level that all clubs should be aiming at. Unfortunately it would appear that is not going to be the case as the investment in developing young players across the game is going to be allowed to drop alarmingly.

The game should be aiming at forcing clubs to match the money that Wigan expend on youth development and talent spotting. It is what Warrington has made a conscious effort to do in recent years and even we have managed excess of ten academy products in our 17 at stages this year.

Let's hope that the changes that are imposed do not prohibit clubs from spending money in youth development. If Wigan take the "I'm alright Jack" view because of the strength in the local amateur scene and subsequently side with the penny-pinchers from Yorkshire I think that will prove to be an insular view to take with consequences for the strength of the game overall moving forward.

Wigan beat Cas today at U20 level.

Final score Wigan 54 Cas 4.

Jack Hughes showed great pace with 2 long range tries.

U15's beat Cas 50 - 14 yesterday.

Don't forget U18's at home to Wakefield at Orrell, kick off 2 p.m.

Not sure who is "investing" in youth and who is not.
Apart from money, what also seems to be a problem is that some clubs are plundering scholorship products of others less wealthy.
This is giving the impression that there isn't sufficient talent being produced and spread across the league but concentrated in the few but wealthy clubs.
It's time clubs who produce real talent from their scholarship teams are more able to keep them.
There used to a regulation that a club could only sign one youth player a year from outside their service area. Don't know what happened to that rule but it doesn't seem to apply anymore.
We need to go back to that or perhaps that a club is only allowed one player every two years from outside their service area. That would oblige clubs to develop their own schools, service area, amateur clubs and the youth system in their own area than spending big plundering talent developed by other clubs.

U18's beat Wakefield 24 - 12 with a very gritty commendable performance especially when you consider that they were missing the six players on tour in Australia.

I don't know any of the player's names but our numbers 10 and 5 stood out for me

It's clear from looking at the "academy origin" of current SL players (excluding overseas ones) that just half a dozen clubs provide the vast majority of players.

Wigan (40)
Leeds (2icon_cool.gif
Bradford (26)
Castleford (24)
Saints (23)
Hull FC (21)

It's high time the others produced their own talent instead of relying on other clubs' cast-offs.

Those figures are interesting.
Where did you get them from?
Link please if poss.

From my own research, basically, which I did some time ago for a different reason (and recently updated). Not sure I still have the complete list available from all clubs, but for anyone interested, the Wigan list is:

Current squad (20):
S. Tomkins
Charnley
Goulding
Thornley
Prescott
McIlorum
Mossop
Hock
O'Loughlin
Hansen
Hughes
Tuson
Farrell
Marsh
Mellor
Russell
L. Tomkins
King
Spencer
Crosby

Other clubs (20):
O'Carroll
Davies
Brown
Robinson
S. Briscoe
Melling
Ainscough
Veivers
S. Gleeson
Colbon
T. Coyle
Hargreaves
Johnson
Clarke
Allen
Kavanagh
Jones
Aspinwall
Wild
Howarth

(that might go up by 1 if Longy does come out of retirement!)

The above numbers are obvioulsy inflated by including fringe squad players who in truth will never be Super League quality. Possibly better to look at teams from this round of fixtures in which case (from a quick scan of teams):

Wigan 25
Leeds 21
Saints 16
Warrington 14
Castleford 13
National League 12
Bradford 11
Wakefield 11
Hull 10
Hull KR 9
London 6
Salford 6
Widnes 5
Huddersfield 4