I think our recruitment from 2010 onwards has been pretty good given the state of the market, whereby average or better NRL players will no longer look at Super League, and the best SL players tend to be heavily concentrated at a few top clubs, with no incentive to move between them. As such IL has (rightly IMO) realised that ‘under the radar’ signings are the way to go. Gelling, Sarginson, Green, Smith, Deacon, Flower, Clubb, Taylor and Bateman, are all examples of players no one would have been too bothered about when announced but proved to be very smart buys and well worth their spots in the 17 whenever fit. In fact there’s only really Lauaki, Dudson and James who fall into that category and weren’t successful.

Our bigger name signings (Bowen, Finch, Lima, Powell, Pettybourne and Hoffman) have been a bit more hit and miss IMO, with Hoffman (who came due to Melbourne’s Salary cap issues and left after a season) the only roaring success. If I was IL I would continue to promote from within where possible and keep making these astute signings. It isn't popular but it works.

We're definitely suffering through having lots of potential but lack of experience in critical playing positions.

For me it highlights the issue with scrapping u21s, the gulf between quality below first grade is far to large. As a consequence the promising youngsters have not been teste enough under real pressure. Wigans youngsters dominate most games, the decision makers don't really get tested, they have nowhere to go to debelop further except on loan which isn't always practical or ideal.

An older age group reserve team would make a tougher learning ground for promising youngsters and they would be better placed to step into first grade.

Did it though? The reserve grade has been glorified by some in recent years as one of the reasons why things like the marquee exemption is ridiculous - but was it really all that? From what I remember of it, half the clubs refused to take it seriously, leading to bigger wastes of time for all concerned more often than not. I really am starting to think nostalgia goggles are taking effect.

What I think we've actually seen now is that errors and defensive mistakes are instantly taken advantage of in the modern game, that young players could of got away with it in the past - as is the problem with games by stats - rather than the inability to break through because of a lack or reserves.

I don't think that just reintroducing the reserves grade will improve anyone's ability to break through. The same teams will refuse to contribute it, the few teams that do don't gain anything 90% of the time and conclude that players out on loan is still more effective and the cycle begins again. Ideally, I think, a full feeder system needs to be adopted. Unfortunately there's too much pride in the lower levels to ever let that happen. So I suppose the only way for it to improve is to introduce ways for championship clubs to improve their scouting and recruitment from those coming out of SL academies without a contract, and see them being picked back up as and when their game develops (like Kevin Penny, who whilst not the perfect example, does show that the lower levels can be incubators for bigger clubs)

Several young players have been getting experience in the Championship with Workington. Ryan Hampshire, Dom Manfredi, Logan Tompkins, Connor Farrell, Lewis Tierney, James Greenwood, and Jamie Doran have all been there this season. That is better for their development than in the Under 21's. Gelling last season was out of the first team and played for Workington in 1 game and had a blinder. Wane picked him for the first team on the back of that game and he's never been out of the first team since.

I wouldn't say no one was too bothered about a few of them, some certainly didn't go under the radar. Green you paid a fee for and is a player I'd have liked us to take back then. Smith we tried to resign at the time you signed him, but we didn't get him. Taylor was a good prop at Hull KR and i'm sure a few other clubs would have looked at him, but again you paid a substantial fee for him. Bateman was a very good young player when you signed him, again paying a few. I'd be bothered about them. Gelling I doubt anyone is d about from our side. Clubb and Sarginson however have been smart signings, so fair play on those two.

I think both Wigan and Saints recruit well with mistakes in signings not being too many.
Going through the squads, Saints signings with Turner and Masoe, who I don't rate, then there's Amor, Vea & Walmsley who've been excellent signings. Wilkin is a signing although he's been there so long it doesn't feel like he's a signing. Always thought they should sign or develop a 2nd 9.

As for Wigan, Bowen hasn't been a good signing but wasn't the man of first choice. He had to be signed as the interim period has given his successor time to develop.
Gelling, no one rates but me. He's huge, gangly and must be dreadful to play against. Regular first teamer and hopefully is cutting out his mistakes by the week.
Smith has been an excellent signing, re-signing Mossop was a very good move. Flower, Bateman, Sarginson and Clubb have been top drawer. Tautai looks good but with Patrick the jury's out, he's not a player to do well on a ploughed field though. Hopkins just hasn't worked out at all.

It is obvious from this thread now how many club trained players there are at both clubs. The youth set ups are such a vital part of what a club aspiring to be top of SL has to do.

I'm a fellow fan of Gelling. I've posted recently that I continue to back him because you can just tell there's improvement there and his natural athletic ability and skill make him a player that can thrill as much as he can frustrate.

Second Row Saint mentions him being a player that Saints won't pay much attention to but I totally disagree. He's big and powerful and can produce magic moment and madness in equal measure. He's unpredictable in many ways and that makes him dangerous. The one given with him is he makes loads and loads of yards as he did in the grand final against Saints and they'll without doubt have him picked out as a player they need to contain. They'll target him and Sarginson because they seem to run about a quarter of the teams metres each week.

Reading the above posts just brought to mind who Gelling reminds me of (a bit): Blake Ferguson. And yeah, pretty much agree as regards recruitment; Saints have made some good buys in Vea, Amor, and others. Bowen has really disappointed me, though. OK, the guy may be past his best, but he still looked a class act in his last couple of seasons in the NRL. Sure, playing with Johnathan Thurston helps a lot, but still... I'm not convinced the pitches are that much of an excuse either. After all, NRL matches are far from exclusively played on dry, fast tracks.

From the outside looking in, it appears that SW as a very passionate Wiganer has a dream of a team of local lads, this is no bad thing at all, we all want it. It does seem to slightly clouded his judgement on recruitment though. Add that to a chairman who seems a little too concerned with the bottom line and not the on field performance and this is where you are. SL is average enough and your academy is good enough to always keep you generally competative, but Wigan could be so much more. You dont want Maurice at the helm again threatening the long term stability of the club, but IL seems to have swung the other way a little too much. No one should get into ownership of a sports club to make money.

This whole "team of local lads" line is pretty redundant IMO. The club have done less overseas recruitment but have still recruited pretty heavily fom within SL. Smith, Bateman, Sarginson, Clubb, Flower - all have been recruited from other SL clubs. Scott Taylor could've been a mainstay of our pack for the next 10 years if he wasn't desperate to put chip spice on his chips (via Salford of course). Even academy lads like Mossop, McIlorum and Hamsphire aren't Wigan lads.

Agree about the penny pinching to a certain extent. I'm still confident we will improve and be in the top 4 by the time the split happens, but hopefully the beginning of this season open IL's eyes that he needs to be spending the full cap to properly compete. The word is he is going to vote in favour of the marquee signing and this, along with rumours of Sam Tomkins coming back is very welcome!

I wonder if we'll get enough votes for the marquee player rule.

Wigan have now backed it. I'd expect Salford and Wire will but who else?

Hetherington has a bunch of lads that play for the love of the club, Catalans get the (slightly damaged) marquee players already due to the lifestyle they can offer, Saints are doing fine without it and Hull don't seem quite as cashed up as they were.

After that I'm struggling. HKR might go for it but Huddersfield tend to buy British.

It depends what the proposal is IMO. If marquee player spots can be sold between clubs (e.g Wigan pay Wakefield £x and as a result can now buy two marquee players) I can see the lower teams being more open to it.

Bowen - huge experience
Charnley - played in plenty of big games for both Wigan and England
Gelling - been around for a while now and played in a World Cup
Sarginson - over 75 SL games, including big finals and the Tri Nations
Burgess - nearly 50 SL games, including a grand final
Williams - inexperienced, yet still with 30 odd SL games under his belt
Smith - 200 top flight games plus international reps
Mossop - Around 100 SL games, NRL experience and England caps
MM - nearly 200 SL games plus international honours
Clubb - nearly 200 SL games plus England caps
Faz - 150 SL games plus England caps
Joel - 150+ SL games plus England caps in both codes
Bateman - 70+ SL games

I've left out Lockers, who obviously has huge experience. Crosby has 70 odd senior games, Patrick 100+ (and Welsh caps), Tautai has decent experience from the NRL and SL, Ben Flower has 100+ games plus a good number of Welsh caps. Even the likes of Logan and Powell have 50 odd SL games on average.

It isn't 'that' inexperienced, and certainly wasn't sufficiently so to stop us reaching the Grand Final last year. They're just not playing well.

An interesting thread and tbh if you go back to pre Brown at Saints you'll find quite a few on Saints board complaining about the shape of our recruitment / retention... Laffranchi to replace Graham (terrible) , Chris Flannery (Mr Average) retained at the expense of academy players , the fact we went years without a left centre on the vague hope we might produce one and the farce we had with halfbacks for years - only really resolved this season with the potential of a Walsh/Burns pairing.

Looking at Wigan's squad your probably only a couple of players short, an experienced halfback and a monster prop , maybe 2. If Tomkins comes back you could probably scrap the halfback and put hampshire @ 6.