He stated it was released to the press. I must admit, I missed it in the papers.

It has always been so. The problem is also often a Warriors/Service Area issue though.

2 examples I know of personally (ie, 1st hand, not friends of friends etc) are:

Player plays 8 years at same club without a sniff. Parents are 'advised' to take him to Pats. Plays 1 game and is signed by Wigan.

Player from an 'unfashionable' Wigan club is nominated for service area for 3 consecutive years but misses out. He has never been watched by Wigan and at 16 he has now been signed by Saints and has gone straight into their Academy.

I could go on and on all night......

You would've thought it was on the club's website but I can't seem to see it on there.

IIRC the other one was Co-Op.

Thanks for that.

Hope we do manage to forge a relationship with an Aussie feeder / sister club, that would be really interesting. it would certainly benefit, our reserve grade players and stars of the future.

Genuine question since I know nowt about our scouting setup. If all our efforts were focussed on 1 local club how did we ever get Gilmour, Robinson, McIllorum, Mossop.....?

i will not rise to the bait however having attended several forums at the HJ our major share holder does not spit his dummy out when asked difficult questions, unlike yours! so grow up and buy me a beer on saturday you lightweight!

I think the point was about how the club's local scouting effort is not what it could be while it is clear that we are scouting elsewhere.

Because people not good enough to play for St Pats have a huge chip on their shoulder about it.

Aaaahhhhheeeemmmmmmm!!!!!!

B0ll0x!

This is one area W/L A where you're not quite on the money.

This last close season St. Pats and IRB have all but dismantled one of the most competitive junior leagues in the borough by signing many, if not all of the other Wigan clubs' Service Area and Scholarship players. Those they haven't been allowed to sign have mysteriously deregistered rather than go back to their previous clubs - it's almost like, if Pats and IRB can't have them, no-one can.

This is not paranoid jealousy. This is a fact, the result of which is that next season St Pats, IRB and Bold from St Helens are likely to be playing each other about 5 times, as most of the other Wigan teams have been so weakened that they are having to drop to lower divisions.

Call it what you will. Chuckle all you want about people having chips on their shoulder, but a very, very competitive competition, with four or five Wigan youth teams all vying for dominance at a fairly similar level, has been completely ruined. How many of the other promising youngsters, who are now having to play in lower leagues will actually stay in the game after this is uncertain. But one thing's for sure, they'll now be missed by Service Area selectors, and will probably get peed off before long.

Whether it's true that players at Pats and IRB get more attention from Wigan RL I couldn't say - though it's a common gripe. But it seems a hell of a coincidence to me that a load of junior players at clubs like St. Judes and Shevington suddenly get Service Area and Scholarship call-ups, and immediately all want to go to St. Pats and IRB when they showed no interest in doing that before.

Er... I wonder where they learned that trick????? Maybe a little close to home?

I think the bad examples set by your own club in recent years rather oveshadows anything Wigan might have done in the pre-SC era.