Our production line of youth players is something to be proud of. The league is full of ex-Wigan developed players who have either spent time playing for us, or were shipped off and blossomed elsewhere.

Where I have a problem is that other clubs regularly benefit from our academy. For home-grown players under a certain age there should be some form of compensation when a 22 year old who has been with the club for 10 years, goes elsewhere after his first professional contract expires.

There ought to be league wide incentives to clubs for producing their own talent.

There’s only a few clubs in SL who actually care about producing talent. The rest drag their knuckles behind sulking. This HAS to change and the model set not just by us but by the other clubs committed to talent development must be adapted for each club.

Fully agree. Opposing fans may bleat, but without Wigan, the sport in this country would be in a vastly poorer place. And sure, we are not the only club doing it. But everyone should have to get on board. If for no other reason, the lack of money in the game, and the financial clout of the NRL, make it the only plausible way forward.

I may have misunderstood your post but are you suggesting that if Salford/Widnes sign an academy player after release from Wigan/Leeds/Saints they must then pay compensation to the original club? If so I do not see how that would benefit anyone.

Other clubs regularly benefit from Leeds/Saints academies as well, let’s not just pretend we’re the only club with a decent set up here. The bar that has been set between Wigan, Leeds and Saints must IMHO be met by all SL clubs. We are seeing some clubs bring through some promising talent but we need this to be widespread to really put English RL on top.

Agree that all SL clubs should try to emulate us Leeds and Saints when it comes to having an academy.

This is why I've suggested for a while now that all SL clubs should have a "Club Trained" quota in their match day squad.
First I'd have a squad at 19 for each game. I just don't see the point of naming 19 two days prior to the game the reducing to 17. 19 have trained all week and would give more players game time.
At what figure would the Club Trained quota be, is the difficult one. I'd go for at least 6 out of 17. That would be a challenge for some club as they don't have the set up in place. Perhaps a couple of year's notice then come in at 4 a game then increase each year.
I know this would be difficult for a club like Salford who are within eye sight of Old Trafford. Getting kids to play RL must be very hard work when Man U are the local team.

I think a "Club Trained" quota would help all of us in the game appreciate our academy players more.

Club trained is a nice idea, but I don't think I'd be in favour of more substitutes (if that's what you're suggesting). After all, a lot of people are saying we have too many as it is!

A big issue is that the quality of young players in Aus is so much higher than in SL. And that gap will only get bigger as young players in the UK currently suffer because of the lack of any meaningful reserve comp. How do we expect them to develop when they're not given enough time to? It's an absolute joke. Quite a few of their reserve grade teams in Oz could give SL teams a real run for their money, so young British players going out there really have to be of the highest quality or they'll get found and find themselves rotting in the reserves.

There's something really wrong there though. We can normally match or beat Aus at academy level. Saints do well when they go down there with their U16's team (a great initiative).
However our lack of reserve grade rugby doesn't IMO allow our kids to develop. U16's to U19's is too big a step as is U19's to first team.

Our reserves got called off again last night I noticed. It really is a pathetic state of affairs that we should even be having to travel over to Halifax, Keighley etc in these cold months when teams like Saints, Wire, Salford, Leigh etc should all have opposition we can play.

The games in a mess at the minute with no agreement on a new structure in place and seemingly no interest in youth development at a lot of clubs.

If there isn’t some ruthless decision making over the next few months we’ll continue to drift and god knows where all the clubs will end up.

There is that old phrase, the darkness before the dawn.

We reached that at Wigan in 1979, when we got relegated. So often, it's only when drastic failures occur that positive things tend to start happening.

I get the feeling that SL is fast approaching a state when there are too many critical failures to be tolerated.

Not released (ie not deemed good enough) - but when an improved contract is rejected. I'll use Joe Burgess as an example. Joined aged 16 and worked his way through the youth system at Wigan, before securing a 3 year professional contract in 2013. At 21, and after turning down contract offers by Wigan, he signs for Sydney Roosters, who have not invested a penny in his development. To me, even though Joe was a free agent, for home-developed players who have only had one professional contract, there should be some form of compensation due to the losing club who have not released the player and tried everything in their power to keep him. Academies need funding and if the clubs are seeing their brightest graduates repeatedly pinched, then there is no incentive to invest in them.

Was having Joe Burgess in our side on a low contract for years not sufficient reward for producing him?