Did you miss Leeds winning eight Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups and three World Club Challenges since '04, heavily relying on home grown talent throughout?

The Wigan team that won the double in 2013 had about 10 or 11 academy produced players.
The GF winning team of 2016 had 9 but also had McIlorum, Sam and Joel Tomkins unavailable through injury.
The WCC winning team of 2017 had 10 academy produced players.

Keith Senior, Marcus Bai, Chris Mckenna, Ali Lauatiti, David Furner, Willie Poaching, Barrie McDermott, Brent Webb, Scott Donald, Clinton Toopi, Kylie Leuluai, Jamie Peacock, Gareth Ellis, Luke Burgess, Danny Buderus, Brett Delaney, Darrell Griffin, Shaun Lunt, Joel Moon, Mitch Garbutt, Adam Cuthbertson, Tom Briscoe, Matt Parcell, Brett Ferres.

Off the top of my head, either big signings from the UK or from overseas that have played and made a great difference in the grand finals Leeds have won.

The key is to sign good players to complement your homegrown lads, we don't.

Just out at moment, if nobodies done it before I get back later this afternoon ill name equally as many that Wigan have signed since Keith senior signed for Leeds!

Name as many as you like, i started from 2004 when Leeds started their Grand Final winning run, so maybe start at 2010 as we were hopeless for the best part of a decade before then.

And isn't that point proved?
And why were we pants?
Because we spent too much money on too few big name players that didn't work and until 2008/2009 didn't invest/protect/pay etc the youth coming though.
We didn't have a squad big enough to complete if those big name players didn't work or got injured.
And we're too quick to bin off youngsters if they weren't world beaters by 19/20/21

Other than for money reasons why do we have an u16/u19th split? Did u16/u18/u20/1 not cover all of the bases? I remember amature clubs running colts A and B teams on a shoe string. I am aware that having too many lads can impact local amature sport but how many later developers are lost completely to the game because of lack of opportunities.

Yeah, we threw too much money at average overseas players, but now we are throwing too much money at average homegrown players.

Look at our current signed in players 'Sarg, Clubb, Flower, Isa, Tautai, Bateman, Hamlin' Bang average apart from Bateman, these players are supposed to compliment our homegrown but how can they when they are average joe's.

We have two Marquee player slots, two slots where you can sign a player on 1 million a year if you wish with only 100 grand counting on the cap, and we have ST and GW in those slots. They both should be on a good wage but not a Marquee wage.

The cap management is terrible, we are spending more than any other club but i can't see where the money is going.

We do have some good young players in the team but they are not being helped by the really poor recruitment from outside the club.

It as if Waney doesn't want anyone else in the club if they have a big ego or different view to his practices.

But "big signings" are few and far between at any SL club, and from those few, even fewer can be counted a success. SL clubs won't let their own superstars go to other SL clubs without a very good reason, and available NRL stars are either unaffordable, leave early for "personal reasons" or come with baggage attached.

I think his point was that Bradford spent big money on Harris, and it pretty much doomed them and the club.

Leeds built a team around 5 or 6 outstanding local talents and built a dynasty from that.

It's not quite as cut and dry as that, but I believe this was the point being made.

Not sure how you put Flower in the bang average bracket when he's achieved more than plenty of the Leeds players in your list.

For that matter, I'd argue Sarge has had a bigger impact in winning trophys than some of those Leeds names, Ferres, Griffin & Garbutt (so far) to name a few.

Thanks Jeff, I honestly couldn't understand his point as Leeds, to me, as a good mixture of local and signings.

They had the likes of Sinfield, Burrow, Danny Mags, but also brought in the likes of Peacock. Webb, Hardaker, Senior, Kyle to name few.

they aren't signings though (other than Burgess, slight exception as he came back). youth is youth, signings are signings. neither inspired me last year and still have a fair way to go this season to justify what they want or demand.

and again let me point out, i'm not saying our youth isn't good enough, it really is fantastic, but after one or two seasons they seem to think they can take on a team of thurstons and be paid accordingly. so my point remains, I don't think the club is handling them very well.

If only we had the junior set-up that the Aussies have! We see teenagers walk into NRL teams and be star players, whereas their equivalents in SL are undercooked in comparison. And the reason is that those Aussie kids, although only 18 or 19, have been battle-hardened in the tough junior comps there.

And herein lies my point
If gildart has 6 months left on his contract and wire or hull or nrl (slightly different argument) come in and sign him they would see that as a big signing and would pay him accordingly.
Why shouldn't we?
Tom Davies signed a new contract late last year, why shouldn't we see that as a new signing and why shouldn't he get paid in line with his performances and in line with his market value?
Etc.

Now some people can choose not to look at it that way (and tend to be the more critical of posters?).
Some may never have considered that particular view point (I hadn't really up until 4/5 months ago when Someone said it to me). And if they don't agree fair enough, if they do fair enough.

But I wanted to put that argument across so that people consider it when complaining about lack of signings because without a doubt this way of bringing the youth through impacts on what we do with the money at the top end.
Ps. What we then do with the money and who we sign etc from outside (or bring people back) is a different argument.

Not sure why some people would be happy if we signed a Percival and paid him top dollar and would praise the club but we don't seem to appreciate it when the club sign gildart and also want him to be paid less?