Derby week.

Hoping St Helens fans can contribute to this discussion as well and it doesnt turn into petty points scoring.

I was wondering how in relative terms people thought our recruitment strategy and players compared to those of St Helens over the past few years.

If I'm honest, I do honestly feel that their starting 17 is superior to ours. I think we have more squad depth though. I feel as if in the last 12-18 months they have improved whereas we have sat on our laurels. They have recruited very well and us not so well. Interestingly a few years a go Saints seemed to be trying to do what Wane is doing now. They were trying to promote local youth at all costs and to an extent this was clearly holding them back. They were playing Jamie Foster and Lee Gaskell as well as other kids who clearly weren't good enough for a Super League team. Nathan Brown, and so far Kieron Cunningham, seem to have reversed this policy and with great success. They have gone and signed players like Travis Burns to replace locals like Gary Wheeler and Luke Walsh to replace the likes of Lee Gaskell. We haven't properly replaced Blake Green and it is now costing us. Kris Radlinski could learn a lot from Mike Rush in terms of recruitment. Their forwards are another interesting prospect. They have fantastic young props. Yet St Helens haven't sat on their laurels and just given them starting places because of how close they were born to the stadium. They have brought in quality such as Amor and Walmsley, and Masoe to some extent, and are now being linked with Lama Tasi. This has obviously helped their youngsters such as Thompson, Richards, Greenwood and Savelio as they've learned a lot and had to fight to get a place in the starting line-up. Atelea Vea has been excellent for them as well and its scary how big their pack is compared to ours. Vea plays backrow for them and he's still bigger than a lot of our props! Greenwood has also improved since they signed Vea.

A lot of our young players have been given chances prematurely and at times this has backfired. Our younger lads who Wane seems to be relying on haven't progressed and developed as fast as Wane would have liked. If Blake Green was still with us would George Williams be playing? I suspect not. Sam Tomkins earned his place when he burst onto the scene because he was playing better than Tim smith. This is how Saints are approaching the situation now and I honestly think it is a better plan than the way in which Radlinski and Wane are dealing with our recruitment and integration of academy players.

After a really poor period of recruitment they've sorted their act out and signed some good players. They've obviously done their homework on guys like Turner, Vea and Amor because they've really improved within their system.

As for us I feel our recruitment has been fine in the main but it's our outgoings that kill us! It's nigh on impossible in this day and age to get like for like replacements for guys like Tomkins, Richards and Green and the trick has to be to try and keep them. We haven't even been able to keep some of our juniors happy like Joe Burgess.

Our Recruitment=7.5/10

Our retention=2/10

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.