Quote: Wildmoggy "Well ironically Leeds threw money about like there was no tomorrow in the 80's & 90's, all those big name players, yet like you say from 2004 having invested in youth, became successful, with the likes of McGuire, Burrow, Sinfield etc, etc. Being successful occasionally is obviously far easier than sustaining it over 10, 20 years. I would just settle for what Salford have done recently! I started mid 80's as a kid, what have we done? Won the Yorkshire cup in '92 & the First division G/F in '98..............think that's it?!'"
Hope you don`t mind me butting in here Moggy, haven`t really been following the thread but on this comment; I often wonder if Leeds were just extremely lucky with the likes of Burrow, Sinfield, Hall and McGuire coming through at the same time and playing to that level or if somewhere along the line Leeds have neglected placing so much emphasis on youth development as I really can`t think of that many very good products to come from Leeds for a good few years and you quite often here of them throwing young players to one side and them going on to make a good player away from Leeds.
I think there is probably an argument to be had, that been able to bring in some top talent to throw in with your homegrown players helps there chances drastically of becoming a good standard SL player, especially in the very early stages of there careers and I would probably think in the positions like wingers were they are provided with a platform to look very good if they can take there chances and also are very rarely let down by the blokes inside of them in defence.
Wigan are said to have an endless conveyor belt of talent ready to step in, I don`t really question that but I do think been at Wigan definitely helps them and I often wonder if the likes of Liam Marshall came through at Wakefield at the same time as Dale Morton did, would there stories have been a whole lot different?