There was a Fev colts team (which I had a trial for and was utterly out of my depth) the year before that was even better and won ever game I think. Not one player from that team ever made it, I'm not sure but I don't think any of them ever played in a first team fixture. They had a scrum half whose name was O'Toole who was the best player I ever played with and seemed like a genius to me but I never heard of him again - strange how it works.

Just shows that there's a huge gap from junior to senior rugby. I just wish we could unearth another Nigel Wright or Toppo - a traditional stand off, or another Nigel Bell for scrum half. The thing is with players like those you knew as soon as you saw them they would make the grade -they were the up to it as soon as they made their first team debut.

Another ex-Stanley Rangers local lad like Kevin Ward in the red, white and blue (instead of going to Cas)would be better and would really bolster our front row....

after a couple of trials with trinity the chairman at that time said hed never be a rugby player while hed a hole in his - our judgement aint improved much

Did i hear a similar story regarding Jamie Peacock??

That was Dean Sampson from what I'm told, I think we were simply outbid for Ward - think our player judgement has improved a lot since then however the Kevin Wards of this world are much thinner on the ground.

For the record the last Chairmans buy I know of was Austin Buchannan - make of that what you want.

Funnily though if you take your examples

Nigel Wright always looked the part but clearly his body wasn't quite as capable at senior level as we'd have all liked
Topper started playing quite late. He didn't play rugby as a kid (iirc)
Belly was a chunky little kid who early on you wouldn't have expected the man he would become. For me it was his attitude that made the difference as he developed through the different positions. That isn't always obvious until you get them on board. If it had been obvious, he'd have been stolen away I'm sure.

i bow to your superior knowledge in a lot of your posts on here vasty ,but stanley lads and particular stanley rugby players would be my specalist subject on mastermind

Shall we settle on both

ceartainly sir






certainly sir

Kevin Ward is a rugby league legend that Wakefield missed out on by not fostering close links to a local club only 2 miles out of Wakefield. He was playing for Stanley in 1970! Dean Sampson did ok for Cas as I recall aswell?

It's players like Annakin, Cowling and Trout that should be signed up on 5 year deals to retain local talent. Should try for regular curtain raisers to keep local clubs close and committed to Trinity.

Like most rugby fans, I'm all for seeing good local lads playing for their club but I'm not sure signing them up on 5 year deals is the way to go. I think for the likes of the 3 players mentioned 3 year deal would be ideal imo. So much can change for a player in 5 years, in both the positive and negative, injuries, form and basically not developing into the player the club thought.

Players worth a 5 year deal come along once every ten years if your lucky. Even then I wouldn't offer them that deal, it's suicidal IMO and would destroy a club like ours. The maximum is 3 years.