Last point first, and I suppose the one that matters most, totally agree 100%!!!
The advantage is ours only if his head (or his agents head) hasn't already been turned, and I'm certain any agent worth his salt will be seeing pound signs next to his name. So I can see it being more than just straightforward and not a cheap deal - relatively speaking.
The problem lies in IF we don't/can't keep hold of him. As you say it's difficult to build a support when the supporters see players like this being sold on, but the reality is we've seen them come and we've seen them go and that will continue I'm sure, but we are still here and still (generally) supportive.
I remember a clamour for Walshaws signature from some fans, for me (as we stand) Anakin is already a better player than Walshaw despite not having the team opportunities Lucas has had, and I'm certain will continue to develop at a faster rate, hopefully players like Walshaw, Trout and Cowling will continue to develop too, in their own way and at their own speed and into first team regulars for us.
The point being we can't afford to get many of these choices wrong unlike a big clubs, who can afford not only to carry the odd underachiever in their squads but also afford the money tied up in the player too.
NM hopefully will propel us a little way forward than BV ever can, but I think the reality is we will always struggle against the wealthier, bigger, more successful clubs.

It has got to stop, I couldn't agree more and hopefully (CCJs aside) we are heading in the right direction.
Until the people of Wakefield fully get behind the club and support it (at full price) we are a long way away from keeping our local talent - very local.

A long hard slog to get fans back at any price but in fairness to the club they've done a real good job so far.

Thats why its important to show we can hold on and we can build for the future, never easy i know and finances dictate how and when this can happen.

Vasty will be along soon to tell me this local players stuff is all guff in this day and age and maybe he's right.

It's easy at £100-£125 for a ST.
Matching ambition, finance and a full priced ST will be much tougher.
We are on the way and as you say the club have done a good job so far, still a hell of a lot more to do.

But the cheap season tickets are part of the plan - and will not remain so for much longer, if at all.

If however we have a period of poor results / increased charges / loss of players, then all could so easily be undone. Don't get me wrong, I approve of almost all of what has happened at the club in the past 2 years but this is a new challenge and one I very much hope we rise to.

I completely agree Al, but they are at the simple end of the plan.
Cheap tickets should equal more supporters and tolerant ones at that.
More expensive equals more expectation, more criticism and equals fans more likely to walk away after a few bad results.
Is it slowly slowly catchy monkey with little money in the bank or more money in the bank and a risk of losing support and therefore money in the bank?
Rock and hard place springs to mind!!
Like I said we're still at the easy end. Improving on the mess we were in was always going to be the easy bit, taking us forward is more of a challenge.

My view entirely.

If the fans are asked to take a punt by paying to support the development of young talent, the club must do its bit to ensure that the top players are retained. The fans want to see top local talents playing for their local team.

Interesting. Hypothetically speaking, what would you're feelings be for the club to say offer him 60k a year and in the mean time his Agent has been putting his name around and one of the richer clubs, come in with a bigger offer of 10k more. Would that be a failure of the club to retain it's youth, or is it part and parcel of not been one of the big boys?

For me as long as the club do their best to put an attractive offer in for him and do their best to retain our better local players, i don't/won't have a problem.

Agree.

Agree, AG has had a successful start to his time at Trinity and he's over come many of the challengers but as we move forward those challengers change. Also the fans attitudes have changed from that of survival, to wanting to be more competitive, on and off the field. Like you say I very much hope we can rise to them.

Personally I think we're better off than we were, but we're still not out of the woods financially. Glover doesn't have real financial clout in the Dave Whelan, Koukash, Davey, Hudgell or Hughes league. No issue with this, but it means we have to run as a stand alone business far sooner in our transformation than all the others.

I think that perhaps the lack of a prop, a reduced squad size and the lack of recent news about the likes of Chris Annakin are symptomatic of a club with a few, hopefully transient, cash flow issues - caused in no small part by the collapse of Eric France's sponsorship.

If that happens now - it happens!

The point is that we could have offered him a deal at any point up to now - before anyone else (officially at least) is allowed to do so. We didn't, partly because of concerns over his size, and now it may well be that he's on the radar at Hudds and other clubs and his price will have increased as a result!

This is a Nigel Wright moment for me, albeit I am not suggesting he is on the same level, but it's about what our squad is going to look like in 5, 8, 10 years time - if we don't start with these guys then, from the reports I am hearing, we don't have much coming through for another 3 to 4 years minimum.

I reckon we already had that with Amor to be honest. Keeping him was the shot over the bows that we wouldn't just roll over and die.

However that will have been all for nothing if it turns out we have only one shot.

Like you I'm in a state of disbelief we have left it so long. I know it's always a gamble and yes he's no freakish giant but he clearly has skill and bags full of ticker and had to be worth tying up a year ago. It's not even as if we have a shed full of youngsters to sign, him Walshaw and perhaps Cowling are it. Yet we waste vast sums on that pile of uselessness Mellors. Even if Mellors had reached his potential would he have been worth it above signing those three for the same money?

Now it's us on the back foot and it really shouldn't be. When will we learn.

Not yet being offered a contract is more down to Chris Annakin than anyone else, until this preseason he has'nt put himself in a position where the club wanted to offer him a new contract.

Tallent and physical attributes are not enough, there must be many other things in place and in Chris Annakins case they were missing or were offered up woufully short of the levels required.

To his great credit he's recognised that and, at the moment, is a different proposition from the player/person that we had before. If the penny has permanently dropped and the changes he's made are for good then he's worthy of an extended contract. Prior to this season if the club had let him go I would not have been critical of them, in fact I would have agreed with it.

He's really stepped up, in every aspect and everyone not least himself are seeing the results.

I get your point but I'm not sure I agree. His attitude was hardly diabolical in the past and I've seen us take a punt on young players who have shown far less appetite in the past.

He's always been up there and if Wildie was worth the nod then Anakin sure as hell was. I just don't buy this he wasn't good enough last year, when to many of us he certainly was. I accept you have a deeper knowledge than most on these issues but on this one I can't go with you (not that it matters )

At the end of the day - last year we could have taken a relatively cheap punt on Anakin as he was on nobody's radar. This year he will soon be noticed and we will have to pay through the nose to keep a player we always had - his agent will see to that. Sorry but that makes absolutely no sense to me and makes youth teams pointless. Surely it's all about going with gut instinct as well as stats ect and taking the risk rather than waiting for the perfectly formed player to appear just in time for Hudds to go shopping.