I'd guess Dubbo.

Try Scorer, I feel I need to address you since I am the one who de-railed the thread so to speak.

We can talk about the playing ability of Huby, Shenton, Clark etc but I feel this is academic (excuse the pun) .......the point I made was that these players were ones that castleford invested in, even when they were in the Championship in most cases.

whether other clubs want them or not is unimportant, we digress there. The point I was raising is that they've been great assets to our club over the last few years, as I'm sure several of Wakefield's home grown players have. It raises the question of what clubs are doing to hang onto their young talent. But as I said earlier, this may not always be in the hands of the club.

I aren't gonna talk to myself, it's a forum, so if you're bored of reading this topic, please feel free to raise something different/new, and we will discuss it.

To say we are rambling for 3 pages about the same thing is a little hypocritical, considering you've spent 18 months complaining on here about Richie Mathers, which if collaborated would certainly surpass 30 posts. If I am incorrect I profusely apologise

To add to the individual examples, Ben Gledhill....
Would he have been better staying?

Clearly he thought he had a better future elsewhere, possibly to get more game time but he didn't get it at Salford either and now seems to be playing RU at Fylde.

For me this shows that there is some value staying as a home grown player for the player too as you have more value to the club.

Edit: Just looked on the Fylde website and he isn't listed in the first team so I may have made that up?! Anyone know what he is doing?

There was no problem bringing up tha point you did I've related many times how cas have looked after their youth,what I complained about was the fact that folk on here were eager to get into a debate about the cas academy but not about our youths from a championship winning year. Regarding mathers while realizing the forum is open my comments about our fullback were a dressed to Wakefield fans about a Wakefield player can't we where hypocricy comes into it

Being unbiased its much easier to comment on the cas youth than our own because they have managed to bring more through into SL, maybe thats the problem.
I don't watch the youth set up, so i am in no place to comment on the why's and wherefores as others clearly are, but the ideal would be to bring through to fruition enough to make a future wakefield team exactly that - a team full of wakefield players, however a team like Huddersfield winning the minor shield proved you don't need to do that.
Money is a major contributing factor also.

a lot of the time, especially at Cas, injuries have meant we've no option but to expose 17/18 year olds to SL. I guess it stands them in good stead for the future, but hampers current performance.

One thing's for certain, it'll be much harder to promote junior exploitation in super league now P&R is back

I remember we had to do it in the Kear era when Pitts and a prop who's name I forget and Wildie and some others got their shot
They looked ok at first but it was soon obvious that many younger players can not take the full season of super league. They need to be brought in gradually. Pitts in my opininion is a good player and I'd have him back. Personally i think he'd have been better staying but it was worth finding out if he could mix it with the big boys I guess.
Gledhill another example of the same. He was just not quite ready for the game physically but was nearly there. I remeber playing Sts and being shocked how much more physically intimidating their youngsters were compared to Ben.

I understand why people say it but I don't buy in to the "just play them" idea to take a young kid into the top flight. They're progress should be managed.

An example that springs to mind for me is a kid coming to play rugby union in a team I captained. We were a decent side at a good club but not professional level. He was obviously good but still growing. He had been at a good club. They played him the second row and they battered him.
His dad asked if I'd look after him.
I spent the rest of the season just making sure none of the meat heads took advantage and he hada storming season. He was fitter than everyone else so gave him chance to feel what it was like to be hit by a grown up but had support around him with no risk of letting the team down.
To me that is where the lower divisions should be used. A potential super league player who is just a year or two too young can be introduced through the "feeder" club. They get a good player, we get a player with experience.
We had other students comimng to play. It helped the old men on the field as they did the speed work and we did the grunt work and we were undefeated for a long time.
Some of those youngsters didn't have the right attitude to it and didn't kick on. Some stayed with us. Some stopped playing. It gave them chance to find out.

Pop Tart, I'm unsure, do you think that the U21's was a better option than dual reg'ing for young players in that case???

I certainly do, also in a way to bring back 2 or 3 of the injured over 21's to match fitness rather than dual reg.

Kyle Bibb I think it was, ran 90 meters to drop it over the line in a challenge cup match if I recall

Personally, as long as the deal is a good one for all parties, I prefer the dual reg.
It's got a bad rep because of the teams playing injured players on a one off to bring them back through but the standard of player in the lower league is better in my opinion that at U19 or U21.
The difficulty of the transition to me is playing against more physically developed players, and you are not given that in an under 21s set up.
Because the player pool is not massive in rugby league you get the best kids playing super league already (a la Tomkins). You are not playing against the best U21s you are playing against those not ready for Super league yet possibly even 16/17. An average U19 could look good there when they will still struggle on the step up.
Whereas you get players that are either bigger but not quite as good, or more skillful but less fit because of part time setup in the lower leagues
Let's take whoever the next young centre is at Wakefield as an example. Assuming he is not quite ready yet and taking his first steps he would be playing against either younger players on their way up or 20/21 players not seen as good enough for even Wakefield/Cas/Salford etc. If he plays for Dewsbury he lines up against Menzie Yari or Jessie Joe Parker or even Danny Cowling who know their way about and will test them both physically and technically compared to the other kids learning their trade, without having the pressure of being the weakest link in the team.

It has to be done right to make it work.
Season long loans are better for all parties if you ask me, but it gets difficult when you have an injury crisis and would like them back.
It clearly works better when you have a big enough squad to keep some back. We don't have that I guess.
It would work best if we really did have a feeder club system but to change from what we have now to that is near impossible.

Yeah I see what you mean.

The flip side to this of courseis that, I know from Hunslet's assistant coach, when one week Paul McShane was going to Hunslet last year.

The Hunslet coaching staff found out on the Friday night, with the game being on Sunday, and McShane was unavailable to train with the Hunslet squad on the Saturday.

If we are going to P&R then this is a dynamic that is absolutely horrific for our semi-pro teams.

Obviously all the training the team had done that week had been rendered pointless.

I think a possible solution would be dual-reg'ing each player for a 2 or 4 week period so that the feeder club and player can get the best out of the deal.

It has to be far betetr structured. Otherwise they may as well be turning up for a kick about in the park

Bibb never looked like he had it no heart what so ever ,