Quote: Jake the Peg "What if o'brien is better than litten? If litten is good enough he'll come through. What if we'd never signed sneyd because he might have blocked the way for dean and tyson wilson? The club has to make decisions based on what they have now. I don't suppose they intended to sign a hooker but have (maybe) take an opportunity to acquire a highly regarded youngster. If we don't sign decent quality players we'd have the same group of people whinging about that too'"
Then if we are having to sign external youngsters that shows us that the youth system coaches and the progression system is failing.
2012/13 we had 5 youth players come through to cement starting positions either straight away in crooks/Lineham and Shaul with the likes of Hadley/Bowden all making debuts in that time and being regular 1st 17 players.
Since then we've only had JA have a few starts, being overly criticised despite being expected to be top 4SL std when not having played ANY games for weeks and then only at fev AND only 20yrs of age.
Aside from JA's sporadic appearances and now not part of our set-up we've not had a single youth player come through in 3 full seasons, I'd say that was a concern given we've lost the tyson wilsons, Reece dean, Cunningham, Logan & Lancaster way down the pecking order due to signings, Litten a few seasons off by some people on here, Yes, Turgut and some of the other forwards may well get games this season but that 3 year gap/lack of the next wave coming through (& gaining experience) could be very telling. We can't keep signing from outside because it's more costly and it a blow to those youth players that thenm see little chance in getting a decent chance to progress even if they have the potential.