Quote: knockersbumpMKII "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.'"
In 2015, plenty of youngsters got a chance/debut due to injuries, and Logan went into the 2016 season as a first choice centre. Abdull has had opportunities too to cement a place.
2016 was a completely different story because we had much stronger squad depth, a very strong first 13 and a relatively injury free year. Could the squad have been rotated more? Yes, probably a little, but it still wouldn't have given much more game time to youngsters.
Wigan are the benchmark of course, but it wasn't them promoting youth which saw a raft of youngsters getting game time last year, it was a lengthy injury list. They still have plenty of players in their squad signed from elsewhere too.
It's the nature of the beast that some youngsters will either not make the grade, or will have someone better in front of them. We weren't going to drop Sneyd to give HTW a run in the side. We weren't going to drop Houghton and give Cunningham a run. Dean, Cunningham & HTW have gone elsewhere for game time, fair play to them.
We can't just throw in 2/3 youngsters into a game and potentially sacrifice the two points. There weren't any easy games last year, each win we had to fight for. I don't blame Radford for playing his strongest 17 at all. What exactly are you proposing Radford does? Genuine question, would you for instance drop Washy and play Turgut in for a month? Drop Fonua and play Logan for a few weeks?
