There seems to be alot of opinion coming out of the club at present regarding how, internally, the staff see our current youth policy and the talent that is available to us. I thought it would be interesting to get peoples opinions of departed youth players from the last few years that are currently playing elsewhere, and see if you feel that they were let go too early or not given enough chances to impress.

I've had a look throught the 'game on' magazine and have come up with the following names.

Paul O'Connor
Paul Alcock
John Boland
Johnny Leather
Phil Wood
Danny Smith
Craig Tunstead
Adam Bowman
Dayne Donoghue
Dale Bloomfield
Steve Nash

I may have missed a few players so please add to it.

Didn't Nash jump ship for Salford? I seem to remember him getting plenty of game time when he was at the club. Since then he has disappointed at Salford and is impressing at Leigh I believe.
I always liked Paul O'Connor and was disappointed when he left.
Of those other players Donoghue looked decent but didn't he opt for a career outside of RL. I was a big fan of Phil Wood and he certainly seemed to go really well for Swinton when he left.

Donoghue is playing for rochdale as is adam bowman

Yeah you might be correct on Nash jumping ship. My memory does fail me sometimes!

Can't forget Richie Myler

I think we all know that Richie would do a great job for us. I was more interested in peoples thoughts when comparing players like Donoghue to Gerrard.

Donoghue leaves the club and we bring in a player in Gerrard, who isn't half the player IMO.

My point is that we seem to work harder to bring in players that have been released by the SuperLeague club under the assumption that they are better than what we currently have because they have only come through our own youth system.

Mike Ostick,josh simm,rob draper,martin keaveney,was it martin ainscough centre/standoff,mike morrison at leigh.I think johnny leather,paul o connor are better fullbacks than yates.A few decent players gone, but some just not good enough at championship level.I am not too impressed with gerrard and prefer donoghue.

This lad is deffinately one to watch out for....... One of the best youth forwards Ive seen in the last few years.. Cant believe they've let him leave us. viewtopic.php?f=21&t=452255

This lad is deffinately one to watch out for....... One of the best youth forwards Ive seen in the last few years.. Cant believe they've let him leave us. viewtopic.php?f=21&t=452255

Excellent thing is hindsight. How many of those were at the club when we were in SL and couldn't guess whether we would go down.

most of the players mentioned got chances to show themselves as up to standard and then played badly in the first team.

phil wood being an obvious exception as he had a well paid job outside or rugby so wanted to be part time i believe

I cant remember Dayne Donoghue, Paul O'Connor or Adam Bowman playing particulalry badly for the first team when they played, and I cant remember Leather, and a few of the others ever getting a chance.

They may not have been good enough, but my question is, did we persevere with them enough. We seem all too willing to give former Wigan academy players opportunities in the first team.

This isn't a dig at anybody in particular, its just an opinion stating that for some reason we think the players that leave Wigan are the best thing since sliced bread.

Where is Dale Bloomfield now? Didn't he spend some time hopping between ours and Saints academy yet never quite made the breakthrough?

According to 'game on' magazine he is at Rochdale