Confirmed that Baldwinson has signed a two year deal for Wakefield starting 2018.

Good luck to the lad. He's not good enough for regular SL IMO, but he seems like a good lad, and I hope he makes it.

Not liked by McDermott, same scenario as Paul McShane I guess. Hetherington say's the vacancy will be held at the end of the season. Can we have a good,proven player please and not another ' project signing' Ormondroyd,Aston etc

Think it'll be Oledzki promoted into the 25

At 22 I think a good signing for wakefield. You have let some good forwards go over the last few years who are now coming good in SL. Could understand departures with the pack you had but to let them go now seems odd.

You could argue Baldwinson has not kicked on much. IMO I don't think Singleton ever has ,even though he appears to be our ' pack leader '

Have we really let many good ones go?

This was inevitable personally i don't think he got enough chances or games over the last 18 mths it could prove costly but time will tell.

project = cheap

Good luck to him, obviously not in any long term plans so best he moves on. I think he has the potential to kick on and become another Kyle Amor, in other words a solid SL prop but he will need regular game time to get there which isn't happening with us.

Or the next Nick Scruton

No Loss, not good enough, in the same league as Daniel smith, jay Pitts, Luke ambler, will be a squad player at Wakey at best, may get slightly more game time at Wakey.

With Galloway our for a lng spell nice o have a quality prop to bring in. I'd seriously make a marque signing out of walmsley

Going by the timeline of his previous Achilles injury then Galloway could be ready by around week 1/2 of 2018

Very possible



It depends on him, if he works hard he will get his chances at Wakey so we will soon see how much he wants it.

His face never seemed to fit. Best of luck to him

I hope he has a decent career, but he's another one where the hype about him as a junior was sadly misplaced. According to some he was going to be the cornerstone of the Leeds pack for the next decade....

There was nothinge ever misplaced. He never really had the hype until he made the first team when younger, but regardless of that, the fact that Leeds over the last few years have constantly failed to develop top juniors would be a more fitting reality.

You only have to look at the pack to see the reality of that - we have 5 Aussie forwards in the squad - not one forward has come through the academy in the last 3 years.

And Stevie Ward is just the player anybody would have expected of him at a younger age anyway. His deveopment is purely natural, and was enhanced by getting in the first team early. Turning a blind eye to our poor development of juniors over last few years does not make it right. There was nothing better in the juniors of 2000-2003 than what there has been in the club from 2012-2017. We have just handled it differently.

Can't say I'm too bothered by this, he looked good playing against Championship opposition but seemed to struggle with the pace of Super League. Hopefully with a bit more game time he'll be able to make the step up and forge a decent career.

Good luck to JB for his future. He may well turn out to be a good prop as he matures but currently there are one or two young props ahead of him at Leeds on merit.

It is very difficult to predict how a young prop will turn out as few make it at a young age because of the physical demands. Many of the best props especially those with handling skills started as backrower or even backs

I think the development of quality youngsters has been a problem throughout our game and not just at Leeds. The very predictable style of structured play at SL level seems to have resulted in too many players lacking creative skills. The game has become too defense orientated and boring and there is an argument to reduce the number of players to 12 to create more space for attackers.

Really though you were never going to replicate the quality of kids that came through in the Sinfield/McGuire/Burrow/JJB/Bailey/Ablett/Diskin intake were you?

That kind of thing happens once a lifetime.

I think the best you can hope for is really one player a year coming through the system and making it as a first team regular. Think you've kind of done that with Watkins, Ward, Singleton, Sutcliffe, Keinhorst and Golding. That these players haven't hit the heights of their predecessors isn't that surprising - some of them are still young. I'd say it's recruitment from other clubs and overseas where things are lacking.

It happens when you do it as Leeds did it, plan for it, back it, have faith in it, and make it happen. It is just total cr@p to say it happens once in a lifetime, as it doesn't happen at all unless you do the first bit, but can happen more often if you follow the same. The reason it doesn't is out of choice, as you still have the last batch to have a career, which doesn't mean you can't still promote the best of the rest to challenge what is there.

The one's you listed are a myth. Watkins was years ago, before the period we are talking about. Keinhorst is not the standard we are talking about, christ there are many many kids who more than match his talent, and he didn't come in until late. Goulding or Stucliffe are not the standard of Juniors we used to have. Singleton is no better player now than he was at 16. Ward is the only one, and as said previously, a blind man not knowing about the game could have seen what he was going to be long before he got with the Leeds coaching.

Well I for one can only think of it happening once at Leeds in the entire time I've watched RL since 1980. At no other point in the last 37 years have Leeds brought through such a great set of young players in "one batch" and dominated the game. It may have happened slightly before my time in the years of Holmes, Smith, Atkinson, Shoebottom etc but that't it. Are those the only periods in the past 50 years when Leeds made it happen? It sort of backs up my point doesn't it? It happens very rarely.



The players I listed have done what I said - they've become regular 1st teamers. I made the point that they're not of the quality of their predecessors though it's too early to judge some of them (Goulding and Sutcliffe for instance).

I don't think you properly considered what I actually wrote Gotcha since we seem to be pretty much agreed. The kids coming through at Leeds over the past 10 or 11 years aren't as good as the "golden generation". However some are very decent and some are solid and some aren't SL quality. Twas ever thus.

My point is that it's not realistic when you put the club's history into perspective to expect that quality and number of young players to keep coming through. You might think it's possible (and it may be) but it's not going to happen. History tells us it won't.

Where we differ though it seems is on the point you made on kids coming through. I am unsure if you mean first team, or available for development for first team? because that is where the difference lies. We do have the equal juniors coming through of that golden generation, it is just simply we do not deal with it the same way in this era as we did back then, once they are at under 19 level.

My point on it can keep on happening, is that it is by choice. It isn't done each because if you had a batch of 7 or 8 one year, they will ultimately, subject to earning their shirt, have a near ten year stint holding it. Leeds broke that ideaology back in 2002 by planning for something different in a transistion and clearing the decks. But it can happen as often as the club wanted. The players individually, are not once ince a lifetime, the development of players is however following that route.

What you have to remember here, and it is not been arrogant to smaller clubs, that Leeds do generally pick up the cream of the crop (although accepted lost out to Wigan on a player each of the last two years). On that basis they should be able to produce super league players much more often than certain other clubs. They did used to, our record speaks for it's self, but we don't have that same record over last five years.