Those four your are comparing to Walker, Watkins, Hall, McGuire, Ablett, Sinfield, Burrow, Diskin, JJB - if that isn't an indication that the quality has dropped I don't know what is.

As for the others - Smith - who knows he has hardly played in the last year, Hallas are you serious? The other two the jury is out neither have shown anything remotely close to quality offered by the golden generation at the same age.

Your problem is you are comparing 2015 Handley for instance, against 2010 Ryan Hall rather than the 2007 and 2008 Ryan Hall who was in and out of the team and struggling under the high ball.

Is there a vast difference between 2001/2002 Danny McGuire and Lilley now? Ward to my eye can go much further than either Ablest or JJB.

Yes there is a huge difference - McGuire was the best player of his peer group by a distance he was a different quality to Lilley - the Ward Ablett comparison is a valid one - although Ablett had all the ball skill Ward has - he was your ball playing loose forward a vastly under-rated player IMO

Well the rumour about Hanley going to Leeds came from Wigan ,so if it's come from your end there may be something in it .It could be true Micky seems to be picking up a few injuries so it seems about right

Hope not.

Isn't McIllorum in his benefit year next year?

Danny is a leeds legend but the 19/20 year old McGuire was a very limited player with plenty of development yet to come. I'm not saying Lilley will reach the heights of McGuire but there seems to be a criticism of the Leeds club for not bringing through a set of fully formed replacements for a freakishly good set of players when said set of players didn't even come through fully formed nor all at the same time.

There are some on here who just do not realize how far our Academy has fallen in recent years

You were slated because the Acadamy was & is still signing/spotting talent you only piped up whenever the 19's lost games.
Wrt MM that was 2years ago wasn't it?

Main problem is that we hit on a winning formula at the time, have stayed rigidly stuck to it and haven't evolved.

Other teams have seen what we were doing and adapted and improved on it. We have stood still.

It's ok people saying we aren't producing the likes of that group anymore.....no club is. Isn't the whole thing that the competition isn't producing the same level of player....why would are academy be immune from that fall?

If the measuring stick for making it has to be that they're as good as Sinfield then no one is going to make it.

Well said Printer.

It was obvious from McGuire's first handful of games off the bench in the first team that he was going to be big. Incredible pace, acceleration, evasion and eye for a gap - and the support play came soon after.

Lilley by contrast has few of these attributes but is a different kind of player, more along the lines of a 2010-2015 McGuire. I wouldn't write Lilley off, especially since he's coming into a much more unstable team, but I'd still say he's behind where McGuire was at an equivalent age.

Burrow might be a better comparison, but still a very different kind of player.

It's strange how these things change over time. McGuire seemed to burn brightly in the first few years of his career, and whilst he's had some good seasons in more recent years it is probably fair to say that persistent injuries have turned him into a shadow of the player he once was. By contrast Burrow never seemed to realise his potential until around 2011 when he was able to be a devastating broken-field runner on a fairly consistent basis, including in some big games. It's not surprising that the club want to keep them both for a final hurrah in 2017.

Back on topic, what's been most baffling over the past 5 years or so are the numbers of promising young players that have simply been let go with limited game time in the first team. Players like Hood, Mulhern etc would surely have benefited from a bit more nurturing, or have we suffered by having too many established players blocking key positions?

What was the point of signing Amor? Someone like BJB would have been pretty handy at times last year, as would McShane, who often looked the part e.g. WCC against Manly. I guess hindsight's a wonderful thing. No green shoots of recovery in the current academy set-up then?

In a salary capped sport, there are going to be players like Hood and Mulhern who hit a point of being too expensive to be a reserve but not good enough for a first team wage, There are many players who we ideally we would have kept but couldn't...on the other hand Mulhern and Hood and Ward aren't really very good.

BJB, like McShane is a bit of a different proposition because they are decent level SL players but they can be a relatively big name elsewhere or a reserve at Leeds, any functioning market would see them move on.

Every squad in SL is far too thin for the amount of games played and every team is at one stage or another dipping in to a pool of players who aren't ready, are covering a position or aren't good enough. No team can overcome it, and injuries will happen, you just have to hope that your injuries are spread across positions and across the year.

I also wonder if that is one of the reasons for a dearth of half backs in SL right now, the prioritisation of the ability to cover multiple positions especially at youth level may be the reason we struggle in the specialised roles of halves and centres. Most centres are either big wingers or small 2nd rowers these days, and most halves need to be either a half/hooker or half/fullback.

Surely it also relative to your competitors - would you say Leeds are producing the quality and quantity of youngsters the likes of Warrington, Saints and Wigan are?

Which of these 4 clubs appears to be on a downward curve?

Both Warrington & Saints though have had to look outside their respective academies for half backs and full backs. Gidley, Sandow, Clarke for example and now Brown at the Wolves , Fages, Wallace, MacDonnell & now Smith etc at Saints. Although Smith did originally I think come through the Saints academy.
Our problem has been similar to so many organisations in that we did not replace players at their peak. But as others have said, including me, GH can be loyal to a fault, keeping hold of staff when they should really be moved on.
It worked in the past but needs to be revisited now.

But you seem to be looking purely at the here and now there, rather than the year after and ongoing.

Those teams have done exactly what Leeds were doing right, copied it and are about to see the success. Leeds moved away from it, and that is why we have the issue we have. You also missed off potentially the best two of the lot, Patten and Smith (although appreciate Smith came from our academy to them).

I'm glad you know what will happen going forward, I don't so I'll stick to the here & now.
You may be correct only time will tell.
Patten, though, I do like from what I've seen.

I was on about the production of players which you were talking about.

I am starting to feel like I did when we were on our way to going bust and we were asking questions like 'what is going on at Headingley?'

The tragedy of McGuires career is in 2010 he was probably our best player, he still had his pace and had improved the other parts of his game, but that injury stopped the 2 sides of his game ever having a perfect crossover period.
I think you are forgetting how good Burrow was in 2007, he should have really been Man of Steel.

I agree about the academy, players seem to be blocked by average signings, although I would argue the bigger problem is the lack of a reserve team to prove themselves against men.

There also seems to be a disconnect between the first team and the youth system (or a lack of planning for the future), players like Walker, McGuire, Burrow, were all on the radar of the first team coach and started getting game time on merit, and not just because of injuries.

That's just wasn't the case though. I remember when Sinfield was too slow for half back, then too small for loose forward, I remember Burrow being too small full stop a flash in the pan who had been found out, McGuire was a one trick pony and all he could do was support, Lee Smith was too small, Ryan Hall wasn't good enough or fast enough to displace Scott Donald who was of course a terrible signing then a great one, even Jamie Peacock was past it and would never make it at prop

I see certain posters still try and rewrite history on here, with made up points. Not surprsing.

However, what is surprising is that I totally agree with leedsouths post above, which is all true and well put, particularly the last paragraph.

Aside from the whole squad being passed it and too old by 2010 you've pretty much covered the last 20 years on Southstander in one paragraph.

Nice work.

We've had a watershed revelation moment lads.

Close down the internets 'cos were through the looking glass folks