Players last night who have played for Saints academy. Wellens, Gardner, Wheeler, Foster, Moore, Eastmond, Graham, Cunningham, Roby, Dixon, Ashurst, Clough.

I stand to be corrected but other than Gardner I'd wager that all of them have been at Saints for their whole professional/academy careers as well. Fantastic stats.

agreed, i keep forgeting gardner was at barrow first

Not wrong. Something we should be very proud of.

I counted 20 out of the starting 26 from both teams comming through the academy.

Fantastic

I thought it was great and especially so since we put in such a good performance.

The communist cap is killing the game, you know.

Great news.
At Wigan this season, we have had Goulding, Ainscough, Sam & Joel Tomkins, Prescott, McIlorum, O'Carroll, Mossop, O'Loughlin, Hansen, Farrell, Tuson and Walker all played first team.

Now for the next bit,we need the RFL to have the balls to say that only 50% of any players salary that you bring through your academy should be counted on the "cap"

gardner signed from barrow at 18.. but still an excellent show of the youth setup working

i understand what you're saying, but it could work backwards.. for example if you only had to count half of say oulding, Ainscough, Sam & Joel Tomkins, Prescott, McIlorum, O'Carroll, Mossop, O'Loughlin, Hansen, Farrell, Tuson and Walker then obviously you'd have room on the cap, leaving room for signing 2 more decent players, meaning that two of them would be less likely to play

I was thinking more in terms of being able to pay them a decent salary. The 50% I used could be adjusted I suppose depending on number of first team appearances per season.
We need to encourage teams to spend money in developing the next generations of players.

I would also cut the non GB qualified players to no more than three per team (Catalan excepted)

im sure that hansen signed from south sydney so how can you say he came through your academy?

Can Fasavalu be counted as an academy player? I know he was quite young when came to us?
If so, then that's another to add to your score.

You are wrong.
Hansen has been at Wigan since he was 14 and has represented England at academy level.

I don't think you can count his as an academy player, but Saints definatly developed him.

This was (apart from the result) the best thing that we could take from the game, IMO. Many have branded the youngsters such as Ashurst and Dixon not good, and maybe they won't turn out good enough, but they stood up last night and was counted. They both had one of there best games for us, and if they continue to develop and build on that performance then they will give themselves a good chance of making it, IMO. I'm not getting carried away, and maybe they won't go on to make it, but they showed very good potential last night.

I totally agree brian, the rfl need to give clubs a reduction in players they have brought through. 50% is a good idea IMO.

How old is he? I'm positive I played against him at some point in my early teens.

I'm 26 now, am I thinking of another lad that was nicknamed very originally as "Kiwi"?

Hansen is 24 and originally played for Folly Lane Swinton.

Surely this would undermine the effectiveness of the cap, the aim of which was to prevent clubs from spending more than they could afford on player wages.

I'd agree that there should be some incentive for clubs to develop their own players though.

Rogues is the messiah.

Seriously...great idea. You only have to look at the recent comments in the press that the Aussies are now touting our kids after the recent successes of Flanagan, Ellis and Morley. We need to do more to keep hold of our talents and produce more of them.

Look at Cas, if rumours are to be believed they will lose Westerman, Shenton and Owen to bigger offers from other clubs. Surely there should be some way of rewarding Cas for developing those players.

Maybe we should another view and increase their cap value by say 20% if they move on to another Superleague club, so if a player from Cas (as an example) moves to Wigan (as an example) and is paid £100K per annum his cap value is £120K
Is that an option?

Look at Oldham and see how many players there are from that area. How good could they be if the incentive was there for that team

I'm very passionate about my Rugby and want to see us bloody beat those Aussies before I'm lying face up in a coffin in St. Marys churchyard Birchley.

Saints Academy setup is just fantastic and I hope we can emulate it. As a neutral watching your game v Leeds, you wouldnt have thought the likes of Foster (Forster?), Wheeler, Dixon et al were at the early stages of their careers. All your youngsters seem to just blend in with the first team and do a job.

Is it not time then to applaud Mick Potter? He had an excellent reputaion at Catalan for developing young players and could this be one of the main reasons the board seemed so keen to get him. A significant number of the players mentioned have been introduced into SL by MP and every credit to him.

No, Potter is boring, the players hate him, he is tactically inept, he deliberately injures our players, he let the wrong players leave in the off-season and signed the wrong replacements and the fact that Catalans have blossomed since he left is proof that he is a pudding and should have been sacked after 80 minutes of the season.

The thing is, he had no choice. They were introduced last season when we had our injury crisis. There was simply no-one else to bring in. I'd praise Potter for his youth development if he had brought them in with most of our team already fully fit and ok to play. The only choice Potter would have had would have been which player to choose to cover which position affected by injury. He chose Armstrong at first to cover for Meli but Armstrong disappeared and was replaced by Wheeler and Lomax. But their development to that level was nothing to do with Potter. They had simply been developed to a point where they were capable of having first grade experience. Potter then had to decide whether they were capable of continuing that experience or whether someone else should have a go. So far as our youth development is concerned, praise goes elsewhere for mine.

Quel suprise