The futures looking good.
The difficult bit will be keeping this team together.

The quote came from TS's post match interview. Just goes to show, there is an upside to Bennie W's season ending injury if you are prepared to look for it.

Just looking at 2017 though, we will not have many players 30 yrs or over; Atkins, Bennie, Simms, Gidley, Bailey and 3 of those at least will have disappeared by the following year.

If this was Wigan Sky would be creaming themselves about the average age and how the academy conveyor belt keeps churning this talent out. Not that I'm a little bitter especially after the weekends game commentary!

Let Sky cream themselves about Wigan, I couldn't give a toss what those dinosaurs think about rugby league.

As long as we win some silverware and playing exciting rugby I really don't can't too much about what the Sky (or other) commentators say.
It's irksome but that's all - and they have eat humble pie if we scoop awards or simply look stupid.

The most difficult thing is keeping hold of Ben Currie. That for me is paramount.

Totally agree. Keeping Ben should be the Clubs number one behind the scenes priority.
Whatever it takes get him on an even longer deal. I think he signed a 4 year deal last season which keeps him at the club until November 2019

Just playing Devil's advocate here. For Ben's own development, would it be better to encourage him to do a couple of years Down Under, with us having first dibs when he comes back?

I think a stint in the NRL will make him an even better player and if our club actively encourages it we will give ourselves a good chance of him coming back once he's had enough.

I think it's more likely BC would follow a path more like Sam Burgess as opposed to Sam Tomkins.
I doubt we would ever see a return from Currie once he's left.

Think it's "when" not "if" Ben C goes to Aus. No inside knowledge, just think they will throw big money at him. Cash plus the opportunity will be a massive draw. Suspect the Club know this and will eventually let him go to keep him sweet for his return.

I hope it would be more like Joe Burgess

Johnson 20
Russell 23
King 20
Atkins 30
Penny 28
Ratchford 28
Patton 21
Hill 28
Dwyer 23
Sims 31
Currie 22
Hughes 24
King 21

Wilde 21
Smith 18
Cox 24
Bailey 31

Average age starting 13 = 24.5ish
Average age = 24.3ish

I'd argue that keeping hold of Daryl Clark is more important, but keeping hold of either of them would be an achievement.

I did actually work that out but couldn't be bothered typing it all down !

and if you did I would have hoped that you'd have gone to at least two decimal places 24.5ish and 24.3ish indeed!!! (only kidding Mike good work)

Ha ha !!
Good stuff

The mean average is a little over 24years, however the mode betters that at only 21! The median is 25 1/2 years.

Who are the players to come through the Warrington Academy to really establish themselve as a top super league player? Can only think of Currie myself.

Wigan's list is endless.

Warrington really an awful lot on buying players when they have shown promise at other clubs (Hughes, Hill, Clarke, Linhamn, Atkins, Westerman, Ratchford etc) Aswell as you Aussie imports.

Hopefully with your much improved Academy teams, Tony Smith can actually develop them and not have to really on buying. Some of the tries your kids scored on the weekend were stunning.

Sculthorpe? Harris?

Another decent measure of the great achievement from a young squad on Saturday would have been how many first grade games experience between them. There was a lot of experience missing. Gidley and Westwood alone is about 600first grade games +50ish rep caps. Add Sandow, Westerman and Clarke and we are at around 1100 first grade games worth of experience missing.
If we look back to say 2012 we probably had the most experienced 1-17 in the league but would have struggled with players like Briers, M Monaghan, Westwood etc all missing in the same game. I know it is a one off and one swallow does not make a summer but I hope that players like Patton, Johnson, Smith, Wilde (and others) can be given more regular first grade opportunities other than when injuries hit us. I am still wondering why Wilde was an unused sub in the saints game.

Go on then (I'm going off Wikipedia so could be wrong, some like Patton appear to be on the low side):

Johnson - 4
Russell - 58
T King - 19
Atkins - 294
Penny - 160
Ratchford - 210
Patton - 4
Hill - 195
Dwyer - 64
Sims - 278
Currie - 102
Hughes - 122
G King - 50

Wilde - 11
Smith - 4
Cox - 69
Bailey - 314

Starting XIII average = 120 games
17 average = 115 games

Any from this millennium?

Depends what you call top level. Mike Cooper, Paul Wood and Ben Harrison are probably the next best after them.

Gareth O' Brien

To be fair we had neglected our youth development for some time and in recent years have put some money into it and it's starting to pay off I'm sure that this resent group won't be the last.