Exactly; Leeds in their glory days signed the likes of Eric Enselme, Liam Botham, Joe Vickery and Mike Coady. Like you say just shows how the quality of Super League has dropped with Leeds signing Rhys Evans as squad cover instead of a player of the quality of the aforementioned superstar signings.

For me it's a lack of proper coaching rather than lack of Talent.

Cannot say I've seen the talent bit for a very long time with Rhys. There's a game against Leeds that comes to mind at the HJS, but not a lot else (same could be said for Harvey Livett at Headingley). RD's comment about injuries curbing his progress is a more likely cause of Rhys not kicking on, rather than Tony Smith being at fault.

Couple of standout games for Evans IMO Leeds Away first game of the season (or early doors) a few years ago now he was awesome defensively and Saints also away

Is he SL standard I'd guess not but in reality I've no idea and it's particularly difficult to assess at this time whether Leeds have dropped one or pulled of a masterstroke on the basis that we don't know what his terms and their expectations are.

Good luck to the lad

I remember him having a cracking game at our place. I think it was the middle 8s game. I hadn't realised how quick he was. He made a try with a rapid break and was excellent all round. I commented at the time that he was bound for big things. He just seemed to drop off the radar. I cant say I noticed or heard much of him in the Championship last term

If the problem with Warrington home grown products was coaching rather than talent, then we'd see players blossom once they leave the club.

How many players have left us and gone on to show a talent that was never on display at Warrington, because they have had some proper coaching?

And yet on the other hand, you get guys like Briers, Westwood signing for us at a young age from other clubs, who have seemed to thrive at Warrington? Is it a question of talent or coaching....

Gareth O'Brien

A bit of a straw clutch there IMO.

Did he show more at Salford than he did with us? Possibly, although wasn't his best form for them at fullback he wasn't going to play there for Wire?

Yeah Gaz O'Brien was never going to get a gig at full back ahead of Ratchford, and still wouldn't. He's done well after testing himself as a first choice, something Patton now needs to do I think.

Of course, we had Matty Russell

I liked GO'B but I put him in the same category as Patton - a back up for a team that's competing for trophies or a starter at one of the lower teams. After he left I never saw anything that changed my view.

When you saw him play for Salford did you ever think 'wow, he's really stepped up a gear compared to what he was for us'. I think he gets involved in games more than Patton does, but he did that when he was with us as well. He had some good moments with us.

I would have rather kept him and played him ahead of Matty Russell but I can't see where we would have him as a starter now. He would be an understudy. I might have him ahead of Jake Mamo as second choice fullback though.

That's a fair comment Sally, so we're pretty much reverting back to crap Recruitment then. That Genuinely seems to be a big falling point for us and we've signed a hell of a lot of really bog standard to crap players over the last 4-5 years. Do we have specific recruiters or is that down to the likes of Smith/Price, Fitzpatrick etc I've genuinely no idea who that relies on anymore?

It's a complicated question as the development needs are at their greatest when the player is relatively young. So we might well have talented young players 16/17/18/19 and then fail to keep them progressing and that damages their career going forward. Let's use a teaching analogy, you can have a shining star at Primary school enter an average high school and not thrive and do so well. This will affect them long after leaving school. The development failing cannot always be addressed at a later club. Briers and Westwood came though other systems before joining us.

There has to be a reason why we have so few players come through our system and reach senior representational level over the last 20 years.

So is your argument that the quality of SL has not dropped or simply that signing Rhys Evans is not a symptom of it?

I didn't say that O'Brien wasn't better than Russell, or even mean to infer it, I quite liked O'Brien took the line on and took some decent hits because of it at HB.

I thought that the question was, are there any ex Warrington players that have thrived since leaving and receiving proper coaching? Sure G'OB must have 'legend' status kicking that drop goal. However, is he markedly better than when we let him go and now he's up there with the likes of Brett Hodgson after all that expert training would you have him back?

Yes, I would have O'Brien back at Warrington...If we still had Russell at full-back.
No, I wouldn't have O'Brien back at Warrington...Now we have Ratchford at full-back.

So why did we have the foresight to try O'Brien at full-back as Salford did.

:1hgncwv6

I agree with what you say and there may be something in terms of the margins of maximising talent but I think there are maybe 2 questions here, have reached a higher level if they'd come through at Saints/Wigan/Leeds?

2. Why hasn't Warrington produced anybody of top-level SL potential, since the mid 90s. By this I mean players of the calibre of Graham, Roby, Burrow, McGuire, Tomkins. They are a tier above the guy who I think was our best product over this period, Paul Wood. Ben Currie pre-injury showed potential to be in this tier for about 18 months but has regressed since.

For question 1, even if you argue that those players may have reached a higher level in those clubs' set ups, than they reached with us, would they have actually been able to outcompete their peers at those clubs? Eg Kevin Penny came through with us, went on a bad run of form and was dropped and people said the club should have stuck by him. If he'd have come through in Leeds, he'd have had a young Ryan Hall pushing him. Would Leeds have persevered with Penny longer than we did, or would they have taken a look at Hall? Mostly likely Hall would have just locked down that spot as soon as Penny struggled. It's a similar story for all of those Wire academy products - can you think of any of them who you honestly think would have outcompeted their peers of a similar age group and locked down a spot long term. I just don't think they were in the same talent range.

The reason I brought up Briers and Westwood as examples that show the issue isn't just about substandard coaching, is that both of those were players with question marks and a lot of raw edges when we signed them. By no means were those slam dunk inevitable successes. When we signed Briers as a replacement for Harris I don't think any of us realistically thought Briers would end up being a better player than Harris was. Compare the 19 year old Briers who Darryl brought in to the team, to the 17 year old Harris who Johnson brought in, and Briers was way more rough and needed a lot more work. Westwood seemed like a big lad with a good attitude that didn't really have any obvious outstanding potential: rather slow and flat-footed and made some brain fart decisions. But if we want to see impact of coaching look at say how those two came on under Paul Cullen. They got an identity and role in the team that worked for them and Cullen polished off a lot of the rough edges to their game to the point they were class acts.

It might have been worth a go but he would have been there a season or two longer at best. It wouldn't have been a massive difference.

If Toronto offered us a swap deal, GO'B for Patton, right now, would anyone on here take it? I would. I think the extra positional cover would do it for me.

I think O'B is a slightly better HB than Patton so on that basis alone I'd swap particularly as he's now had a spell at FB rather than HB interchange Hooker a la Patton I still think that BWW's take on GO'B as far as this question is concerned is stretching it with or without bringing Russell into the equation

All fair points. So we are coming to the unfortunate conclusion that it could be both raw talent recruitment (and we know for sure that the better young players will go to Wigan/Saints/Leeds*) and that we don't seem to develop the players we do attract to be better that the ones we missed out on.

Let's see what we do with Keanan Brand and Matty Ashton both identified as top talents prior to joining us.

[size=85*If you were a budding scrum half or centre and had the choice of Wigan/Saints/Leeds/Warrington and no affinity to any - which club would you choose to win honours?[/size

What is the ratio of converting academy internationals into full internationals at the clubs in question?

Can't believe it is being suggested that Paul Wood was a better player than Mike Cooper has been, never mind Currie.

I don't think that ratio of playing internationals is that relevant. We're talking about which players can be long-term difference makers in SL rather than who can win international caps. Briers hardly played for GB at senior level, Danny McGuire didn't get much of an international career but were both influential SL players.

Wood/Cooper, personally I rate Wood higher but don't think there's much in it, if you say Cooper I wouldn't argue.

A rough off-the-top of my head tiering scale for ex Wire Academy products

Tier 1: Harris, Sculthorpe, Currie 2015-16
Tier 2: Wood, Cooper, Hilton, Wainwright
Tier 3: Riley, O'Brien, Patton, Lee Penny
Tier 4: Noone, Sibbit, Mark Gleeson, Toby King, Kevin Penny, Currie post 2017.

Lots of lower tiers of players that weren't really up to it.

You've forgotten GB international Joe Philbin.

Mark Hilton should NEVER appear on any tier that Mike Cooper inhabits. He should be a fair few rungs below.

Philbin tier 3 / 4