ridiculous. Tail wagging the dog. The money should be spent on youth development.... Some clubs don't even try.

thumbs up

The most successful clubs in SL do both.

If rich owners want to spend the cash let them, if clubs like Bradford can't so be it, it's life.
or
Have the one player paid for by rich backers/sponsors/fans but something the club can't get themselves into debt with.
Joe Bloggs the Wakefield supporter might not want to put millions into the actual club but he fancies the idea of the club tempting over a Sam Burgess so pays the wages and it doesnt effect the club's finances at all.

I agree with every syllable.
The idea of a salary cap was to try to produce a competitive Super League where each game was a doubtful issue and the honours were shared around more, as in Australia. The bigger clubs have managed to drive a coach and horses through the idea due to the lack of authority of the RL Executive. Marquee signings would further damage the idea of a salary cap and increase the gap between the rich and poor. Great for the rich in the short term but not good for the poor or for professional RL in the long run.

spot on.

Well said that man! For the self proclaimed innovative sport, RL really does fail to see the wood for the trees sometimes. Professional sport is an entertainment industry and people tune in to see the stars. Would the NZ v Samoa game have sold out on a bitterly cold Sunday evening with no buses running had it not been for SBW?

Well i can't say i went to see SBW....i went to watch the rugby.

People always say "that money should be spent on youth development" but surely you get diminishing returns once you already have a decent set up established....what is throwing more and more money at it going to give you.

If Simon Moran had spent the money he did on Gleeson, Johns, Morley, the Monaghans, King, Hicks, Myler, Ratchford and co on 'youth development' what would the difference be.

Would we now have a team of great Warrington born players, because they would have started playing better because of the extra money.

Maybe Rhys Williams could have played like Rhys Wesser if only he'd had a few hundred grand spent on him.

How much money does the FA and the Premier League clubs spend on youth development...? I bet its far more than is spent on youth development in Brazil. Does this mean we produce better young players than the streets of Brazil...?

So your saying Warrington can literally do no more for youth development?

No I'm saying money should be spent where it gets the best returns.

If you spend £200k on a top player that player might attract new fans, increase attendances, improve performances that would also increase attendances and that will deliver a return to the club over time.

If you spend £200k on the youth system then that might generate more junior players, better players for the club etc and if that gets a better return for the club than spending on the top player then thats the better decision. But if the returns won't be as good then its not a good decision.

What I want to know is if you divert money away from the first team towards spending on youth development, what do you spend it on, what are the priorities, as those will generate the best returns. Is it that the facilities aren't good enough? Is it about being able to afford more lads on youth contracts. Is it about paying the going rate to get the best junior coaches in the world over to Warrington (surely logically there is a club somewhere who does junior RL better than anyone else, so why not hire their people and get them to run the show here).

These are just ideas, people involved with youth rugby can probably comment here. What I'm interested is hearing a good argument for how spending on youth development can give us better returns, if the opportunity cost is not spending as much on the first team and the clubs league performance maybe slipping down.

The misconception IMO is where people just say "that money could be spent on youth development" assuming that just spending more money guarantees you the best returns. In many cases the long run returns are going to be better for signing a big name player. The money spent on getting Johns over for a few weeks has probably delivered us really high returns compared to lots of other spending in RL.

I understand what you mean, and your are right to a point. The club can only develop players if they are playing the game, and to get people playing in the town we needed to become a better product.

The problem being, that clubs have spent the money on the players but haven't captured the imagination of the kids to get them playing, or have been let down by poor community structures and or coaching. Now we have the eye of the local public, we need to have quality links with community clubs, educating the coaches/players/parents as to how to get the best out of their training.

Successful youth development clubs like Wigan and Leeds have regular Coach Development sessions, on a monthly basis. This months at Leeds was Brian Mac himself and Wigan have had Wane, Deacon and Harris do sessions. What I would like to see is more education for the first coach that these kids are going to play for, because that first training session could determine whether they play RL or don't.

Like sal says, throwing another 200k a year at youth development would achieve what exactly?

The club already spends alot on youth development. We currently have the best youth setup our clubs ever had.

Our club makes a a profit every year because it is so well run. So if we find ourselves in a position that we are able to spend 200 or 300k a year on a single player then we should be allowed to.

All this 'oh other clubs will spend what they haven't got blah blah blah' is making for tiresome reading. Clubs have been going to the wall every season under salary cap restrictions... our game shouldn't be held back by the ineptitude of others.

I haven't seen one good argument for NOT letting the bigger well managed clubs spend a bit more money to try and bring in some marquee players to our domestic game.

One of the problems with youth development is that for many kids their interest in sport ends at the controls of a PS 3 or whatever is the gadget of the day....that could even influence kids in either developing an interest in even going watching live sport or not.
As for these so called marquee players , the cost of going to a match is still a major consideration &, although it might attract interest from some people , any extra admission cost could be too much for others.
As for the FPL , the undoubted influence of expensive foreign players is evident but at what cost to the top level experience being gained by homegrown players ? On the world stage English players are exposed as being mediocre at best & at club level decent results & some Euro involvement are only possible because of expensive imported players.Unfortunately, raised prices to pay for imported players hit the core supporter of football ,the man in the street, & play right into the hands of tv companies.

Surely, it all depends on how you measure success and a return for your money and whether that is at individual club level, or the game as a whole?

If it's the game as whole, then I would suggest that development is the sustainable answer to increase the gene pool and therefore potential for quality and an improvement in standards in the long term. How many Andrew Johns are out there, enough to go around and can everyone afford to have one?

As with most things the best solution would be to run both systems, have an exciting signing to get everyone at it, playing next to a 'local' hero/scapegoat.

The problem ultimately is cash and if a club is strapped and only follows one idea and puts their eggs into a marquee signing basket backed up by players reared and funded by other clubs that have a successful development system then what is the point and is that fair?

I think people are misunderstanding this... the clubs that get it right and are successful are the ones who already work well with youth development and on occasion bring in players to supplement that; Wigan, Warrington, leeds and St Helens are at the top of the list. Even Widnes recognise the need to develop their own players.


The problem being with 'marquee players' is that it will probably be the clubs who don't develop their own players and will gamble on a big signing to secure their status: Salford, Castleford and Hull KR spring to mind at the head of that list.

I think to be fair to Salford (sorry I feel a bit sick just saying that ha ha) I think they recognise the value in a development programme and measures are in/being put in place for the future. This season they needed a quick fix after so long in the mire

These posts are too big.

Like Uncle Rico said, Salford are working on their youth as well.

The impact of working on youth is for the future, no matter how much money MK decides to pour in he wouldn't see the improvement of that for years, which nobody wants to wait for! Thankfully the man has enough money to spend on both, alongside all the backroom changes & facelift of the club. I think it's unfair to judge Salford under MK just yet, it's virtually a new club in every sense since he took over, if he is still around in 5-10 years that would be the time to see what his input has achieved.

I also wouldn't include Castleford in that list either, they usually do quite well at bringing in new players & don't exactly make many "big" signings.

1 out of 3 isn't bad though!

I look forward to the day 1-17 were all once kids from Warrington. Proud.

Have a look at Salford u15 and U16 squad. They have recruited a lot from Wigan and Saints traditional amateur clubs, including Dmya Hanley.

On what evidence do you put clubs like Salford and Cas as teams that don't develop their own players and will just make big signings.

I know we hear every year about how many great young players are coming through Warrington but how many have we produced that are better than Ratchford?

What about Shenton or Westerman? Do Warrington produce players as good as these?

What about marquee signings who has made more marquee signings us or them?

Whats more likely to happen with any marquee signing rule is that a smaller club will produce a good young player and then moneybags Warrington will come and pick him up, like we did with Westwood, Atkins, Ratchford, Myler, Grix (even Harrison as a youngster)

I think we need one after tonights performance.
Any position, doesnt matter, we were pretty much awful in every shirt number except 8 and 12.

come on Marwan get this rule pushed through by the weekend.

But we buy one then Saints buy one and you end up no better off.???

Luke Walsh and Garry Wheeler hardly constitute marquee signings and they played us off the park.