Riley has joined Featherstone on a season long loan.

I suppose this was inevitable once we signed Drinkwater, but coupled with the Russell recruitment, I am feeling very alienated by the club.

Will that see his contract out? Seems to be the done thing with the spare parts.

Shame, he looks a bit of a throwback to an old school stand off, good off the cuff. Would have liked to see him get a go. But, pressure is on the coach, so can’t gamble with a kid. Tried and tested Drinkwater is right for right now, Dean might have been right for 2 years from now, but for the following 10.

Yes, as far as I am aware he only signed a 12month deal with us, so he will be a free agent at the end of the loan deal.

Agreed with comment.
However as a Warrington supporter for the last 49 years, I’d love a throwback to an Alex Murphy/Andy Gregory/Phil Blake/Johnathan Davies type player rather than the mundane type rugby played, we watch now. We’ll never beat the Aussies playing completion set rugby. Get back to sidestepping/little chips over the top even when in your own half type rugby. I will accept though the team would have to be able to defend really well when losing the ball.

Well, I’ll be honest, I think I’d rather see Dean as a backup winger ahead of Russell! Still, I hope to be proven wrong.

Can only think he prefers Hayes as backup over Dean.

Good luck to the lad.
Looked a good prospect for us. Not got a chance in P&B

Not today's Internet winner, but this year's winner.
EVERY BIT of enterprising rugby has been wrung out of (modern) Australian RL so, consequently, ours follows suit.
Whilst NZ played great rugby in the semi, the Aussies just bored them into submission

Great deal for him, he'll play week in week out against massively experienced men. This will be great for him, and we have a 2 week notice recall on him. Hopefully this will be good for him long term and we re-sign him. If not it is a good opportunity for him to further his career. Hopefully he develops more and we keep him long term.

He'll probably be in direct competition with Thomas Lacans , who has a similar profile, to be Johnno Ford's half back partner, but he should get plenty of opportunities.

Glad that 2 week recall is in place. This way he gets more game time at a better level than reserves and is playing week in week out if he is good enough. Learning off Sean Long will do him no harm either.

Sensible move for both I think, I’m yet to be convinced he’s to be a long term half back for us, this should help show either way.

If he can return in 2 weeks we have nothing to lose.

I don’t think Dean will get a game at Wire this season. The 2 week recall is a bit of spit and polish on the boot.

He clearly isn’t going to get a game because he looked way off the nerve to grasp a game after that initial promising first game.

Haze even with his smaller frame shown huge bollox against Salford. Salford did target him in defence, but you can only blame the unit either side of him for not assisting him.

Dean is behind Haze at this time.

We'll see how he goes, if he really is a special player he will light it up in Featherstone and we can bring him into the first team.

We've had a lot of players who have a lot of hype on here, leave and people say they will come back to haunt us but they never do much elsewhere.

I hope this move goes really well for Riley Dean. He needs to play and he needs to set a performance standard that will allow him a career as a professional rugby league player. From what I've seen I think he has the talent for it, just needs to learn to control games IMO. This is a good chance for him and if he is playing well then we have the option to recall him.

Sad to say but I think it unlikely that either Longstaff or Dean will make our team. Still, the club has kept them on and they have another full year to kick on. A first team birth at HB is more difficult to secure than BR for obvious reasons, but nevertheless Longstaff has I think got a loan to Salford whilst Dean is at Fev. At least the club has produced two decent prospects from the Academy and seems to be going from strength to strength atm.

Andy Ackers is a Warrington Academy player who was released as not good enough, by Wire.

I don't think that is resounding evidence of Warrington overlooking a top quality player. Before his good 2022 season at Salford (aged 2icon_cool.gif he's been through Swinton, London and Toronto.

How long do you keep persevering with an academy player.
He’s proven to be a late developer, unfortunately hindsight doesn’t often play a massive role in recruitment.
It’s took many years for Ackers to pull his finger out. He’s playing well, and in favour with Shaun Wane, but he’s way behind the best form of Clark, and I wouldn’t swap Walker for him.
Bottom line is, Ackers has proven an extremely poor and costly investment. One good season from him and only 3/4 years left to offer, would also be poor investment.
I won’t lose any sleep over letting Ackers escape from our academy, I am however gutted we never got Sam Tomkins in it.

Yes, Ackers has had to do it tough after he left Wire by playing part time for Swinton and then moving to London to play there.

He played well for London, and he did enough for Wire to then offer him a number of trial games for us.

He was then rejected by Wire on a 2nd occasion as not good enough.

Ackers left London and joined Toronto and helped them to gain promotion to Super League, where he played in a team that wasn`t up to scratch and were totally outclassed. It can be difficult to play in a team that is being beaten every week as we saw last season at Warrington with some of the displays from our players, for most of the season.

Just because Ackers has been selected to play for England at the age of 28, doesn`t mean that his game has miraculously improved, it is more the fact that he was playing in a Salford team that was beating top teams, and hence getting noticed.

Take your point, BH and you are 100% correct. Isn't it a pity though that (very well paid) international coaches can't spot a diamond in the rough? RL is a team game, generally (not always) the best TEAM wins. But even victorious fans can spot one or two stand out players who were a thorn in their own sides's side (sic).

Bongser is a bog standard fan that pretends no knowledge, has no access to all the analytics (schmanalytics) but still he can I.D. a decent player in a less than decent team even when the latter are well beaten.

Leigh romped the Championship last season but there were oppo players that he'd have in the 2023 team!

Coaches have their own game plans and some very good players may not fit into them or into the system. Marshall and later Rowley (spit) saw something in Ackers and Paul R certainly saw him fitting into his game plan! Only then did Wane start rubbing his "thunkin' " jaw.

Wish it was February!

Ackers did a year with Wigan Academy before he came to us.

He signed a two year deal until the end of the 2024 season…

He gets to play regularly each week at a higher level than playing Reserves every other week plus he is still training full time at Warrington…WIN WIN for all parties!

Walter ,did Andy Ackers ever turn out for the Wizards ?

I think you will find that Andy Ackers was released from the Wigan Academy and joined us for his last year as an U19 back in 2013. He spent most of 2014 out on loan to Swinton. His local club was Hindley but I think started out with Golborne Parkside.