not 100% sure but wigan junoir club produced players could look like this

1 ratchford
2 russell
3 gildart
4 hughes
5 tierney
6 o'loughlih
7 williams
8 crosby
9 powell
10 hill
11farrell
12 wilde
13 sutton
not too shabby!!

Academy/age group rugby is a funny thing. Some years you get a lot of good local talent, others you have to rely on your scouting system finding talent from further afield. Same with the academic ability of kids entering schools; some years you have classes that are going to do well in exams, others it looks like a school will end up in special measures.

It will take several years to answer that question, could be changing, could be an anomaly.

My point still stands, whatever has been done in the wigan area for a number of years should be copied and introduced elsewhere as it has shown to work.

How does this compare to the year before when they went to France?

I don't know how this year compares with the year we played France. It is possible that this is just an ordinary year for juniors, these things do tend to go in cycles, it often happens that occasionally one year many members of the same team are high potential players. Good luck if Wigan has identified that locally it may be an ordinary year and gone out to sign some of the better prospects from elsewhere. However, is there a trend here and will Wigan be able to promote so many local born players in the future. As an earlier poster said, we won't know for several years. Hopefully Wigan will continue to develop good youngsters for other teams to benefit...

There's loads of talented lads coming through from the local area amateur clubs. Hanley's lad for one is at Wigan on scholarship, one to watch over the next 3-4 years see how he progresses.