==roundpeg21)youth as you put it is the future of this great game of ours.keeping them is the difficulty when we get them up to speed. All young players sadly don't make the grade and you have to buy in a time served player to fill the specialised position .this is why I would like to see the selectors for the GB side pick our own youth filling the positions they play in their respective clubs. This is why we must be patient with our young lads.

I can't think of too many players that have come in to superleague or moved within superleague over these past few seasons where I think 'damn we've missed out there'. An obvious one was maybe we should have made a play for Joel Moon to replace Carmont as already pointed out but there aren't a great deal more.

Also whilst we do put a lot of faith in our youth system we haven't blindly backed it and brought nobody in from outside. Last off season we brought in Pettybourne and Clubb for example to replace Mossop and Hansen. If we were massively stubborn we could have given those places to Rhodri Lloyd and Greenwood. The same could have been said with Bowen and Hampshire/Tierney or Bateman and Connor Farrell/Rob Lever.

We've had the balance about right IMO and they need to try and keep it about right which is filling gaps in our production line with quality players from outside or as we've done sign experienced players up on short term deals to fill positions until exceptional young players are developed enough to take their spots.

Always has been in the past. Wigan as a club have always had an attitude of it doesn't matter where you come from if you are are yop rl player. I would not like to see it change and it doesn't make much commercial sense anyway because like it or not big names put bums on seats and this is what advertisers and sponsors want to see never mind the fans.



I agree. There will always the opportunity to give debuts and the odd game to up and coming players as part of their development but it should be into a side of senior or established players.

This season injuries have forced a lot of changes to be made that may not have otherwise happened but I don't think the younger players learn much playing alongside the same other younger players as they do when back in the U19's. They need the likes of Lockers and Micky Mac to guide them round the park and help when the pressure is on.

In recent seasons we have signed (off the top of my head) the following players who regularly feature in the 1st team if not injured Smith, Green, Taylor, James, Clubb, Sarginson, Bowen, Bateman, Eddie P, Flower and Dudson.

We also have Gelling who was not a Wigan junior who also gets in the team.

I will ignore Lauaki and Powell as they are no longer here.

That is 12 players and it wouldn't surprise me if on several occasions this season we have put put sides where the majority of the 17 were players we bought in, not products of the youth system.

So while some products of the youth system catch the eye, such as Burgess we routinely rely in players bought in some of which are pretty average to provide the backbone of the side. Of that list I would say only three would be the envy of other clubs, Taylor, Bateman and Bowen.

To me that says our youth system [ican't[/i supply the majority of the team even to the extent we sign some average players who hold down 1st team slots and we also sign young players such as Gelling, Sarginson and Bateman.

I think you are missing Matty Smith and Blake Green from your list here.

Both were good enough to win us the double and play pretty significant roles. They would get in most Super League sides quite easily. Green has just been signed as a starter for Melbourne, and I would have thought that Craig Bellamy is a good judge of a player. We haven't half missed him since his injury.

Smith has improved out of all recognition these past two years. Mentioning him as the best scrum half in Super League might be saying something about the overall standard of the competition and that may be true but that is a seperate argument. He made the dream team last season and this year only Walsh is better.

You might also add Flower to your list, again he would get into most sides.

They were all excellent signings. And the jury is still out on Pettybourne, Clubb and Sarginson. So overall the club have bought well recently. Only Dudson and James have struggled really.

I was going to say that Flower, Smith and Green should all be in that list.

Pettybourne seems to earn praise from half our fans and criticism from the other half, without really doing enough to justify either as yet. Must admit I think Tautai will be a better impact player off the bench and I can't really see room in the 17 for both of them. Clubb has been excellent playing at prop after it became very obvious very quickly he was not a second row. Sarginson has played well although it's difficult to assign him to a position, similar story with Gelling.

Of all the signings we have made the only real disappointment for me has been Dudson. Despite improving his fitness levels he's never really kicked on to become a top quality front rower, and he makes too many errors and gives away too many silly penalties. Lauaki was an odd signing but he didn't do as badly as some make out before leaving under a cloud of off-field problems. Powell was a bit of PR stunt that might have paid off if he wasn't a complete clown. James was only ever going to be used when we had injuries and has generally performed adequately whilst at times being way off the pace.

Not every promsing junior is going to make it as a Wigan, or even SL first teamer. And equally with the SC in place not every player we bring in will be a superstar. We've made a number of long-term project signings in recent years with the thought that getting them to buy in to our culture and work hard would get them to reach their potential. There are question marks still over some of these but others have paid off. I have been very critical of some of our signings/non-signings in the past few years (no direct replacement for Hansen/oversubscribed with props and lack of backrowers/inexperienced left edge after Carmont and Richards left/no quality replacement being sought for Goulding etc), but when you look at our record whilst we've had this recent transfer policy it's difficult to argue with.

Just being pedantic I suppose, I'd add Bateman to the list of getting into other sides. He's been excellent since joining us and whoever sought him out and signed him deserves great praise IMO.

I don't think I am and the double winning side had several other players in it who were top class or certainly better than all bar Taylor, Bowen and Batemen from my list above. I think the three I mentioned as to who other clubs would envy being Taylor, Bowen and Bateman [iwould[/i attract interest whereas the rest range from good pro's to average or even pretty poor (James) and would not. Bar those three I can't see any clubs trying to prise them away from Wigan before their contract is up.

They make take the likes of Flower if out of contract but I think the reality is they, are as I said, a group of players who fall into the good pro and lesser standard. I doubt any of them would find a home in another top four side.

The point though is regardless of our opinions on how good these players are, we do rely on a lot of players we sign. We bang on about how great our youth system is but we have a lot of our top 25 players sourced from outside the club and IMO some of them are pretty average players to boot.

like who? in your opinion btw

Like who what? And btw, it's obvious in discussions like this it is [ieveryone[/i is expressing an opinion so no real need to remind us all.

We have 12 players the club signed who figure regularly in the first team. We rely heavily on players signed not brought through by the club. This is obviously true.

I don't have a problem with it particularly when good players are signed such as Taylor and Bateman as I have never believed we could have an all Wigan produced side. What I am pointing out though is given we have so many players signed from elsewhere our youth system certainly does not stop us signing players as we clearly do and that given some are pretty average our youth system hasn't yet removed the need to sign such players.

I know thats why I asked for your opinion

also you know we had bateman on scholarship...

Remember back in the early-mid 2000s Wigan weren't afraid to move on young players like Robinson, Briscoe, Brown, Aspinwall, and be in the market for blue chip signings like Vaealiki, Moran, O'Neill and Ainscough.

It seems you have lost this ruthless edge in recent years.

1/10
Got to be one of your worst yet!

I just don't get this thread. The salary cap makes a hard limit that a big signing breaks. What this year shows is that a strong squad is better than one or two superstars.

Let's say that Sam was able to command £500k is salary. Would NOT signing him hold Wigan back? Or the reduction in squad size matter more?

without our youth system we would be paying over inflated salaries to journeymen to put a team on the field and be in position 9-12 in the league

Just like the good Dr Cockrash down the road

Apologies. I thought you were having a pop but I also didn't know quite what you meant.



No I didn't know that.

Well I don't know what we pay to the players we signed but we have 12 players signed and I reckon they will regularly be picked before any home grown player and 8 of them although not journeymen are nothing that special.

This is my point. Our production line still hasn't stopped us signing some pretty average players.

the point Dave is that our philosophy has changed with IL. In the past we would have blown the budget on a big name and been left with a weak squad as a whole. We have also been reluctant to give opportunities to young players or develop a youth system to be as strong as possible.
By focussing on youth development we have been able to build a strong, large squad without the need to blow money on big names. The TEAM ethic has meant that often our 1-17play as a unit better than the sum of the parts.
We could not have used this approach without the quality supply of juniors that are able to come in and fit in straight away when injuries dictate.

Exactly, we paid a few players pension plans, granted we had a few gems as well, but we were forced to let go of promising youngsters , some of which came back to haunt us.
The way the present regime is going about things means we have a team ethic carried over from juniors to seniors , as opposed to bedding in overseas seasoned pros.

End of the day our youth system is the envy of a lot of superleague clubs, so why change i?