Wakefield academy squad from 1999 (cheers WT Heritage)

I'm sure I heard somebody say that at the meeting last week? or was I imagining it??

Wow!
Could do with a piece in Wakey Express showing this and promoting club lottery and it's potential.

Weren't they the group that John Harbin brought through and most went on the working holiday to Australia with him

Whilst it's great to stuff that one into peoples faces when they make these comments, I am more excited to see which of the current junior set up are going to be on a similar list in 15 years time!

Think it was the old failed regime .....

Just have to look in 15yrs then.

but I think it will be far sooner.

www.wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/news ... t/2013/09/ Lets hope a number from this lot can make as much impact on the pro game. I have to say it all sounds impressive. A gentle reminder of how important Club1873 is. Even if the RFL do increase the non-fed limit I hope Trinity dont forsake the younger players at the club.

www.wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/news ... t/2013/09/ Lets hope a number from this lot can make as much impact on the pro game. I have to say it all sounds impressive. A gentle reminder of how important Club1873 is. Even if the RFL do increase the non-fed limit I hope Trinity dont forsake the younger players at the club.

It's exactly what we need. Keep the Club 1873 funding expanding, and we offer something brilliant to these lads for their future, whether they turn out to be the next Gaz Ellis or not.

It's a great thing the club have introduced here. Happy to be signed up.

Wasn't Chris Feather part of that 1999 squad?

Talking with a lad at work and he got talking to a wigan talent spotter and asked how much it saved bringing youth through and was told half a million when you think if you bring an ozzie or kiwi over there is a house to provide car for him and her and school for any children etc.I bet thats not far away and one reason we should be putting more effort into the youth set up and lets face it we have brought some cracking players through over the years.

Interesting watching the varying performances of our former academy products in last night's Wire v Shudds.
Westwood and Broughy standing out. Ferguson showing both good and bad touches.
Murphy and Wood pretty poor. Murphy's cough up at the end really took the momentum away from Shudds when they looked like snatching it. Nice one Smurph.

In his defence Murphy has been great this season.
He did good things in the game too.

Smurphs been superb at time this season and all credit to him.

WWWW will have been in tears last night no doubt.

Bringing your own players through has never been more important than now.

We can no longer compete with Rugby Union or the NRL and a club like Wakefield can't compete with other Rugby League clubs, so where do we get our players and future stars from.

A sustainable youth programme is essential to us, we need to underwrite it and invest in it every year, it can't be the first overhead that we cut every time we need to trim our spending. To do so is tantamount to strangling our future teams at birth and so short sighted it borders on incompetent.

Trevor Baileys team produced Spencer, Conway, Price etc but many more from that team were let down by the lack of funds and development available at the club. Then Harbins team produced Feather, Brough, Ellis, Westwood followed by Tony Drury and Richard Hampshires team which produced Wildey, Walshaw, Cowling, Anakin etc who should be the core of our 1st team but were again let down by lack of funds to keep them developing after their GF winning season.

We need to provide a consistent high quality, cutting edge and efficient youth programme full of excellence and we need to do it year in, year out. Once players reach the age where they leave the youth system we need to continue to invest in them until they either make it or it becomes apparent they won't.

In doing this we eventually, through time, will become recognised as somewhere that players get a great Rugby League education and are developed in all aspects of the game physical, mental, tactics, tech etc. if that were achieved long term we would attract better juniors even if we aren't the most glamourous club offering the most money.
I'm not saying we'll get them all but the odd one or two that we wouldn't normally have a chance with just might opt for us.

We've let so so many potentially good players down by short sighted lack of investment in youth programmes it's frightening, maddening and frustrating and you have to feel for the lads who've strived to make a career and haven't reached their potential through no fault of their own.

That said, 1873 Club has helped us make a start and things are looking bright, let's just hope we sustain it.

How many from the Grand Final winning squad a few years back made it?

I absolutely agree with everything you say there Clan, but it is only half the story.
If we invest in the youth we could have the best young players in the game.

However, if we don't invest in the top team, we will not be able to either keep them from a money point of view, or a career development point of view.
We'll just be a really good feeder club to Huddersfield.

Money is key in all this unfortunately, and the balance between current success and future success is a difficult job.
I hope we get our optimum point out of our money but we will not have an academy like Leeds or Wigan without investment at both top and bottom......imho.

quite a few have played first team, quite a few were let go. when we talk of players making it they made it at wtw level. they won the grand final but we as a club shunted there further development, we signed products from other clubs accdemies who wernt as good as ours. we want players coming through at the highest level who can quite easily fit into a leeds or sts or wire team, then were producing good players. in the run in when we won the grand final we played leeds at stanningley. tom harrington smashed watkins to bits that night, watkins now an international, harrington dont no to be honest. we have got to be smarter, was grayson better than mathers, cowling better than mellers, annekin better than howarth, imo yes. we need a mixture in our club but we need players back at the club like rich slater, nigel bell, johnny t. billy conway. they were wakefield lads and they sweated blood for the club. we cant give local kids hope then take it away.

I agree with everything you say Clan, but have picked out the most important bit IMO.
Not only is it about cost, it's about having a "Feasible Plan". WTW don't spend enough time in schools, Castleford have very strong links with a number of schools in the town, this gives the kids the feeling that RL is the best sporting option in Castleford, in Wakefield we have lots of amateur RL teams but some of them are really struggling for players to have teams at all age groups, which is paramount for bringing through as many kids as possible, there just doesn't seem to be the same interest from kids in Wakefield as there is in Castleford,. Take the High school teams, Cas High have a number of teams for boys "and" girls and are regularly seeing success on the highest stage from these teams, the cas amateur teams don't struggle for numbers at all age groups anywhere near as much as in Wakefied as there is a lot of interest in RL in the Town.
The interest needs stimulating and re-enforcing, it stands to reason, the more kids we have involved in RL the more chance of us finding the next Ellis/Brough/Conway/Price etc, make the connections with the schools stronger, get more kids playing RL then reap the rewards, Cas's academy has also produce a good number of current SL players and they also have some very good players now coming through their ranks

Glad you mentioned cas financial the team mopseys talking about gave a cas side that included current super league players Joe Arundel jordan Thompson Adam milner and oliver Holmes a bit of a thrashing

Mitchell Stringer was also with us around that time and he has just been voted the Championship player of the season

This quote is a perfect example of how a club like Wakefield should be using the franchise system to develop their juniors, without the pressure of relegation.
Unfortunately we have chose to ignore our own in favour of players from outside the club, as someone has mentioned, are no better than what we have.
Everyone wants to watch a winning team but you are not going to get that overnight at Trin and if you did we may end up in financial trouble!!
Promotion and relegation is back and it will now be even harder for a club like Wakefield to blood juniors.
When we got our license at the expense of Crusaders, this was the time to start the development as not too much would have been expected from the team.

Thanks for that. I said at the time I was worried that too much emphasis was being put on winning the Grand Final, rather than the real reason for having academies which is producing SL quality players for the club. The trophy is worthless.

Very much this.

youve got to remember that no club is going to get it right on young players all the time. when ryan signed at wigan he was told that point blank that not everyone made it at wigan but if they did leave they would leave a better player than when they came to the club, that for me is how it should be. when i look at players to recommend the first thing i do is look at their leg speed cause if they aint gone none its throwing cash down the bog. this applies to all positions size or ability. in certain cases this should be identied that they have no chance of making it there and well develop him as a hooker say. when lucas walshaw was coming through he was a big raw boned kid, great in his running but when he made a tackle you could turn a boat round quicker. never been worked on reset speed. annekin massive work rate run threw walls but small side, hands hands hands hooker roll. when you watch 19s rugby look at speed and think can they step up 1 out of 10 yes more lucky.

Some will make it some won't.....it's such a crucial period and a period we as a club need to be doing everything we can to nurture their talents....

I've watched quite a lot of the young ones come through.....right back to the ones who have gone on to do great things.....the Westwood's....Ellis's.....Brough's.....etc......you could see in all those three they were going to be very good players......what have they done different to others who did't quite kick on though, and what can our club do?

Two players I could throw in to try and make the point are....

Tommy Haughey...

Probably the player of the season in the team that pushed the great Leeds academy team all the way.....watched about 75% of the game that season i'd say and I never saw another player around as good......was a fantastic runner with the ball....ran all the right angles and used to break the line for fun......from how good he was back then to where he is now must go down as disappointing.....

The 2nd one is Chris Annakin.....

Maybe a bit more time and still the chance to do well, but in that team that won the Grand Final i'd say Chris was the type of player Haughey was previously......looked a stand out week in week out and broke the line for fun....looked an absolute powerhouse at academy level, and if I remember rightly was a year younger than the rest?....

The question is though, what, if anything can the club do with players like this to carry their academy form through the ranks of the first team? Is it just a simple case that some won't make the step up no matter what the club do for them, or are they being failed in some way?

Maybe the likes of Mopsey.....the Clan would have a better idea?