It always happens at every club. You can't just assume every player who looks good at age group will be good when playing against professionals.

Just think of the Billy Conway team. He and Gary Spencer were great for the club but most of the others didn't make it. Potts was ok for a while but the other forwards just weren't physically able.
If you read Kris Radlinski's book he says he wasn't regarded as the best in his group and was only offered amateur forms when others were given professional contracts. None of the ones who were regarded as better made it.
It's just the way it is.

I suppose things that distract lads in their late teen affects budding RL players too, sometimes extremely talented players lose their way with off filed distractions where as the less regarded youngsters knuckle down and make it..

I could name a few 'established' players who are currently playing in Super League!

Indeed, but they have reputation to fall back on, even if the last decent game they produced was years back.

Potts is a good example. Outstanding in the colts and top try scorer in that league by a distance. Think you're being kind by saying he was OK for a while. The writing was on the wall when he turned out for the 1st team with a Mohican hair cut!

Steve Potts dislocated his shoulder in the first few minutes of his debut, a clear example of pushing a young and promising player into 1st team duties too early.

Quite a few of those lads never got considered because of a personal feud between the incumbant coach and Trevor Bailey, Rob Moules is the prime example. He was by far and away better than most other scrum halfs that were with the club for aperiod of about 7 years yet because he was the product of Trevor Bailey's coaching a certain Trinity coach refused to play him.

I could tell a few stories about this but, out of respect, I won't!

There are the obvious exeptions being Gary Spencer, Billy Conway and Garry Price but by and large the other players were never given a decent chance.

One other player who would have certainly made it was Mark Wild, a strong, fast and elusive centre who suffered life threatening injuries when working on a crane which collapsed from under him.

This is exactly where the British system falls down. The step up is too great.

Wakefield have a core of good young lads but winning Academy trophies etc means nothing in my opinion. Its nice for the lads and loyal spectators but the entire system should be aimed at increasing the chances of providing pathways for Young British talent to become established SL players.

Given this fact I am glad to see some clubs take full advantage of the duel registration system and wonder why Wakefield are not getting more of these youngster out to NL clubs. If they are not good enough to be tested in the NL at 18/19/20, it is highly unlikely they are ever going to be good enough for SL.

You put those Academy winning 18's into SL the following season they would get murdered, but they need a step up to bridge the gap which it seems they are not getting at Trinity at the moment.

I totally agree.

I don't agree the academy trophy means nothing, but I do agree once they reach that level that dual contract will do them good.

I mean in the grand scheme of things. Give me an Academy set up that produces 2 or 3 good squad players a year over a set up that wins the junior trophies but produces non.

For me the emphasis has to be to player production not winning.

And I may I add I take nothing away from the Trinity Academy side that won the title, they were a joy to watch and it was thoroughly deserved, its just frustrating to not see them kick on seemingly to get closer to being SL standard players.