Well having plenty of one to one conversations with MC on a regular basis, he knows me quite well, as a chairman of one of Trinity's ambassador clubs, a player in the PDRL team and joint assistant manager of both the PDRL & LDRL teams I have a pretty good understanding as to how RL works in the real world right now and don't base my knowledge on 45 year old memories


BTW "Mal" is reference to a rugby league legend, I thought anyone with such high rugby knowledge as yourself would have picked up on that

I know who Mal Reilly is. I've met him a few times. Thanks for your up to date advice Michael. As I say, I wish your son well. I hope he appreciates your 'support'.

But the CEO is OK with your comments?
He's discussing a subject raised by someone else. Leave him to do that.

FT leave it alone now. You are both randomly taking the others post out of context and weirdly SC now switching it to Carter.
The thread is about Innes Senior. Let's leave it that way.

Cas have finished bottom two last two years in academy

Apologies for trying to add some balance to the negative clique that now control this forum. I'll move on again, as has Michael Carter already, I believe.

Don’t why MC has been brought into it AGAIN. I imagine the only control he’d have on a signing is the money. Other than that, it’s all Chester.

See ya then.

That’s a different issue. Not every batch works that is the nature of youth RL. They pay more money than we do. It’s not as though I’m not echoing what the club often states.

Academy RL is not about league position and never has been, it’s about spotting individuals. We won the Academy about 12 years ago and they were a really good team but none really made it. People will argue as to who’s fault it was but truth is quality will nearly always get through.

On the other hand Johnstone, Crowther, Jowitt and Batchelor all came through via some very unremarkable youth teams.

Fact is Cas, Leeds and you lot snap up what appear to be the best 15+ year olds at the time and we don’t. Luckily though that’s no guarantee of success. What remains true though is that those young men are physically ahead and that issue generally doesn’t resolve itself until most players are 21+. Hence why I think our juniors are generally not ready for first team as quick as those from some other clubs.

It’s just an opinion I can’t back it up with data I just suspect I’m right.

99% of the best 15 year olds in the region are monitored by us and are approached by us when the scholarship time arrives but they are obviously also monitored by other clubs even ones on the dark side of the Pennines. We do our utmost to get the best we can but most choose the glamorous clubs and often are got by shall I say,not following recruiting procedures which we cannot match . The good lads we do get have over the past few years have been cracking players. This pandemic as knocked clubs back massively especially this years recruitment and the scholarship and reserve grades not being played so youth coaches need big wraps to get it back on track in the future.

Apart from Milner and Clarke who was last one to come through at cas and be a regular? You can’t say true man as they took him from bulls

Oli Holmes

Same intake they are all 27/28 who else ?

So those 3 10 yrs out of the academy since then who?

You don’t seem to get it do you. The issue is not how many make it but how soon they get a chance.

Sometimes you get a glut then you get none for ages.

We’ve had a good run in the last few years but we may not get any for a while. How well our academy does in the league will probably have no correlation to how many make it.

What will remain pretty constant is that physically our youngsters will be a year or so behind the average. Obviously there will be exceptions but generally that will be us.

Excellent move for Innes and the Giants, i really hope Chester plays him rather than just making up squad numbers as he needs some game time and looking at your squad there doesn't seem to be much competition for him, he's behind McGillvary, Mcintosh and his brother at the moment for a wing spot so we need him ready should we need him.

As for someone (Poptart?) saying "Throwing them in the deep end is a sure fire way if killing your kids.
You develop them and bring them in when they are ready."

I disagree, Huddersfield have Louis (and Innes to a point) Senior, Jake Wardle, Darnell McIntosh, Ollie Russell, Sam Hewitt, Oliver Wilson, Matty English, Jon Luke Kirby and Sam Wood who are all now regular starters or 21-man squad members not forgetting Jermaine McGillvary and Michael Lawrence many years ago who were all 'thrown in at the deep end' at the time and they aren't doing too badly for the experience.
In fact 9 of our match day 17 last week were all 'thrown in at the deep end' and ran Warrington's mega bucks stars all the way.

Either Wakefield choose not to play their youngsters or they thiink they aren't good enough, you'll never know till they are thrown in.

I think it’s great that clubs produce their own players and bring them through, I think it’s what the game needs. We simply waste too much money on overseas players who mostly are no better than we’ve got over here and waste it on old players coming to the end. Your youngsters are very promising. Do you think the coaching at your club can take them to the next level and take your club to the next level and Do you think any could maybe push on to be top class players. This is a major problem in our game they seem to come through then never improve.

I said from the 1st few games i saw Matty English, Jake Wardle and Darnell Mcintosh that they would make it to the top (as i did when Jake Connor was coming through our system), i still think that, they are up there already with some more experienced, older players around the league.

I think the problem with progressing is there is too much expectation on young players, especially at the bigger clubs where they play 4 or 5 1st team games, are bigged up as the next best thing, usually by Sky which is then picked up by fans and then suddenly there is huge expectation on them, there's already talk of the young lads at Wigan being shoe-ins for the world cup which is a bit silly as they still haven't established themselves yet, we tend to let them go at their own pace and develop naturally, but then again Sky never big up youngsters from our type of clubs until they are actually established. Don't forget up until 5 years ago the suggestion of Jermaine McGillvary being picked for England was laughed at as he was 'nowhere near international standard' even though those of us who'd watched him all through his career knew he was good, very good at the time but he hadn't had the 'sky big club treatment', once he actually got in it was like 'whoa where has this guy been, never knew he was this good' etc, all perception due to the club he played for, Eorl Crabtree was similar as i guess Tom Johnstone was for you guys.

We have been lucky at Huddersfield with our academy set up benefitting from going full-time a few years ago to getting Andy Kelly in as coach/manager then Chris Thorman/Luke Robinson/Scott Grix as U19 coaches, when you have talented players learning from blokes like that it can only be a good thing and with Robbo now Assistant coach he's the perfect man to assess who the next academy product is going to be, Simon Woolford trusts him and has no issue with putting any of them in.
We also hve a great background team from talent spotters to conditioners etc and the club ethos that the 1st team and Academy train together and do things together as a group rather than seperate entities.

I don't know what the junior set-up is at Wakey or how much emphasis the club puts on it but i know we decided a few years ago that developing our own was the way to go and it appears it's bearing fruit now, we've also had 2 of our kids signed by Canberra raiders already despite only 1 1st team game betwen them.
As for Innes, i hope he goes all the way to the top, he's a smashing lad and a very talented big lad, it's just a shame he can't get in our team every week as he needs to be playing to develop further.

Didn’t do too bad yesterday if no centres back next week would put him there

I agree. Thought he had a really good game.
He gets a shirt next week no matter who is fit.

Would have loved to see him complete that half break when he put a half foot on the line.

You'd think he would have been more familiar with that pitch width?

Hello WW, thank you for your pm, I’ve tried to reciprocate, but apparently your message settings may be set incorrectly to receive messages

Hope he has`nt got a long term injury . although we only have him for a month. Hes a good lad who looks for work and isnt phased by any opposition. played well against Wire until turning his ankle.

Agree, played well today

I agree. Comes out with a lot of credit so far.