I know exactly when it was so what your saying is wigan submitted a form to take Jordan on a scholarship at under 16s and Jordan turned it down to stay at wakefield.

Oh he'll, you've worked me out

I think you could probably just stopped at "you can't tell me owt"

Just as a matter of interest did you watch the u19s in the mid sixties, the reason I ask is there won't be that many on here what would be old enough to remember"no sarcasm intended

" but that side of 1965 including the likes of Dave Hawley,John Godfrey, Brian Cooper etc were without doubt a very special team which won the Yorkshire Cup as well as the Wkd and District cup, and only lost one league game away at Leeds John Burke included because nine of the Wakey side were at Hawleys wedding, no way of comparing them but that was some side that.

Played with brian Cooper and one better John polly perkins

I was at school with Brian Cooper, even then he was a great player played loose forward and was school Captain, not been in best of health recently

By the way i know a Ryan Hampshire but dont know if its the same one, anyone know his dads name?

Susan?

Looks like the drinks kicked in, i,ll leave it at that.

mr Hampshire?

No I didn't Chissit, I'm old but not that old



I've no doubt there's been some outstanding youth teams and it'd be no surprise that we had a great youth team during the 60s when Wakefield as a club were the best in the world.

As you say, hard to compare when you haven't actually watched both reams first hand.

Hmmmmm, Ryan Hampshire's dads name?

It's not difficult!

It's a clubs prerogative, in fact it's their duty to try and bring the best players to their club. Sam Tomkins, Charnley, Gildart, Joe Burgess, Manfredi, Williams, Crosby, Sutton, Joel Tomkins, Liam Farrell, O'Loughlin, Shorroks, Connor Farrell and Sam Powell have all come through from junior clubs in the Wigan area.
From outside that area McIlorum, Mossop and Hampshire all came through the academy system.

Maybe at the moment the talent isn't coming through from the junior clubs so Wigan feel a need to look outside. Mopsey will probably have a better view on the current situation regarding the Wigan scouting area than I have, but I do know they look far and wide for talent and that includes Rugby Union and other sports.

Which as you say is their prerogative and perhaps their duty but given the stats above, which aren't hugely different from last year, they can't then champion their area as the best and most proficient for producing Rugby League players.

It won't stop the Sky muppets from lauding the Wigan production line, whilst only telling half the story.

Maybe the Ray French school of commentary could make a comeback, so they're contractually obliged to mention each player's junior club whenever they talk about him?

Normanton Knights under 14s have just finished runners up to Siddal in their appropriate league, I'm not sure how many others have been snapped up by other clubs perhaps Upton Cat will know better than me, but Castleford have taken 3 of their lads on 15s scholarship and Wigan 2 of them, my question is why have Wakefield not been near and offered any of those players the same, especially young Dyson.

Just to reiterate Sam Tomkins, Charnley, Gildart, Joe Burgess, Manfredi, Williams, Crosby, Sutton, Joel Tomkins, Liam Farrell, O'Loughlin, Shorroks, Connor Farrell and Sam Powell have all come through from junior clubs in the Wigan area.
We'll revisit this when the first team squads are announced, but I'm guessing that there will be at least another three or four locally produced players added to the 2016 squad and it'll be the highest percentage of local players in Superleague, and also the lowest number of overseas players.

In an ideal world you would love to have 17 locally produced players, but reality is a different thing.

It's not like the old days where you live and work in the town you were born in.

People commute a lot further than Wigan for every day jobs and many move to go to new jobs.
No different for a rugby player,

I'm not denying the good work that happens at Wigan or any other club - what I'm suggesting is that it becomes received wisdom that they don't hoover up players from other areas when they patently do; the Sky team reinforce it by constantly banging on about 'production lines' at clubs like Leeds and Wigan, but only tell half the story. Wigan were fined for dodgy dealings with junior players this season, and I'll wager it's not the first time.

The wider issue remains the case - junior players would often get a better start to their career at a club that actually needs them; whilst I agree it's very difficult to dissuade a lad (or his Dad) from sending a player to a bigger club, they often don't get the game time or development they need, due to being stuck behind a roster of internationals. The pressure of weekly SL games and the reckless decision to abandon the reserve set-up has only added to that - with young players often seeing intermittent first team action, and/or being farmed out on DR - which harms the game even more, because it displaces the players at the lower league club as well.

It's a bit of a mess - but as long as the RFL keep tinkering around the edges, nothing will change.

Wigan were indeed fined and they then went straight out and tapped up a team of U13s the day after.

The wider wider issue is that these lads at Y10 and Y11 who are in Pro Scholarships are also in the middle of their GCSEs. I know it's partly their choice but dragging these lads over the Pennines at rush hour and them not getting home till gone 10 or 11 OClock at night 2 or 3 times a week is irresponsible of the clubs who do it but more so of the RFL for allowing such disruption to occur.

My lad has just finished u14s season and wakey scouting is very poor.They rarely go to matches and kids are picked up through doing Saturday morning training camps.
Out of this year's batch only 1 kid plays in the top division all the rest come from division 2-4,kids from my lads team who have gone to Leeds not approached because they did not go on camps.
Don't even think Ryan Hudson knows who most kids are as young ens mate was asked what his name was,who he played for and what position he played when they first signed on scholarship.

cannot be bothered to get of his arris and go and look for himself, relying on a phone calls instead. Perhaps if the chairman ever got any spare time he'd address the problem of which certainly needs sorting. He's done okay with most other things let's hope he can sort this out as well.

I could never understand why we had to go to guys who's hearts are at Cas or Fev to fill the various coaching roles (Agar's team??). Hudson was one player I certainly wouldn't have rewarded with a job here after his history.

Meanwhile, Andy Kelly is Head of Youth at Shudds - it's a funny old game.