you still managed to squeeze 9 foreigners in there thought too

No they don't do they! They only have (Ainscough apart but I could have mentioned Prescott/Hansen in his place) 40/50 and in Goulding/Tomkins & O'Carroll instance Nearly double that, 1st team appearances by the time their 21


Now we can go back over the last 5/6/7 years and look at the likes of O'Loughlin/Aspinwall/Wild/Briscoe/Robinson/Hodgson/Brown/Beswick/M.Smith/P Johnson/Hock And many more who all had 50+ appearances by the time they were 21ish under their belts.

Now I Thank You for admitting that your own club has it's overpaid imports and i wish others would follow your lead, However, The continual MYTH that our youngsters don't get opportunities isnt as simple as it seems.

The trouble with a club like Wigan is the expectation level, Nearly all of the above have been given the opportunities but unfortunately, most of them werent up to it.
Some may disagree with that but at the time hardly anyone would have disagreed with the release of most of the those that went (If they are honest and don't speak with hindsight etc) and the reason they went is that they couldn't make it to the Top Level.
This is where I then go on stony ground becauise at some clubs that expectancy level isnt there and the kids can come in, play games with little or no pressure or expectation level, and if the club comes bottom 2 or 3 no-one blames the kids or expects anymore from them.
At Wigan it is totally different!
Most, and I include myself, have or will be Hyper critical of EVERY player at Wigan due to the expectation level of the club and it's fans.
2nd (and the last 2xyears have almost proved this) or 3rd will not do and the continual change within the club to achieve Short term goals sometimes hinders Youth development and/or means players are released slightly early to achieve this.
Couple that with the sheer quantity of Youth that comes through the Wigan ranks and it's no wonder that this Myth Perpetuates!

Where Wigan have failed IMHO is picking up quality English players from other clubs and that is where the Imports have taken over Wigan.
Since 95/96 at the end of Robinsons Tenure there were many quality players on the market that went on to form the backbone of other clubs or were the icing on the cake for other clubs such as Harris/Sculthorpes/Newlove/Senior/Ellis of this world etc

Other clubs such as Saints have produced very little Youth (Again despite the Myth that surrounds them that says they do) over the last 7/8 years yet they have been successful in attracting other clubs players/Youth to their club and fitting them into a side that has had a Constant backbone through it for the last 10 seasons.

When Wigan had that Backbone (Faz,Rads,O'Connor/Cassidy/Connolly etc) Saints couldnt win a game against us for 3 years or so and these players were supplemented by the Wild's/Robinsons/Hodgson/Asoinwall's/Brown etc

When the backbone left, they couldnt step up.

Good post.

However it won't make a bit of difference to the intellectually challenged who like to jump on a bandwagon regardless of the truth.

In my opinion something is inatley wrong with Wigans ability to develop top quality players and you highlighting these results is a great example of it.

Wigan have always had very strong youth teams, they are always there or there abouts when it comes to the silverware, but this does not follow with returns of top quality players at first team level. We seem to generate a quantity of players capable of playing first team, but very very few in recent years bring with them the quality and pedegree we see from them in Junior rugby.


I await someone to mention the John Monie quote, but i think it is somewhat dated now and even if it were relivant we simply do not see 2 quality players produced every year, infact we rarely see 1.

The quality in the junior ranks is scary, but it rarely kicks on to make its potential in my opinion.

The Academy/Reserves for me is not about winning every game or winning silverware at the end of the season, truth be told i could not care less, in real terms it means sod all, the junior set up is about producing top quality players that can help the club at first team level succeed.

Given the talent pool at our dispolsal i think the returns are not acceptable, we continue to hear of this great talent for the future but it rarely comes to fruition which is a concern. Hopefully the accelerated development programme will help this, but i think it is more to do with a culture at the club which will take more than this programme to change.