Quote Winslade's Offload="Winslade's Offload"None, I am not disagreeing with anything you have said, I am simply musing about the number of players we have produced over the past 6 years. I am wondering if we should / could have produced more quality players.
Thanks to Mr Moran's largesse, we have essentially 'bought' a team. And I don't believe that is sustainable, or a good model going forward. We don't wan't to rely on a benefactor to buy players when needed, as he may withdraw at some point. If he does go, even if the club remains successful, we will still have a limited purse to buy new players. So that places increasing importance on the youth training program, which was why your first list of players set me thinking.
Whilst I enjoy watching the Under X's, I am a realist as well. I understand that the vast majority of these players will not make the grade. I am keen though for the club to play the more promising players. We need to know if they are good enough or not. And if they are, they need game time to develop. When we buy in the Hicks's and Kings, we sometimes forget that they too had to serve an apprentice to get to that standard of rugby. We have simply by-passed the hard work and frustration of seeing them make errors, by buying them close to their peak.'"
I don't get this argument that it costs more to bring players in from outside than it does to bring them through your academy. It's only relevant if you are talking transfer fees - which to be fair, Simon Moran has paid for us for some players, but others just signed on free transfers when out of contract.
Remember a couple of years ago Stefan Ratchford came through the ranks at Salford and they had to offer him "the best contract in Salford's history" and he still didn't stay, he moved to us. What would it have cost Salford to keep him? Was that sustainable?
Sam Tomkins has come through the ranks at Wigan but we keep hearing how Wigan won't be able to compete with what he can get offered in the NRL/RU etc? Producing players of Tomkins' quality is obviously not sustainable for Wigan unless they can keep him.
Being sustainable isn't about how many top young players you produce, its about the club being self sustaining financially with good gates, merchandising, sponsorship and a business plan. If you have good players coming through but don't have that then you can just admire them playing in other clubs jerseys like we did Harris and Sculthorpe, and Wakefield did Westwood and Ellis etc.
So if we are dependent on Simon Moran pumping money in and the club is not able to generate its own revenues, thats a problem, no matter whether we have the best youth system in rugby league, they aren't staying around Warrington.
