I understand that you are being mischievous, but, the Salford that GO'B joined wasn't the same version that punished us in last year's SL (hopefully a one off my biggest nightmare). How do you really define "food chain" and how long does it last, could Dwyer and Myler going to Leeds be considered an upgrade for them?

Quote Boss Hog="Boss Hog"Why do Currie and Mike Greg not count?'" Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.

Quote Boss Hog="Boss Hog"Why do Currie and Mike Greg not count?'" Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.

Yeah it all depends. If we go on recent league placing then Salford could argue to be higher up the food chain in 2019. If we ignore league places and go on honours/success then Leeds would be higher up the food chain bringing Dwyer into the question. Myler does not count as he left Warrington to go to Catalans who could not reasonably be counted as higher up the food chain.

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.'" Currie played for Warrington`s 1st team when he was 17, he also watched him play for Warrington`s Academy team prior to that. Mike Gregory was signed from St Pats, I agree. I saw him play for Warrington A team, immediately after he turned pro. Moving from an amateur team and then playing for a professional team`s reserves, was the recognised way of progressing at that time. There was no Academy system in those days He was one of those rare talents that didn`t need much time in the reserve system.

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.'" Currie played for Warrington`s 1st team when he was 17, he also watched him play for Warrington`s Academy team prior to that. Mike Gregory was signed from St Pats, I agree. I saw him play for Warrington A team, immediately after he turned pro. Moving from an amateur team and then playing for a professional team`s reserves, was the recognised way of progressing at that time. There was no Academy system in those days He was one of those rare talents that didn`t need much time in the reserve system.

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.'" Currie was only ever at Wigan in the Scholarship system wasn't he? I thought we were the first club he signed terms with as a 16 year old, therefore he came through our academy surely?

Quote Wires71="Wires71"Currie came through the Wigan system, signed when he was 18. https://www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2010 ... -close-win Mike Greg signed pro at 18 direct from Wigan St Pats and into the 1st team in 1982 aged 18. I am asking which player have we had go through our youth set up start to finish and achieve international honours. I can think of Mike Cooper who was on our books from 11.'" Currie was only ever at Wigan in the Scholarship system wasn't he? I thought we were the first club he signed terms with as a 16 year old, therefore he came through our academy surely?

I think arguing too much about who was produced by where is missing the bigger picture. It's having access to quality players from your youth system. If you sign a player aged 18 from another team's youth system and he goes on to be a great player you get the benefit, they don't. It's like when people get stressed about whether a player was born in Warrington or Wigan or if he was born in Newton-le-Willows does this count as home grown or not. Arsenal picked up Cesc Fabregas from Barcelona as a 15 year old and they got the benefit of him for a while so anyone meeting the Fabregas criteria counts as home grown.



So unlike Wires71 I count Mike Gregory and Ben Currie as home grown for this purpose, but his point is still right. How many in the past 30 years? Basically the only decent players with any longevity are Paul Wood and Chris Riley and even they aren't international class. Ben Currie had about 18 months as a top player and then since injury he hasn't been the same.



Also its not just about comparing us to Wigan, Saints and Leeds who are ahead of everyone, but compare us to Wakefield, Castleford, Hull, Salford. We're behind all of them too. And for years we've been hearing about how promising our future is with all this talent stacked up in the teenage age groups and none of them ever go on to do anything, including with other clubs. If we were producing lots of talent that we were releasing and they were going on to join other clubs and become top players then we could say the problem was in bringing talent in to the first team, but it's not, it's not having the talent coming through.

Basically, if you have a young player coming through who looks like a great talent and you really want to keep them, but you are unable to keep them because another club can offer them more money/opportunities to win things, then it's a food chain situation.



Harris, Sculthorpe, Kohe-Love, Fozzard were all players we wanted to keep but we weren't as good a prospect as the clubs chasing them at the time.



Myler and Dwyer were more players that for salary cap reasons or whatever we allowed to move on. Similar to when Mark Hilton signed for Wigan after we released him following him breaking his arm.



Or looking at players coming to us: Westwood, Atkins, Myler, Ratchford were players coming up the food chain. Briers wasn't, he was allowed to leave to get more first team action with us like GOB moving to Salford.

I can't be doing with Emoji's, so my reply would still be the same, but if I've missed your point CH, then what was it?



It would be great to unearth the likes of Sculthorpe (Paul, not Danny) or Harris again, yet I'd hate to think of us selling them off. However, there's a few from Bradford who wished they hadn't bought Harris.

It was “tongue in cheek”, given they were 2 of the best players of 5heir generation (domestically).

Remember we were supposed to be in the running to sign Harris back when he came back from Welsh RU.



There was even a 'fake news' press release doing the rounds that tricked some people in the media, with a mock up of Iestyn's head photoshopped on Mark Hilton's body so it looked like he was wearing a Wire kit.

Quote Boss Hog="Boss Hog"Currie played for Warrington`s 1st team when he was 17, he also watched him play for Warrington`s Academy team prior to that. Mike Gregory was signed from St Pats, I agree. I saw him play for Warrington A team, immediately after he turned pro. Moving from an amateur team and then playing for a professional team`s reserves, was the recognised way of progressing at that time. There was no Academy system in those days He was one of those rare talents that didn`t need much time in the reserve system.'" Yes, sorry I was wrong on the dates for Ben. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... er-league/ [iSigning with Wolves: I was with Wigan Scholarship from aged 12 to 16 and then had the choice of several Super League clubs. My dad and I had a look around the clubs that made offers and we both thought Warrington was best [/i If he was in the first team at 17, I think it's fair to say his substantive development was from 12-16 at Wigan. Yes Mike Greg was a rare talent indeed and again could not be considered a "product" of any Warrington youth development because as you say there was no system in place. So how many international class players have we produced since we tried developing our own players?

Quote Boss Hog="Boss Hog"Currie played for Warrington`s 1st team when he was 17, he also watched him play for Warrington`s Academy team prior to that. Mike Gregory was signed from St Pats, I agree. I saw him play for Warrington A team, immediately after he turned pro. Moving from an amateur team and then playing for a professional team`s reserves, was the recognised way of progressing at that time. There was no Academy system in those days He was one of those rare talents that didn`t need much time in the reserve system.'" Yes, sorry I was wrong on the dates for Ben. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/sp ... er-league/ [iSigning with Wolves: I was with Wigan Scholarship from aged 12 to 16 and then had the choice of several Super League clubs. My dad and I had a look around the clubs that made offers and we both thought Warrington was best [/i If he was in the first team at 17, I think it's fair to say his substantive development was from 12-16 at Wigan. Yes Mike Greg was a rare talent indeed and again could not be considered a "product" of any Warrington youth development because as you say there was no system in place. So how many international class players have we produced since we tried developing our own players?

I think this area is very important though as it's indicative of our ability of top talent identification at an early age (wherever they live), ability to compete with rival clubs for said top talent to recruit them and then the ability to develop them into top class players. We are not good at this, no point in ignoring the fact, we need to address it.