Rumours 2

Re: Rumours 2 : Wed Jan 08, 2020 12:55 pm

Over the period 2004-2016 (13 years) we had a total of 32 academy players making a SL debut. Rating them is difficult and we would never agree on a list of the best products. Perhaps a fairer way of looking at their value might be to set a figure of say 100 SL games played for the club ? If we did that we would end up with;

Chris Riley 181
Ben Harrison 211
Mike Cooper 219
Rhys Evans. 105
Ben Currie 161
Joe Philbin. 120
Dec. Patton 102

Even here there are anomalies as I would say both Evans and Patton have benefited from a lack of quality players in SL available to take their place. Notable exceptions to the list are Brad Dwyer (who must have played over a total of 100 SL games if you include his Leeds stint) and Toby King who will surely reach 100 by the end of the 2020 season. If Laithwaite hadn't been plagued with injuries I suspect he too would have got into the list. But overall, I would have to say that other than Currie, we have not really seen any stand out players in the Sculthorpe /Harris bracket. I think what is very obvious though is the decline in available talent pool for SL, perhaps typified by Rhys Williams getting back to SL with Salford and Kevin Penny making a return with us.

According to SL stats published a few years back, out of a SL Academy intake, only 2 youngsters will make it through to SL standard. From our 32 academy players I would say 16-17 could be said to have played at SL standard for a reasonable period - but we should have seen 26, so we are behind the curve in comparison to other clubs. Similarly, if you look at the '100 club' above you would probably say we have really only produced 5 good quality players that have featured regularly in our 1st 17.

Where have we gone wrong ? Is it lack of intake quality to the Academy or the standard of coaching and training facilities ? As already pointed out, if the coaching was mediocre then there would surely be some players that left the Academy and flourished elsewhere, but that has not happened. Also, we seem to change the Academy head coach every 2-3 years, so you would have thought that at least one of them would have made a difference or that we would have seen years where good quality youngsters came through. So the most likely cause (for me) is the intake, and in the past, having insufficient numbers of youngsters playing in the locality could well have been the most damaging factor.