Re: Innes Senior : Sat Aug 22, 2020 10:16 am
MOPSEY LIVES ON wrote:
I think it’s great that clubs produce their own players and bring them through, I think it’s what the game needs. We simply waste too much money on overseas players who mostly are no better than we’ve got over here and waste it on old players coming to the end. Your youngsters are very promising. Do you think the coaching at your club can take them to the next level and take your club to the next level and Do you think any could maybe push on to be top class players. This is a major problem in our game they seem to come through then never improve.
I said from the 1st few games i saw Matty English, Jake Wardle and Darnell Mcintosh that they would make it to the top (as i did when Jake Connor was coming through our system), i still think that, they are up there already with some more experienced, older players around the league.
I think the problem with progressing is there is too much expectation on young players, especially at the bigger clubs where they play 4 or 5 1st team games, are bigged up as the next best thing, usually by Sky which is then picked up by fans and then suddenly there is huge expectation on them, there's already talk of the young lads at Wigan being shoe-ins for the world cup which is a bit silly as they still haven't established themselves yet, we tend to let them go at their own pace and develop naturally, but then again Sky never big up youngsters from our type of clubs until they are actually established. Don't forget up until 5 years ago the suggestion of Jermaine McGillvary being picked for England was laughed at as he was 'nowhere near international standard' even though those of us who'd watched him all through his career knew he was good, very good at the time but he hadn't had the 'sky big club treatment', once he actually got in it was like 'whoa where has this guy been, never knew he was this good' etc, all perception due to the club he played for, Eorl Crabtree was similar as i guess Tom Johnstone was for you guys.
We have been lucky at Huddersfield with our academy set up benefitting from going full-time a few years ago to getting Andy Kelly in as coach/manager then Chris Thorman/Luke Robinson/Scott Grix as U19 coaches, when you have talented players learning from blokes like that it can only be a good thing and with Robbo now Assistant coach he's the perfect man to assess who the next academy product is going to be, Simon Woolford trusts him and has no issue with putting any of them in.
We also hve a great background team from talent spotters to conditioners etc and the club ethos that the 1st team and Academy train together and do things together as a group rather than seperate entities.
I don't know what the junior set-up is at Wakey or how much emphasis the club puts on it but i know we decided a few years ago that developing our own was the way to go and it appears it's bearing fruit now, we've also had 2 of our kids signed by Canberra raiders already despite only 1 1st team game betwen them.
As for Innes, i hope he goes all the way to the top, he's a smashing lad and a very talented big lad, it's just a shame he can't get in our team every week as he needs to be playing to develop further.
