Re: Club Statement : Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:41 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

I remember 4 to 5 years ago McManus made a statement that the future of the club was a 5 year plan to invest in youth to maintain our standing in the game.
Unfortunately as we already know this has failed due to the inability to develop our potential young players into the final phase step up to Superleague. The clubs "achilles heal" is the failure rate of the youth and the the substitution of average overseas players.
When you look at the youth of Smith, Eastmond, Tyrer, Ashurst, Wheeler, Dean,Lomax, Gaskell, Emmitt, Dixon, Clough etc etc we are very poor in that only Lomax has progressed through to standard.
We need the right structure in place similar to Leeds and Wigan to bring our next crop of young players through, the question is do we have anything in place to develop and be more productive instead of this wastage that we see today.

Like I said at the time and constantly said ever since, you've got to get very lucky to develop a team of home grown players. Leeds did it and I think Wigan might do it but its a massive massive risk and if its fails......well you get a team like we have now.

Re: Club Statement : Wed Jul 03, 2013 12:32 pm  

Carlos Alberto wrote:

Brown needs time, and some fresh faces. However, the new contracts for Ade, Wellens and Laffranchi and rumours of a new deal for LMS have shown McManus' comments to be somewhat empty and hypocritical.

This.

Well, mostly this. I think LMS puts in the effort and will improve - he's got the ability, he's just having a season of brainfarts, possibly because he feels like he has to do the job of two props.

There was nothing wrong with the plan to bring through homegrown players, but we've had rank bad luck. Some players just haven't kicked on and become SL standard, others have had *issues*, whilst the ace in the pack got his head turned by the posh blokes.

Perry, Hohaia and Laffranchi were all great signings on paper, but in reality have been huge flops.

We had a good few years where most gambles the club made paid off (no, not talking about Long's/Gleeson's bookie exploits before anyone starts). McRae & Millward were both unknowns. Long was unproven talent. We rescued Lyon from the equivalent of the Football Conference. Etc, etc, etc.

On top of all this, the RFL, in its infinite arsewittery, changed the rules/interpretation to slow the game down, which nullified a lot of the basis of our gameplan. That meant having to rethink our tactics & personnel.

I do think the club's heirarchy have taken their eye off the ball a bit, but not to the extent that some on here claim.

Our problems are mostly down to bad luck.

However.... like plenty on here have said, there needs to be a clear-out of the deadwood. Laffranchi was solid enough in his first year but has been abysmal this season. Waste of salary cap, waste of quota space. It should be "thanks, but see ya". Gardner has been nothing special for years. We could count on one hand the number of times he's tried to take an opponent on round the outside, let alone beat them. We can do better from the Academy. Wellens, club legend for sure, just isn't good enough in any one position anymore. The FB role has evolved, he's not got either skills nor the pace to play in the halves, and he's not physically dominant enough for the pack.

Fans are restless now, and I welcome the comments from McManus. But, like you say, if the club re-sign Laffranchi, Gardner & Wellens then we can all know that his words are hollow, and that we're going to be served up more dross on the pitch in 2014. That should get the fans in open revolt.

I really don't want this to happen, but the only way McManus is going to take the disgruntlement of the fans seriously and start listening to our grievances is if attendances fall away to below 10k next season.

Re: Club Statement : Wed Jul 03, 2013 12:43 pm  

Just tedious club spin from Eamon. Don't at all agree with many of his points.

Is it mere co-incidence that Huddersfield have been on an upward curve since Brown left, and we've gone backwards ever since he joined?

If our squad is as good as any, why are we playing rubbish and languishing in 8th?

If Brown is the answer then what is the question??


The man isn't rated. Get rid.

Re: Club Statement : Wed Jul 03, 2013 3:55 pm  

The list of younger players at your place who do not appear to have developed fully is worrying.
Eastmond seems to be doing ok at Union.
Matty Smith improved greatly when he went to Salford and was coached by Longy.
He's improved further at Wigan.
Do you think it's your young players who are not good enough or is it the coaching team who are not as good as they or the club think they are?
Ashurst and Dixon are at Salford as is Gaskell.
It will be interesting to see how Gaskell progresses if he goes to Leeds,as rumoured, as they have a good U19s but some of the younger players in their first team do seem to be been bought in from other clubs.
All clubs now need quality youth systems if they are to thrive.
That listed before doesn't make too good reading.

Re: Club Statement : Wed Jul 03, 2013 6:43 pm  

Th'ump wrote:

We had a good few years where most gambles the club made paid off (no, not talking about Long's/Gleeson's bookie exploits before anyone starts). McRae & Millward were both unknowns. Long was unproven talent. We rescued Lyon from the equivalent of the Football Conference. Etc, etc, etc.

On top of all this, the RFL, in its infinite arsewittery, changed the rules/interpretation to slow the game down, which nullified a lot of the basis of our gameplan. That meant having to rethink our tactics & personnel.

This was the beginnings of our problems when the game was slowed down, we were a team with a running/passing game this was negated with the RFL ruling and Uncle Madge from the Wigoons taking it to the limits. Most clubs converted to a kicking game because the ball was limited out wide, Saints were too slow to adopt to it and struggle with it to this present day.
We have Luke Walsh next season to give us a kicking game, but I get the feeling the game might change to a running game again with the ascension of Huddersfield, Warrington and Wigoons.
Perhaps we are just a bit off with how the game is being played and unlucky with how some of our overseas players have turned out.

Re: Club Statement : Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:08 pm  

Father Ted wrote:

The list of younger players at your place who do not appear to have developed fully is worrying.
Eastmond seems to be doing ok at Union.
Matty Smith improved greatly when he went to Salford and was coached by Longy.
He's improved further at Wigan.
Do you think it's your young players who are not good enough or is it the coaching team who are not as good as they or the club think they are?
Ashurst and Dixon are at Salford as is Gaskell.
It will be interesting to see how Gaskell progresses if he goes to Leeds,as rumoured, as they have a good U19s but some of the younger players in their first team do seem to be been bought in from other clubs.
All clubs now need quality youth systems if they are to thrive.
That listed before doesn't make too good reading.

Not really, you're lucky to get a couple a year that makes it to the first team squad and our crop of youngsters have filed out the squad as needed and done well for us. Most have become SL standard players.

How many youth players have Wigan brought through and then deemed not to be good enough after two or three years? Most of them sign for clubs lower down the league, is that a failure of Wigan's coaching team? Smith is really not much better now than he was then, he's just more experienced. Long was a more talented player at the time and Eastmond still has far more potential than him (sadly lost to RL).

Re: Club Statement : Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:26 pm  

Which youngsters at Leeds have been brought in from other clubs ?

Re: Club Statement : Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:28 pm  

ploinerrhino wrote:

Which youngsters at Leeds have been brought in from other clubs ?

Hardaker, for one!