St pete wrote:
I agree it's good we are looking further afield but some of these kids that have slipped thru are players we was looking at but left it to late and Salford and Wigan pounced.
Call me biased but I'm a st Helen's lad, I want as many saints lads playing as possible (I know it's highly unlikely) and we need to get our local talent signed up first.
I know of a kid from Widnes that saints, Wigan, Salford, Warrington and some union clubs have spoke to. He's very very good and he's a saints fan and season ticket holder.
He and his family have not yet decided where he will go but let's just day that Wigan, Warrington and Widnes are front runners by a mile because we not really made a great deal of effort.
I agree that we need to get the best talent signed up. I don't think getting local talent signed up and casting a wide net have to be done at the expense of each other. If they are then we need more/better scouts on our books.
If you look at resent history we have done a good job at finding talent outside the town limits. Eastmond (Oldham), Makinson (Wigan), Chris Dean (Orrell), Percival (Widnes) off the top of my head.
Looking at other teams Jason Robinson (Leeds), Kevin Sinfield (Oldham) and Michael McIlorum (Leeds) come to mind as great junior pickups from teams looking outside their county.
Pushing the example outside of Rugby League the highest profile English footballer David Beckham (North London) was scouted from the other side of the country and the best in the world Lionel Messi (Argentina) the other side of the world.
I am all for being positive about St. Helens lads but a lot of what I hear (and read on here) sounds more like being negative about non-St. Heleners, which is sad to see.