Re: Gentle's clean sheet : Sun Oct 16, 2011 9:07 am
Garry Brindley Esq. wrote:
Sorry if I missed the parade for our 3rd place finish in the reserves league but I couldn't care less, and I don't really believe you do either. The idea that because our reserves finished 3rd there 'must be some players capable of playing in SL' is a complete non sequitur. In the last few years, the only players we've produced for ourselves are Briscoe (who would have come through if you or I were coaching him) and Houghton, and that means Last failed at his job.
Burnett, Wheeldon, Hodgson, and slightly further back Hall should all be added to the list too IMO. They may not be top 4 players, but they are SL standard as they have shown with us or away from us.
Where I disagree most strongly with what you seem to be saying is the claim that Last's job is to make SL players, almost as if they should practically be the finished article on arrival in the first team. That's not realistic, I'd say his job is more to produce players with the potential to play SL and a sound basis of how to do so. It's then up to the first team coaching staff to see that potential fulfilled. Now I'm not saying that all of the young players that Last has had have been up to scratch, but then no academy does that either. I do happen to think that there have been enough players with wasted/not fully-realised potential to point the finger more at the way they've been introduced/treated at first team level than in the 20s.
