A lot of fans fall in love with young players when in reality they know very little about them. They will hear some good reports from youth team games or sometimes the hype comes from family and friends and teammates who will assure us that this kid was dominating junior rugby but that's nothing like being able to handle Super League. They like the hope that a young unknown talent presents and hope we'll hit the lottery of the next Harris and Sculthorpe.
We've had players come through with a huge reputation that we'd been hearing about for years so the hype builds. Steve Pickersgill, GO'B, Rhys Evans, Harvey Livett. Then when they don't live up to the hype, it gets blamed on the coaches. As PY said earlier in the thread, who are the players that left us because of not getting opportunities that got picked up by other clubs and made it elsewhere? Really good players who slip through the net end up starring elsewhere, like Lee Briers and Chris Bridge did with us. Our alumni end up being mediocre players in lower table or lower league clubs. The usual excuse from their supporters is that the Warrington coach 'ruined them' through dropping them at some point, but being in and out of the side is usual for young players who are trying to break into the team and aren't setting the world on fire. You can't give a player a perma-place ahead of established first teamers, if he isn't performing. The irony here is that Price took a lot of flak for playing Ashton ahead of Ratchford in that cup semi against Salford.
The other issue that is inconsistent is that on the one hand we talk up our squad as being this superstar roster that should be winning Grand Finals if only we had better coaching, but on the other we complain that young players aren't getting a chance. Well this is what comes with having a squad of superstars....its like Chelsea won the Champions League and their fans complain about all the young talent that leaves because it doesn't get a shot. Personally I think our squad is overrated on this forum, and I would be up for some churn in the roster, move out some established names and take a punt on some more young players and new signings, but I usually get push back on here by people listing all the 'internationals' we have. I would say keep the ones who are successful established internationals but maybe look at moving on some of those who just have a few international caps and weren't much cop at international level...