media.therfl.co.uk/docs/Academy% ... 202014.pdf Warrington again achieved 'good' status. The attached document is well worth a read.

media.therfl.co.uk/docs/Academy% ... 202014.pdf Warrington again achieved 'good' status. The attached document is well worth a read.

Coincidentally, I was studying the same report when you posted Mr Ganson. Looking at the detail, we scored highly in the categories but only got a 2 for 'achievements of our system'. I think the reason we were marked down was because we have not (as yet) provided any players for England or England Knights - unless somebody else has a different interpretation ?

One of the most interesting results was for Leeds; they seemed to have been given a real hammering in the assessment. I know they lost a couple of good academy players to Oz in the close season, so I wonder if the younger players feel that they have limited opportunities to get into the first team ? That is pure speculation btw.

That was my interpretation, can't argue with that really. For me the challenge is to start bringing more Warrington born players through.

I have heard a few complaints of that nature from Leeds, although I suppose that is not an issue unique to any one club. I'm sure there are a few young lads asking themselves how Asotasi can be earning double their salary.

Well I suppose the club has increased its scores over 2013, and it looks as though they are around 3rd in the ranking of the academies, which is a good achievement. And we have certainly seen a lot of debuts over the last two years - I count around 9 academy players in total - that is a pretty healthy situation.

I think the assessment is pretty much accurate, we all expected Saints & Wigan to be top of the list but we seem to be finally catching up in this department.

The Leeds scores are bizarre from the high ranking last season!

Quite impressed and suprised by Widnes score, equal to ourselves. They at least seem to be on the right track.

Agree about Widnes, surprised.

We'll be all 1's next year with all the youth who have places in our squad now. As long as no major changes happen we'll be alright for a few good years.

The report doesn't have an assessment date on, just stating 2014. So if this was completed in pre season, before the debuts of Ormsby, Philbin, King x 2 etc and before O'Brien, the Evans' and Laithwaite held regular first team spots, you could understand on the lack of production. The more time that these guys play, the higher we will grade, and there are a lot more in the under 19's and under 16's demonstrating enough quality to become first team members.

It has been done in the past couple of weeks

Their overall score was reduced by the fact that have coaches who are not level 3 qualified. I'm not sure how that affects the 'achievements of our academy' category, but it mentions that the lack of qualifications is the main reason for the lower scores.

It's good to see our local clubs all doing well. Saints and Wigan have been ahead in this regards for years now, hence the year on year stories of highly rated academy players moving to Saints or Wigan from Wire or Widnes. But it seems now that both Wire and Widnes are closing the gap, which can only be a good thing for the sport.

It's definitely time to look at increasing the benefits of having a strong academy on the salary cap. Taking it to the extreme, if one academy produced 17 world class players, it should be able to keep them all provided it can sustainably afford them. We've got a situation now where the academies at Saints, Wigan and Leeds (To this point despite their low scores on this round) are too strong and they aren't able to keep as many as they would like. I'd suggest possibly massively reducing the cap (£0.75m?) and excluding academy products, but also having an overall cap linked to financial status to prevent clubs overspending.

Putting B-teams in the lower leagues could be a solution or professional clubs being allowed to adopt an amateur side.

Excellent for us, only behind Stains, Pies and Leeds (not really a surprise)

Is there a cap on how much can be invested in club academies? You'd have thought given that Koucash wants to turn Salford into a major player in SL that he would've put some effort into their academy, looks like they've gone backwards according to this.