Quote Dita's Slot Meter="Dita's Slot Meter"Its totally unrealistic to expect all these academy lads to step up to the plate all at once - Some people on here seem to get a bit carried away with the idea that they are all just going to be able to make the step from academy to first team and be as good as those seasoned pros they will be replacing.
Just remember back to the Salford and London games - For all our excitement at our academy, what those games showed was that we have nowhere near the depth in squad that some imagine.
Realistically, out of every generation of academy players, any club will be lucky to get 3 or 4 genuine class players.....For every Paul Sculthorpe, there's probably 4 or 5 Paul Noone's.
I definitely agree that building and maintaining your academy is the way to go
and we look to have a couple of potentially great players on our books at the moment, but looking at that squad of players that has been listed on here, I still hold the view that I had for most of this year and that is, if we have an injury crisis at any point (5 or 6 senior players out at any one time), then we will struggle.
Personally, what I would like to see, is the transition period that undoubtedly awaits Wire actually starting next year....Players like Evans and Currie are going to have to be persevered with at the expense of the likes of Briers, Monaghan
and Morley, even if results take a negative turn, because if we don't, in the long term, the club will be deep in the mire in 18 months time.
When I hear reports of Monaghan being crocked and never being able to return to 100% fitness, I have to wonder why we are actually keeping him retained in the squad??....Surely letting him go and either promoting Dwyer or signing a younger, fitter replacement makes a lot more sense??
I think with this aging squad, we are definitely walking a bit of a tightrope....I think we should have been looking to have shed a couple of the oldies.'"
I would have to go with 90% of that. I would even go a little further ( as there are not many people reading the board at the mo) and say that TS has made a mistake in not retiring off older players. I think it simply leaves us with a bigger problem in 2014 as well as risking a trophy- less 2013. Great as this team has been, it can not go on forever. One real problem for me is the fact we have to ageing hookers. But perhaps TS will move Grix into the void.
Next year is a crunch season for Gob, and to a lesser extent Dwyer and Evans. They all need to show they can do the job in 2014.
Laithwaite has a 1 year contract, and if Harrison moves to prop for a few matches, ought to get a decent number of games at 2nd row. That would show if he is 1st team material or not. Personally I am more optimistic about him than Dwyer.
Currie will hopefully play a few more games than last year and will get more time to develop. Only my opinion, but I think he is the one young player that could be GB standard.
I suspect not many other youngsters will get a run out. Possibly Burke and Ormsby may get a run in the early rounds of the cc.
