Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:52 pm  

This thing about putting more money in to academy coaching comes up a lot.

Say for instance, we agreed to not sign any more overseas imports for 10 years, and go below full salary cap but instead spend that budget on the academy, where would you put the money and what sort of impact would it have?

Is it about paying the coaches more? Is it about poaching coaches from places like Wigan/Saints/Leeds? Is it about better facilities? Is it more scouts? Is it more sign on fees so we can sign more young talent?

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 4:25 pm  

Getting lucky with a certain crop, has a great deal to do with it.

In 92-94, we had Penny, Harris, Roper, Wainwright and Hilton maturing at the same time, add to this Sculthorpe, a couple of years later. Simply flinging money at it, won't work.
We now have another ex SL coach looking after our younger players. I imagine our facilities at Padgate and Victoria Park are amongst the best.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 4:35 pm  

In the 1990s, I think flinging money at it was what we were doing. I remember going to one of those old Squadbuilder meetings at Snookers where Paul Darbyshire was telling the story of the 1990s where we paid huge sign on fees to young lads, some of whom never even played for the Academy, and were just trying to get enough talent in our books that out of that pool, some of them would be good. This contributed to our financial problems later in the decade.

But also I wonder if those guys all maximised their talent. Sculthorpe and Harris did but they left us. Hilton considering he had problems through injury had a good career. Penny and Roper were bright young talents but never went on to get past the level of average SL players. The same happened with Pickersgill, Noone and Mark Gleeson. I wonder whether in a different environment they could have got to a higher level, or whether they just weren't actually as good as we hoped.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 5:34 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

In the 1990s, I think flinging money at it was what we were doing. I remember going to one of those old Squadbuilder meetings at Snookers where Paul Darbyshire was telling the story of the 1990s where we paid huge sign on fees to young lads, some of whom never even played for the Academy, and were just trying to get enough talent in our books that out of that pool, some of them would be good. This contributed to our financial problems later in the decade.

But also I wonder if those guys all maximised their talent. Sculthorpe and Harris did but they left us. Hilton considering he had problems through injury had a good career. Penny and Roper were bright young talents but never went on to get past the level of average SL players. The same happened with Pickersgill, Noone and Mark Gleeson. I wonder whether in a different environment they could have got to a higher level, or whether they just weren't actually as good as we hoped.

We had a great talent scout in the 90s. I'm sure it's true that we offered big sign-off fees to beat off the competition, but we still needed to spot that talent. That's why I'm glad we've gone for Pete Riding in the new setup, his record speaks for itself so let's hope it pays dividends. It certainly helps that we are now a big club and young players aspire to sign for us and the chance of competing at the top - I'm almost certain Harris and Sculthorpe wouldn't have left the club in it's current incarnation.

Regarding those who never achieved what we expected of them:

Lee Penny - amazing young talent who would have been a superstar at Wigan or Saints. Succumbed to the beer culture at Warrington and ended up overweight and butter-fingered.

Jon Roper - Massive potential but poor attitude and poor coaching meant he never developed and spat his dummy out when things didn't work out for him.

Pickersgill, Noone and Gleeson - not sure they really had any star factor about them anyway. Probably would have developed in better teams, but never in the class of Harris, Sculthorpe, Penny and Roper.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 8:24 pm  

If Penny had come through at Wigan or Saints, he would have been competing with either Radlinski or Steve Prescott coming through at the same time. I expect he would have been back up for a while, played a handful of games and then got moved on to another club.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sat Sep 08, 2018 11:09 pm  

Wasn't A Johns on a £40k short term contract....effectively in the end on £13.3k a game?

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sun Sep 09, 2018 7:48 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

If Penny had come through at Wigan or Saints, he would have been competing with either Radlinski or Steve Prescott coming through at the same time. I expect he would have been back up for a while, played a handful of games and then got moved on to another club.

Probably didn’t make my point very well, but what I meant was that had Penny come through a more professional set-up at the time, he would have flourished. He’s obviously not close to the level of Radlinski, but with the greatest respect to Steve Prescott RIP, I think Penny had the greater raw talent. Both Penny and Prescott came through at the same time, and in the 92-93 and 93-94 seasons Penny was the better player. He had pace, a fantastic sidestep, made great try-saving tackles and was good under the high ball. Once Eric Hughes established that champagne Saints side in 94-95 though, Prescott really came into his own.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sun Sep 09, 2018 8:17 am  

The best coaching in the world would not have given Lee Penny any brains which was the main reason his career was miles behind the other two listed.

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sun Sep 09, 2018 8:57 am  

Probably worth a separate thread for the academy issue but I think some really good points made....
- Players do come through in groups. This happens at junior teams too where a strong group emerge at an age group and start to bond and build.
- Warrington academy recruitment has been patchy. They have tended in the past to recruit based on size and current levels of achievement and therefore have signed players who succeed at junior level because they have the physique of an adult playing against children. Often these players have not had to build skills and resilience because they have not had to. My suggestion - recruit based on attitude and potential
- Young players signed want to play rugby. They are used to playing often. A player who plays school rugby, club rugby and rep rugby can be playing 40 games a year, (too many). In the first year at academy most play none...(My suggestion - play u17s and u18s biased fixtures or even run outs against amateur u18s)
- The wages paid are far too little for the demands made A minimum of 4 training sessions a week, the risk of injury, loss of social life and quoting from an academy coach at a super league club "we tell you what to do - we own you" and a player can earn more working a saturday at tesco.
- Too much gym, too little skills - players in the academy still lack basic skills, and flair. But they do put on a stone of muscle a year...
-Too little fun

Its a key area...

Matthew

Re: Natural Kicker? : Sun Sep 09, 2018 9:11 am  

For me, Roberts is the best goal kicker at the club. I'm not sure who would be best to take the job next year out of Goodwin, Ratchford, Patton, Brown or Livett. Looking at who is coming in for 2019, I see issues with this facet of our game next season as I cannot see anybody at the 80% success standard.