How good are your clubs youth development

Theres much talk recently about how all the clubs(all home nations) are producing more and more home grown players.
I always make a great deal about the Falcons academy being particularly strong...and i believe the list below would suggest thats true especially for a smaller club in the country.
How good has your youth development been through the years.
Im sure the likes of Leicester, Bath, Leeds and some of the Irish teams will be impressive.

Noteable mentions who have played for or come through the youth ranks include Rory Best the Ireland hooker, Johnny W, current man of the moment Tim Visser and a few others.

2012 - Scott Wilson
2011 Joe Graham (England Counties), Joel Hodgson (England U19), Joe Robinson (England U18), George McGuigan (Ireland U18) & Josh Beaumont (England Students).
2010 Kieran Brookes (England U20), Mark Wilson (England Students), Alex Gray (England U20), Tom Catterick (England U20).
2009 Tim Swinson (England Counties), Will Welch (England U20), Rory Clegg (England U20).
2008 Pete Browne (England Students), Rob Miller (England U20), Alex Tait (England U20).
2007 Ross Batty (England U19), Sean Thomes (Scotland U20), Tim Visser (England U19).
2006 Lee Dickson (England Saxons), Toby Flood (England).
2005 Rob Vickers (England Saxons), Eddie Kalman (Scotland A), Armaveer Ladhar (India).
2004 Ben Woods (England Saxons), Andrew Skeen (Scotland 7s), Ollie Phillips (England 7s), Stephen Jones (Scotland A).
2003 Matt Thompson (England Saxons), David Wilson (England), Geoff Parling (England Saxons), Phil Godman (Scotland), Mathew Tait (England).
2002 Rory Best (Ireland), Phil Dowson (England Saxons).
2001 Craig Hamilton (Scotland), Jon Dunbar (Scotland).
2000 Hall Charlton (England A), Dave Walder (England), Michael Stephenson (England).
1999 Micky Ward (England A), Tom May (England), Jamie Noon (England).
1998 Garath Archer (England), Simon Best (Ireland), Hugh Vyvyan (England), Jonny Wilkinson (England, British Lions)

That is an impressive list

Good list Geordie but you could also add

2012: Zach Kibirige ( England U18), Luke Wilson (England U17)
2010: Nathan Morris (England U20)
2008: Micky Young (Saxons & 7's)

Intrigued by the years assigned to players. Why for instance does Matt Tait get 2003 but Flood (who is older) get 2006?

Could be the years they broke through into the first team squad from the academy?

I think Flood was first capped by England in 2006, while in 2003 Matt Tait was still at Barnard Castle School

Tait made his England debut against Wales in Cardiff in 2005.

Duplicate

Lt there might be a few slight date errors...but the personnel is correct.

Johnny wilkonson ( england, british lions)

Who are the british lions?

LeinsterFan4life wrote:Johnny wilkonson ( england, british lions)

Who are the british lions?

Geordie Falcon does all this research and that's the only thing you can be bothered to pick out?

Id be interested to see other teams...bet some of them are very impressive.

Thats an impressive list Geordie, a shame more of them havent stuck around!

I'll have to do some research to come up with a full list like that, but to answer the title question, could do better. From a Bath point of view there have been a reasonable number of representitive level players over the past few years, this has clearly been helped by the proximity to the big rugby schools such as Colstons and Millfield.

However the issue for Bath has been how many of those players go on to play regular 1st team rugby? I think there were 3 starting players at the weekend who came through the academy. Bath have in the past been very poor at offering contracts to good young players, examples include Burns, Varndell and Jordan Crane, all of which at some point or other were involved at a youth level but were offered proper contracts elsewhere and left. That seems to be changing a bit, with recent England u20's players such as Chris Cook, Heathcote, Will Skuse and Ollie Devoto all getting game time and becoming important parts of the squad.

I'll do some research and try and come up with a list...

Thats an impressive list Geordie, a shame more of them havent stuck around!

Bathite thats the glaring question isnt it. Is it tha fact that we are just a small club...and players want to move on...or the fact that in the last 10 years we probably havent shown a lot of ambition...as opposed to now where we look determined?
Maybe Deano, Peter and Seymore can turn that trend.

Traditionally Leicester have been a focal point for the areas junior clubs rather than a club the developed players from kids. The onset of professionalism has changed this to a large degree - you have to sign players up younger or risk losing them.

The following is an attempt to identify players whose first pro contract at a senior club was with Tigers, some were in the academy, but some were signed as young adults. i am only including players who have played for either the full national team or A team. I will have missed plenty:

England (Full International unless noted)
Dan Cole
Louis Deacon
Tom Croft
Lewis Moody
Adam Balding - Saxon
Harry Ellis
George Ford - Saxon
Andy Goode
James Grindal - Saxon
Paul Gustard - Saxon
Dan Hipkiss
Will Johnson - Eng A
Leon Lloyd
Will skinner - Saxon
Ed Slater - Saxon
Matt Smith - Saxon
Ollie Smith
Manu Tuilagi
Billy Twelvetrees
Tom Varndell
Sam Vesty
Ben Youngs
Tom Youngs


Other Countries
Jim Hamilton
Geordan Murphy
Greig Tonks

In recent years at Irish the following have come through the academy to be fully capped:

Corbisiero
Paice
Kennedy
Geraghty
D. Armitage
Ojo
Joseph

We also played a central role in pushing through Steffon and Paul Hodgson, although they were initially elsewhere. For the Saxons we have also seen Garvey and Gibson come through, while Yarde, Homer, Lahiff, Sisi and Fisher will almost certainly be banging on the door in the coming years. Guy Armitage is, obviously, also one to look out for. The big potential star though is Anthony Watson. Pretty sure he will play for England.

Now thats what i wanted to see...

I knew the Tigers would have been impressive...and it would appear that from that list..Irish are focusing more recently on bringing their talent through...

Interestingly of the 23 players who came through Tigers "youth" system in the pro era to represent England at Full or A level - 13 are backs.

Quins have a very good youth development and a lot of the kids are coming through to claim senior honours.

Names that we all know today that have made the England EPS or Saxons -
Care
Easter
Brown
JTH
Hopper (in the Saxons I think)
Grey
Robson
Marler
Robshaw
Guest (Saxons)
Skinner (Saxons)
K.Dickson (Saxons)

Plenty of U20's - Clegg, Chisholm, S.Smith etc.

Not sure if G.Camacho had Argentina honours before playing for quins!
Same for G.Tiesi

Sorry to be pedantic David, but thought this was players who had started their careers with the club, hence why I excluded a number of Irish talents.

Therefore, you can't really include Care, Easter, Hopper, Grey, Skinner, Dickson, Clegg, Camacho or Tiesi (who incidentally had a number of caps pre Quins).

For Quins you can add a number of players whose stock improved dramatically over their time at the club:
Mike Ross (was on the scrapheap in Ireland, and now look at him)
Tomas Vallejos de Cinalli (was playing semi-pro in Spain, now on the bench for Argentina)
Nick Easter (from amateur player to RWC finalist)
Ben Botica (2nd tier rugby in NZ and France, looks like a star in the making)

Technically, Care, Dickson, Hopper, Clegg and Skinner are all in the same category.

In terms of true academy products, IIRC the Academy was only really given a degree of focus in the early 2000s, but since then has produced a steady stream of very high quality players:
2002 - Ugo Monye
2004 - Tom Williams, Mark Lambert
2005 - Tom Guest, Chris Robshaw
2006 - Mike Brown, George Robson, Jordan Turner-Hall (what a year!)
2007 - Seb Stegmann
2008 - George Lowe, Joe Marler
2009/10 - [There don't seem to be many who made the Quins first XV, but this period included players like Charlie Amesbury and Adam Thompstone]
2011 - Ross Chisholm, Luke Wallace, Rob Buchanan, Sam Smith, Charlie Matthews (I think we'll look back on this as a very good year, too)
2012 - Will Collier, Kyle Sinckler, Darryl Marfo

Sorry Burger - yes I miss-interpreted. Was applying the LT approach of just those recognised with national honours when with Quins.

Excluding those then -
We've got Brown, JTH, Robson, Marler.
not sure about Guest.
Not sure if Monye went through a quins academy or if there was one way back then!

You could get very close to a decent Quins XXIII purely of academy graduates and current academt players who are all still at the club:

Marler - Buchanan - Sinckler
Robson - Matthews
Robshaw - Wallace - Guest (not counting Chris York, who left last season)
Ollie Lindsay-Hague
erm... Louis Grimoldby (ditto)
JTH - Lowe
Monye - Brown - Williams

Bench
Lambert - Collier - Marfo
Trayfoot
Sam Stuart (current academy, but injured, sadly)
[Not sure]
Charlie Walker
Ross Chisholm

If COS can keep them together for the next couple of years, we could realistically see that squad take the field at some point.

What would other clubs academy-only XXIIIs look like?

Nice idea...for Irish:

Corbisiero
Paice
Lahiff
Kennedy
Garvey
Gibson
Sisi
Fisher

Richards (started at Irish and then moved on elsewhere before returning)
Geraghty
D. Armitage
G. Armitage
Joseph
Ojo
Homer

With places on the bench for the likes of Yarde, Watson, young 9 Jack Moates etc etc.

Obviously Kennedy, Richards and Delon have moved on, but easily replaced by Kieron Low, Jack Moates and Yarde/Watson!

Do you think there is a bigger emphasis on bringing players through (which seems to me to be the case) over bringing in Journeymen...

LT.. thats an interesting STAT, when the Tigers are very much associated with the powerful packs...

The problem with developing players is keeping hold of them.

Leicester does not have the largest catchment area for recruiting teenagers - nor a surfeit of public schools. This often means we are guilty of poaching from other teams. Usually we take players young and complete the job other's have done. Falcons have suffered from us.

Parling, Crane, Ayerza and Castro have all improved out of sight at tigers, while a generation earlier Healey, Kay, Greenwood (before we gave him back), Back, Garforth and West all turned promise into full England caps.

Of course at the other end we lose established players because we cannot afford to keep them. this can be aan advantage - Hipkiss/Moody/Vesty left meaning we could afford to stop Saints poaching Ben Young and Sarries taking Cole. Plus Manu got his chance. Last season we could not match 36's financial aspirations within the cap, nor offer a guaranteed starting spot. However with the money freed up we could afford Bowden and Benjamin.

I guess we have less as the Ospreys have only been in existence since 2003 but in those nine years we have contributed the following guys. None were above academy level in 2003.



Paul James (Wales)
James Hook (Wales & Lions)
Andrew Bishop (Wales)
Richard Hibbard (Wales)
Ian Evans (Wales)
Richie Rees (Wales)
Alun Wyn Jones (Wales & Lions)
Dan Biggar (Wales)
Leigh Halfpenny (Wales & Lions)
Rhys Webb (Wales)
Ashley Beck (Wales)
Tom Prydie (Wales)
Gareth Owen (7s)
Tavis Knoyle (Wales)
Richard Hibbard (Wales)
Ryan Bevington (Wales)
Justin Tipuric (Wales)

Do the regions have Academies as such? Or are promising 16 year olds contracted to clubs?

Apologies for ignorance.

All the regions including the Goggs (RGC 1404), have excellent academies. That is who has been encouraging all our fantastic young welsh talent. You might have noticed the words "academy product" attached to certain young players names as they appear in the upper echelons of the game.

The WRU also has an Elite Academy beyond that. This concentrates the best of the best and utilises the Welsh National Perfomance Team and the National coaches, Shuan Edwards, Rob Howley and Neil Jenkins.

some future graduates:

Brian Tuilagi - 16 year old centre. Featured for the Academy in pre-season before school started. now kicking up a storm in schools rugby.

Freddie Tuilagi Jr - Tight head prop. Just 14 but perhaps the biggest tuilagi to date. apparently excellent technique and a dynamic ball carrier.


Henry has 7 sons apparently - and is thinking of sending them to Leicester schools.

LondonTiger wrote:some future graduates:

Brian Tuilagi - 16 year old centre. Featured for the Academy in pre-season before school started. now kicking up a storm in schools rugby.

Freddie Tuilagi Jr - Tight head prop. Just 14 but perhaps the biggest tuilagi to date. apparently excellent technique and a dynamic ball carrier.


Henry has 7 sons apparently - and is thinking of sending them to Leicester schools.

Rumbled you. Tigers' strategy is clearly to source its entire future pipeline from one family. In 15 years' time we'll be supporting the Leicester Tuilagis! ;-)

Poorfour wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:some future graduates:

Brian Tuilagi - 16 year old centre. Featured for the Academy in pre-season before school started. now kicking up a storm in schools rugby.

Freddie Tuilagi Jr - Tight head prop. Just 14 but perhaps the biggest tuilagi to date. apparently excellent technique and a dynamic ball carrier.


Henry has 7 sons apparently - and is thinking of sending them to Leicester schools.

Rumbled you. Tigers' strategy is clearly to source its entire future pipeline from one family. In 15 years' time we'll be supporting the Leicester Tuilagis! ;-)

Tuilagi Tigers...!

One family that has had a dramatic effect on the face of top class rugby...

gotta feel for Henry's wife - 7 sons the size of him!!! May even have been worse than poor old Derek Quinnell's wife.

Whole new meaning to the phrase "hard labour"

Dear me thats staggering...all those Tuilagis...

Isnt one of the brothers a cross dresser...

So potentially there could be more Tuilagis in the England team...along with Vunipolas ha ha...

GeordieFalcon wrote:Dear me thats staggering...all those Tuilagis...

Isnt one of the brothers a cross dresser...

So potentially there could be more Tuilagis in the England team...along with Vunipolas ha ha...

Fa'afafine is not exactly Lilly Savage, Dame Edna or Anne Widecomb. More a cultural traditional third gender.

Getting full international caps first time since being at the Scarlets (not going back to Llanelli RFC)

Liam Williams
Lee Byrne
Morgan Stoddart
Daniel Evans
George North
Jon Davies
Scott Williams
Adam Warren
Rhys Priestland
Martin Roberts
Tavis Knoyle

Rhodri Jones
Ken Owens
Deacon Manu
Lou Reed
Josh Turnbull
Rob McCusker
Aaron Shingler
Ben Morgan

(p.s. Maes you can't start claiming players that never feilded for your first team, that is just being naughty)

ScarletSpiderman wrote:p.s. Maes you can't start claiming players that never feilded for your first team, that is just being naughty

We did field Knoyle in our first team in the LV= in 2009. Plus he wasn't ever part of the Scarlets Academy.

That said i thought the OP was about Academy players that have moved on to international honours rather than just first team honours...? Hense the inclusion of Halfpenny too.