Just reading the new player profiles on the official site, and Kavs' profile throws up a question with regards to home grown, or club-developed players. Kavanagh's profile states that he's one of only two players still at the club who ticked that particular box back in 2009. So, I suppose the question is, should there be any kind of stipulation that a Licensed club must have a set quota of home grown players at the time of SL entry, rather than just at the time of licence application, to protect the system from manipulation?
I don't believe that any accusations of manipulation could realistically be levelled at Widnes, because we now have a good number of home grown players in our squad who would have been too young to count at the time of license application, but my point is that the potential is there.
Any thoughts.......?
I always thought to qualify for being home grown / club trained a player had to have been at that club for 3 years before their 21st birthday - i.e. the oldest you can sign a player would be 17 (+364 days) for him to still qualify to be club trained. Any player you sign from 18 years+ will never count as being home grown for that club - which is fair enough IMO. We signed Kavanagh from Wigan in June 2008 - when Ben was 20 years old, so as far as I am aware he wouldn't be counted as club trained.
I think the "box ticking" that the player profile is referring to is simply squad members from the 2009 season NRC winning season - I'm guessing Flynn is the other member of the squad still here from 2009?
Trust in Widnes
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