This is to be expected. A few factors:

1. Wasps, Irish and Worcester players plus former Welsh regions players were snapped up on the cheap and will be looking for significantly improved contract terms

2. Central RFU contracts will have put some players noses out of joint. England selection is becoming increasingly a closed shop with premiership form ignored. It's harder to get dropped from the squad then it is to get selected....

3. Reduced number of league games will likely result in smaller squads. When you have a good youth system, it's going to be impossible to keep them all

4. The lure of a big payday in France

All the above makes retention and recruitment a tricky balancing act.

Our recruitment has been (on the whole) very good over the last few seasons. So I'm not panicking.

To play devil's advocate (because why else am I here?) the development of academy talent has been ... patchy. My aim isn't to be provocative but rather to give another perspective.

I've been looking through an all-academy 23 and I reckon there are some very obvious gaps:

3 - I think the only actual 3 who is an academy product is still in the academy (hence playing Marler out of position)
Second row subs - 3 of the 5 front-line second rows are imports
Scrum half - Friday looks like he'll alleviate that but a team would still need another
15 - I went with Anderson who is 4th (?) choice

There's also very few of the current Quins players who've made it from the academy to international honours. Baxter, Marler, Lamb & Smith are (I think) the only ones.

Ultimately, of the 23 I went with, 9 would be current academy players with varying levels of Prem experience. Happy to be corrected but my 23 was:

1.   Baxter *
2.   Riley
3.   Marler *
4.   Hammond
5.   Lamb *
6.   Chisholm
7.   Kenningham
8.   White
9.   Friday
10.   Smith *
11.   Murley
12.   Anyanwu
13.   Beard
14.   Cleaves
15.   Anderson
16.   Jibulu
17.   Osborne
18.   Hobson
19.   Browne
20.   Trenholm
21.   Murray
22.   Benson
23.   Slevin/Bradley


Naturally, I'll compare with Sale who I reckon would struggle at second row (Rouban Birch is an 8 who started at second row) and back 3 (can I play Raffi there and bring in Nye Thomas as the spare 9?). Nevertheless, we'd still have only 3 current academy players and 9 internationals (7 recent).

Rodd *
Taylor *
Asher
Beaumont
Birch
Ben *
Dugdale
Tom *
Quirke *
Curtis
Reed *
Bedlow
Addison *
Roebuck *
Carpenter
Caine
MacIntyre
Harper
Burrow
Woodman
Warr *
James
Ene

I think you could reasonably add Northmore and Dombrandt to the list of home grown players.

I originally put Northmore in, tbh but only because I forgot he was another Cardiff Met product.

I’ve tried to be pretty strict so haven’t included the likes of Bamber for us who was stacking shelves when we brought him back to rugby. He was 21 at the time so I think still academy.

I wonder when our rumoured signings will start, to replace the rumoured departures

I saw Ollie Lawrence hanging round with Chandler Cunningham-South in town and enjoying a coffee together a few days ago.
I guess that this means that we have definitely signed Lawrence for next season?

Or CCS is off to Bath? 😈

Checks CCS contract  . . .  ."First deal Jun 2023 until 2026"

A serious signing we should go all out for would be Joel Kpoku. Currently in France, but on the right trajectory if he wants to play for England. Young, and would be good value replacing some of our aging locks.

I think Nick Isiekwe would be a good fit for Quins.

Murley renewed

Yareet, I’m struggling to follow what you’re responding to, so maybe this is irrelevant, but if we’re talking about developing academy talent, I think it’s worth considering those who have moved on? Sinckler, Clifford, Tizard, Marchant, Lynagh and (maybe) Brown would be a few Quins academy products who would significantly strengthen that 23 you’ve outlined. Injury/retention being the issue there, not the ability to bring players through from the academy.


 Ibitoye is doing okay at Bristol right now too.