Tony Springett

However, Wales' strength in depth has been massively improved by capping English-born players as teenagers.  

[Edited aside: Funnily enough, Wales have weirdly often had very good or "generational" players, such as Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush, or even Mark Hughes and Dean Saunders (a UK transfer record player in his day if I remember correctly), but the team was always let down by having too many league 1 level players in it.  So your Ryan Giggs players couldn't make much of a difference.  Now the Gareth Bales and Ramsey's are playing with low-level PL and top-half Championship players instead - and so the deep does not suffer from the lack of strength in depth]

A few examples in recent squads of English born teenagers capped at senior level by Wales who have added to their team and strength in depth, many of whom would start for us and all would be in our squads:

- Daniel James, formerly of Man U, now Leeds, loads of PL appearances

- Ethan Ampadu, who shockingly we missed out on despite his Dad playing for us - lots of PL appearances for someone his age.  Proved, ironically in games against our lads, that he is better than many of our players! 

- Chris Mepham - Bournemouth player, PL experience and back in PL again now (was 21 not a teenager when called up, but same point).

- Matondo - Bundesliga and Champions League football with Schalke, now with Cercle Brugge 

- Ben Woodburn - had a few years of very good form before falling off, but still a regular for Hearts and great potential - still on Liverpool's books who must rate him

- David Brooks - cracking player linked with Champions League clubs not so long ago before sadly falling ill. 

- Tyler Roberts - 100 games for Leeds, about half of them in the PL.

- Matthew Smith - an outstanding young player who didn't make it at Man City, but spent time in the Erdivisie and Championship.  Now rebuilding at MK Dons.

That's off the top of my head a list of English-born lads capped for Wales as teenagers who have improved their team and strength and depth and most would get into our 11 or at least squad, thus improving strength in depth. 

I think this illustrates there is a lot to be gained from getting lads like this involved at a senior level early enough. 

I'd love to see Kenny use the NL windows as an opportunity to do so.

This was the same attitude management had vis a vis a young Grealish who was smashing it in League 1 at 18 for Notts County (could easily have been picked for an easy match at home v Gibralter) and Declan Rice after 5 PL games for West Ham (could easily have been picked for a handy game v Moldova).  

Also, the list of uncapped PL players ahead of him in the queue is: zero.  Norwich should be looking to be in the top-half of the Championship next year, and there aren't too many such uncapped players either. 

If you're good enough to play PL or top half of Championship, you're probably good enough for our squad, even taking age out of it. 

Would love to see maybe 2 or 3 of Springett, Smallbone, Adaramola and Festy (although don't want to be rewarding his recent attitude issues) in our senior squad for one or two of the upcoming NL games.

Ampadu was born and raised in England (Exeter) to an Irish professional footballer Dad (of Ghanian heritage) and a Welsh Mum.  

Not born in Wales and never lived in Wales afaik.  So another talented English-born player capped by the Welsh in his early teenage years.  

Has proved a fantastic find for them.  And a loss for us, given his Dad's record for us.

Ampadu currently plays for Venezia, who are stone last in Serie A and heading for relegation. Last season he played for Sheffield United who finished bottom of the Premier League. The season before that he hardly got a kick for RB Leipzig and he has played a total of 10 minutes of league football for his parent club, Chelsea.

He's also a centre back - a position where we're absolutely stacked.

I don't think we have missed out on too much here to be honest, but the fact he has 30+ caps for Wales tells it's own story. They don't have the player depth to pick from that we do, that's why they're able to take a chance on non-Welsh lads like Ampadu when they're 17. Most will go the way of Ben Woodburn and others, spiraling down the divisions, a few will develop into middling players like Ampadu and they're just hoping they'll pull the next Gareth Bale out of somewhere, but that seems unlikely. 

Once Bale moves on Wales will go back to being a slightly better version of Northern Ireland, generally not qualifying for tournaments and trying to cap any half decent teenager that qualifies for them to tie them down to the team.

Ampadu's a quality player and proved it when they hammered us 4-0 in Dublin.  

Can play defensive-mid very well and arguably better than Cullen (though a different type of player).  Certainly far further ahead in his career at his age than Cullen was at the same time. 

We could definitely have done with him. Spilt milk, though.

Agree generally re what happens when Bale moves on, but it kind of goes for us as well - without a Roy Keane or a Duff-Robbie Keane combo, we're fairly ordinary.  Us, Wales, NI, Scotland, just need one top-class player to build a team around - a Roy Keane, Gareth Bale, or dare I say it, Jack Grealish or Declan Rice.  Ooops - more spilt milk!