I admire your confidence in our local players Vasty, and would love to have a 1-17 of home grown talent, but can't see this happening for a while, but not sure about the smarter than Miller tag. At the peak of our good run, other clubs were talking of Miller and how good he is becoming.He was really struggling in that final third of the season with his injury, and you could tell.I also think he was also the on field spark we had in 2015, that slowly turned us around.
As for me and Aussie blindness, you forgot the French blindness by the way, I do believe that there are too many overseas players in our leagues these days, and have said so for a number of years. I am not against overseas players but less of them. I think we have a quantity over quality issue, overall in overseas imports. I honestly believe it has had a negative impact on our national side. Just prior to Super League starting, I think is the time as to when we challenged the Aussies and weren't that far off. There was a limit of I think 3, but those 3 in most sides were all pretty decent. I think players tend to play better when the players around them are of a higher calibre.
Going back to Wood, I think that a half back peaks around 25-26, Wood, as you say is 28. When he was with us in his previous spell, got a chance to show how good he was, along with John and Smith. Unfortunately, it took, what was a good signing of Paul Sykes, an ageing utility player, for us to see any spark during that season, and he ended up being the stand off. Wood got a fair amount of chances to shine, but for me, he just didn't seem to create enough.
Again, I hope he is back up to the halves, and maybe hooker, and when he does get a chance, I hope I am proven wrong.