Ridenton has looked a decent prospect when played in his favoured position, as did Rufer, Fenton, and even McGarry. Those last three all got screwed by injuries, and Fenton and Ridenton are victims of a weird club obsession with shoehorning young guys into unnatural roles. Ridenton effectively got a pathway into more first team football blocked by the Finkler signing too. Whatever happened to Justin Gulley and Tam DiMairo too? I thought both of them were on the fringes of first team football for a while. Gulley didn't have shockers when he was given a chance IIRC. There's also the cases of Musa and Adams who were thrown in the deep end early and then chucked out but might have actually been useful to keep around.
Even with our young Aussies it seems strange that JBS wasn't retained when we then ended up getting squad filler from the NPL for our backline anyway.
Anyway my point is that it might not be a lack of suitable talent coming through but more a combination of unfortunate injuries, unbalanced squad, and lack of backing for the young guys when they do reach a point where they might be able to play with the big boys.