U18s well beaten by Wigan tonight. Presumably we'll hear we fielded a very young team and it will be invaluable for their development. May well be true. GH keeps repeating we currently have the best crop of youngsters for 20 years. I get to as many Academy and Scholarship games as I can and I'm struggling to see the same thing. I see us beaten regularly by the Wigan and Saints of this world which doesn't fill me with any confidence we'll be closing the gap any time soon. Would be very happy to be proved wrong though.

I used to work with someone who ended up at Headingley his brother is the kit man.
Nice fella part of his job talent spotting youngsters.
Only problem he did not drive.

How do we rate our forward pack heading into the new season. Potential starting pack: 8. Jay Oladipupo 9. Harvey Butterworth 10. Joe Butterfield 11. Jacob Stead 12. Zak Lloyd 13. Presley Cassell

[quote="The Eclipse":28khz4d6]How do we rate our forward pack heading into the new season. Potential starting pack: 8. Jay Oladipupo 9. Harvey Butterworth 10. Joe Butterfield 11. Jacob Stead 12. Zak Lloyd 13. Presley Cassell[/quote:28khz4d6] Extremely talented pack, if developed correctly, should be the best pack in Academy rugby, by a distance. But there lies the problem, development. Mentioned in the pre-season thread, i cant believe the lack of physical development these second year academy lads look to have had over the last 12 month, granted thats the backs, but they looked tiny, like they hadnt been in a gym for the last year. Fortunately, the packs got plenty of natural size 7.Smith 6.Brown Two quality halfs, with Jacob Hardy, who can play backrow, 6 or centre, potentially the best player out of all of them, to fit in somewhere aswel.

Yeah to be honest I thought the young backs who played on Boxing Day looked tiny which is worry in the modern game. Agree the halves look an exciting pair but do we have any big centres coming through ?

[quote="The Eclipse":2abd689r]Yeah to be honest I thought the young backs who played on Boxing Day looked tiny which is worry in the modern game. Agree the halves look an exciting pair but do we have any big centres coming through ?[/quote:2abd689r] Jacob Tooala and sonny Hetherington are both in their 2nd year of Scholarship this coming season, both among the best in the country in their age group, both play centre for their community clubs. Both got good builds, Hetherington in particular, he's well over 6ft already