Absolute madness if Tyler Dupree misses out on the England 17 man squad after that, him & Mustapha have to be in alongside Holroyd & Trout. Both were awesome.

A couple of spells I think, but both sides were using unlimited interchange and testing each other out a bit before the full England v Australia games. Think the Yorks lads shocked the Aussies to be honest. Holroyd and Dupree in particular had really nice impact at this level, bodes very well. Don't know about their attitudes but if both work hard enough would be a shout for the full England national side down the track.
I liked a lot of what McLelland showed too - showed that he's not played RL competitively for a while, but he has a bag of tricks and is aggressive.

Did not realise mclelland was playing, thats worrying, thought both halfs were fairly average. Don’t think he will be anywere near dual reg never mind furst team next year. Needs 12 months in academy, but it was a cold wet windy night, may be different on summer field and a full preseason.

He had a couple of nice runs; has a nice drop off pass and a kicking game. Timing was a bit off at times. The Aussie halves looked sensational at times so a high comparison; there might be another Thurston or Lockyer in the side so we have to be realistic. McLelland put at least one shot on which left the opponent on his haunches. I thought he was pretty decent. Can see why some rate Corey Johnson so highly.

Was Johnson the hooker, if so yes he looked good

It was a bit hard to tell but I think they might have spelled him for a while? But yes, Johnson was at 9 and at times looked very good I thought. At the end of the day, the core of that Yorkshire side were signed up to the Leeds club, minus Harry Newman. Not sure if Cam Smith and Oledzki are qualified still? Either way, to run an Aus national schoolboy side so close bodes really well for the club going forward.
I was wondering again about the players we develop in England: we do seem to have good forwards who can mix it, but struggle with the outside backs and halves compared to Aus. Wonder if football in this country has something to do with that? Many of the most skilful sportsmen, hate to say it, are drawn into football rather than rugby? Need to do more to make the game attractive to these talented lads at junior levels if we're going to really make it at international level.

Pretty much GH's take on the reserves debate in terms of how he thinks the cash might be better spent.

This debate comes up far too often, and far too often people make comments without the bigger picture, and that is not a dig at you.

We have always more than matched them at this level, it has never been a problem. We have a large quantity of talented young players upto that age group. Our problems in the UK, and more so in the last decade, is the development of them after that age group. That is where the significant differnence in ability and talent becomes apparent between the two hemispheres.

That is not to say there is not massive improvements that could and should be made at junior level, but more a case that to focus on that is entirely wrong. And GH arguments of the merits of reserve and dual reg, whilst he gives very good points, and sensible, it can not be argued that the game has suffered since the changes to dual reg, and perhaps the majority of the game calling for the change might be correct.

I do not hink we lose a lot in of players to football, and I don't think footballers are that skilful or certainly not more skilled than RL players, it's just a completely different skill set, Australia simply has a bigger player pool centred in there biggest city 3rd and to some what 2nd biggest city. RL Has some low presence in our capital and nothing in our second biggest city and metopolitan area, less and less in Manchester area and only Leeds of England's biggest cities. There will be kids in Birmingham Bristol Liverpool who's ski ll set is suited to our game, who simply never get introduced to RL, some will end up in union, or in London and Birmingham and Tyneside track n field which is very strong in those regions.
Look at Germany for example, their big strong athletes end up pushing bobsleigh, downhill/ super g skiers, hockey players, highly skilled field athletes pole vault discuss javelin, and decathlon. These are the type of players we need, as Austrailia has very little other completion for this type of players, they have a few good cyclists and very sp track n field.

Yeah agree the overall player pool needs to grow, it's a numbers game to some extent. But if you look at Leeds, we are consistently hunting in Cas/Wakefield/Halifax areas for academy talent aren't we? We pick up some of the best lads because Leeds is a relatively sexy club with relatively good facilities and a strong culture. But as a city of around 1m people I think the club is not great at attracting enough really local Leeds lads (I know we do get some of course). Growing up in North Leeds just a few miles from Headingley, my high school didn't play rugby league and many of my more middle-class mates played RU instead (some talented lads too). My point is that we can always do more to farm our own back yard. None of this is easy of course.

RL has always been stronger in Leeds south of the river.
I can't think of many recent examples of players from North Leeds making the grade. Alex Foster is the only one that springs to mind.

Smith, Oledski and Walker are too old for selection by one age group, they were 3rd year 19's last season , these Yorkshire, Lancashire and england teams are made up of players who were second and first year 19's this past season.

I think it’s true that at least in part it’s a numbers game. I can remember I was given a stat by someone involved in the England setup trying to get clubs to do more for local participation, that Sydney alone has something like 4-5 times the numbers of 12-16 year olds playing the game than England does.

Yep and other one big stat is the ~3x salary cap NRL clubs have compared to SL. Easy to forget that when you watch a world club challenge.
There is an argument that the cream of the crop would find their way into the game regardless - if you’re big, athletic, tough then it’s a natural match. But just taking North Leeds into account; it’s heavily populated and there should be less overlap with other RL clubs as you head towards Otley and Harrogate for example. RU much stronger in these areas but lots of untapped RL potential. It’s the old class divide - but doesn’t seem to have changed too much in... 30 years?

This is coaching issue - we simply don't have the quality of coaches in this country that they do in Australia. Add to that the participation and lack of progression of some young players then it is pretty obvious why the Aussies have more strength in depth at senior level.

Then you have the relevant strengths of the elite competitions - it is no suprise that England have become more competitive as the number of British players playing in the NRL increases.

I genuinely don't want this to sound how it may sound to some.

Why aren't out and out black kids coming thru into RL? We have half castes playing the sport but how many coloured lads play the game at junior level and why aren't they coming through? I remember watching players like Des Drummond, Roy Powell, Henderson Gill, Ellery Hanley who was all magnificent athletes. Look at McGillvray at Hudds, strong, powerful and fast. Coloured people seem to be genuinely better athletic people than whites.

What are the club's foundations, the RFL doing in places such as Chapeltown in Leeds to develop the game and get those kids playing?

I often hear our foundation is in places like Adel and Otley, sorry but those kids ain't gonna play RL.

How many out and out coloured players are currently in SL? Not that many. McGillvray, Springer, Matongo at Hull. Very few.

Seems a large potential talent pool that is untapped to me.

90% of NFL is black. RL should be attractive to these lads. Why isn't it? I genuinely would love to know.

As I say this isn't in any way meant in a racist way, quite the opposite.

We need these lads playing RL.

Just how many black kids are there in Leeds? Not that many, and are there many amateur clubs in areas like Chapy and Harehills?

I get your point but it's more about the areas players are coming from and not their colour. My kids are mixed so it is offensive that you don't class them as black. They are, but they're also white.

And don't say coloured! It's deemed derogatory.

For the record, I'm from Kirkstall.

not sure how it's offensive.it was a genuine question. I'd add why Asians dont seem to play either code or football really. do they just love cricket?

Well that's my point Charlie. What is being done in these areas when there so much untapped potential there.

Choose to take it that way Damo but believe me it's not meant in that way

The point I'm making is that black kids are not seemingly coming thru for whatever reason, a question I don't have an answer for and would like to know as I find it a real shame.

I want to see more playing the game as they have the potential to offer a lot to the sport as people like Drummond, Hanley and Offiah have done in the past.

I think you need to differentiate between British born and actual immigrant families. Across the country you find more British born are actually out of the rugby league heartlands. For the immigrants they tend to come from a strong football fantasy with little knowledge on rugby. That is one reason why there isn’t as many involved.

The second reason is just the way our so called diverse country works. You tend to see races stick together, and form areas of their own. These areas in the main do not have junior rugby set ups as there isn’t a demand, and usually as it is normally areas of low income, there isn’t the budgets to set up,

Let me just say that I'm not part of the PC brigade and aren't saying that Matty is being racist. But his comments insinuate that people of a mixed background aren't classed as black. Society is changing and you see more and more mixed couples, of which I'm one. My kids have darker skin than their 'white' mates and lighter than 'black' friends, but that doesn't define them or segregate them from a group. Talk of "we need more from this ethnicity etc" frustrates me (like the talk in football of black managers) because it comes down to ability. More needs to be done in all areas to encourage the identification and development of ability. Do Jason Robinson, Kallum Watkins, JJB, Alan Hunte have less athletic ability because they're mixed? No! The problem with the game lies more with getting youngsters from all backgrounds involves

Well said.

Damo think your taking my comments totally the wrong way unfortunately. The reason I said don't include half castes is because we have many fantastic half castes players in our game and the sport is all the better for it. Look at Watkins at Leeds as a prime example.

Half caste lads are playing RL and coming thru and nobody is more pleased to see that than me.

My comments are not racist in anyway I want to see the England team have another Hanley, Powell, Offiah, Nickle, Drummond as it used to have. The potential is huge and we need to tap into it. Why aren't they coming through?

I bet in Super League there are less than 10 playing and that cannot be right.