Well laszlo the rfl brought a new system into the 18's this season,god knws why,but their new system is something like: they play a block of 8 games (which wev'e just cmpleted,6 wins 2 losses

)....then they have a 5/6 week break..then the 2nd block of games kicks in ,fixtures dependant on how teams have done in the 1st set of games apparently.
Now i really hope the break does us good(aids injuries/knocks etc ..)...before the 2nd set of games kicks in....what i wouldn't like to see is the momentum we have built up atm knocked sideways by the break

.
On the other hand i can see quite a few of these 18's still playing through this so called break by stepping up to the 20's or mebe even the 1st team squad

...all in all its all good for the club .

If not the first team or reserves, how about a loan spell to a championship 1 side?The level will be higher and be a good learning curve for them.

Its possible mate but i doubt it will happen,as i said earlier i think a few will play 20's to keep them ticking over gamewise and/or the break will b used to help a few of them whom have been carrying knocks for weeks.Its only a 5 week break so lets use it to aid our reserves more then help any1 else imo

.

No U20s at Championship level (you're not in SL yet) its reserves after your U18s. Although I suspect your better players will get poached by SL teams for their U20s next season.

Demon, you are correct. The Widnes u20s play in the "Reserves Championship". Super League teams play in the "Valvoline Academy". So really nobody plays in any u20s.

I can't see any Super League teams being able to afford our better players. They may pick up one or two that we don't want.

Demon remind me where i said we are in super league..?..but you are right i will correct myself just for you....maybe a few of our 18's will step upto the reserves in our 5 week layoff...
As for the poaching bit..well we will just have to wait and see wont we..im assuming u think we wont get super league status then and wont have the financial clout to keep hold of these young un's?...again time will tell.

Demon what is the point of us having a academy set up if have no chance of a franchise?Well we have one hoping to be in Superleague.The decision is early next year and if we get the nod they will stay at Widnes.We should be in Superleague anyway.

Ignore Demon, his lobby opinion doesnt count.

Do you have a few lads from Leigh scholarship in the 18's?

The team that played against Hull KR was:

Alex Brown
Danny Crompton
Declan Hulme
Josh Crowley
Chris Doolan
Danny Craven
Grant Gore
Elliott Davies
Richard Hughes
Alex Gerrard
Tom Kelly
Adam Lawton
Chris Walsh

Chris Aitkin
Harry Naughton
Brad Davies
Ryan Stokes

I recognise a few of the names as being Widnes lads and been brought thorugh the Widnes scholarship but couldn't tell you about all of them.

Alex Brown will be our first lad from Runcorn to come through the scholarship and work his way through the ranks.

Not that I can see in the 18's but Jonny Youds has been on the bench for the reserves of late having been released by Salford.

Ex- Leigh scholarship isnt he ?

May be worth its own thread this one.

Just been confirmed on the official site (are they on the ball - or what?) that our 18s are in the top group for the second phase of the season. Fantastic news and what a boost for the licence application.

With regard to Leigh schloarship, I can only think maybe one or two of the Wigan based lads may have started there. If so, I wonder why they didn't stay there?

Well done, but the 18s where missing quite a few players that day

Are you Paul Cullen?

I hope not, i'd hate to sound like he does

Dont be dissing the Cullster!

Mr Philb

From RFL Website
6/6/10 Hull KR team which lost 12-50 vs Widnes

Alex Everitt; James Maughan, Curtis Pullan, Liam Salter, Sam Watson; Luke Hardcastle, Nathan Slater; Callum Taylor, Joe Gay, Adam Sunman, Sam Jowsey, Jordan Cox, Aaron Ollett. Subs. Rowan Colquhoun, Matthew York, Lloyd Ofori, Scott Eggleton

22/5/10 Hull KR team which won 32-28 vs St Helens

Hull KR: Luke Hardcastle; James Maughan, Curtis Pullen, Rowan Colquhoun, Sam Watson; Kristian Bell, Nathan slater; Callum Taylor, Joe Gay, Sam Jowsey, Liam Salter, Aaron Ollett, Dave Petersen. Subs. Alex Everitt, Adam Surman, Lloyd Ofori, Matthew York.

By my reckoning 15 of the 17 that played and beat St Helens played against Widnes. Yes, some players were missing - or went missing

Affirmative. Don't be disexhonerating the coachical abilitations of Paul Cullen!

To be fair to Hull KR they missed Kristian Bell badly who is a great talent and away with England academy at the moment.

They where demolished on the day though.

How none of our 18's made that squad is hard to take. Seems to be the same old story though at those levels.

I believe that may be the 3, as you are aware we weren't allowed to run an 18's but have plenty of that age group in our reserves who are doing well.

Who said you couldn't run an u18's?

If I remember correctly you were stopped from running an u18's back in 2007 because the RFL were not happy about things during the 2006 season. Then when you were allowed to you chose not to because the RFL said if you want to run an u18's then you have to run an u21's 1st. To get around this you wanted to run a joint u21's with Wigan. This would have minimal financial outlay for the u21's thus allowing you put your resources into the u18's. When the RFL quite rightly said no to the Wigan scheme Leigh knew full well that they wouldn't be able to afford to run both an u21 and u18's and with the RFL saying the u21's come 1st, you didn't really have much choice. No-one has actually stopped you from running an u18's though have they? Its more of a case of the fact you can't afford to run 2 academy teams. I bet if Leigh had it their way they would drop their u21 and just run an u18's instead.

As were our 18's...