I think this is a difficult one to call. We can all name young players brought through early where it was a success and others where it was a failure. For mine this is one that we have to trust the coaching team to call. I hope he gets some opportunities to test himself in SL next year but not at the risk of damaging a really good long term prospect. Hopefully the coaching team will be spot on with which games he should be in the 17 for.

Cameron Smith has also been written off by a lot of fans despite only been 18.

Some people are far too quick to call for young kids to be thrown into first grade week in week out, then far too quick to shoot them down when they don't immediately deliver.

Don't think you can write a player off at 18, but my god Smith was awful for us. Even with us in L1, i think you'd struggle to find any fan who would be happy us signing him for next year. Loan or otherwise. A million miles off being a first team player for you guys. His defence was one of the worst i've seen. Very disappointing. He was dropped for the last 3 games he was so bad.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... gue-poland

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... gue-poland

Liked the linked guardian piece, if the club can get his granddad over here to watch him play at least once, it should. He's something different (Mo, that is, not the granddad) and there's a story to be told.

WRT props starting at an early age, durability is an issue. McDermott has alluded to it in his usual cryptic fashion and I've heard JP say as much too. Not so much the game in which they play, it's convincing them they're fit to train and play the week afterwards. Battle hardening, I guess. Can't be easy if you feel like you've rolled down Ben Nevis in a dustbin every Monday.