Quote: Rogues Gallery "It's a crying shame that the young French players are having to come here.
At the Wigan v Catalan academy friendly game at Orrell I was speaking to Laurent Frayssinous.
He told me Catalan could not be admitted into the U19 academy competition because the majority of the Superleague clubs were not prepared to travel to France at that level, so most of the young French players were playing in the lower leagues and that their season ended in early May.
IMO when the clubs got the extra tv funding some of that money should have been ring fenced to MAKE the teams travel. Catalan were prepared to travel over here.
As far as I'm aware only Leeds and Wigan have played in France, but I think Saints, Wigan and Leeds have hosted Catalan over here.
How are those young French players expected to develop if they are not playing regular academy RL?
Rant over.'"
They are not 'having' to come here. Our under 19s head coach has said in today's League Express that he was playing for the first team at Toulouse and had been offered a contract by the Catalan Dragons, but he wanted to come to St Helens to prove himself.
So he chose to come here. He didn't have to.
Just imagine if he had taken up the offer by Catalan and had moved there. He might have been picked for their first team game against Wigan the other week. He could have scored 5 or 6 full length try's like the one against Cas u19's. Now that would of been embarrassing for the pies wouldn't it?
