I dont think its fair that jamie foster has played 4 matchs, everyone raves about him after leeds then we have a bad match against salford which was a bad team preformance and suddenly him and lomax aint good enough for super league (another player everyone thought was amazing untill saturday), lets be honest the only person who played well on saturday was jammer and even he made a few c*ck ups

The thing people need to accept about a young player is that its one thing to cope in the midst of a good team and another to hold your own as a player in your own right, but the hardest thing (for any player, even) is to fix a problem on the field.
Jamie Foster will go away from the game and learn from his mistakes. There's not many young kids who could find themselves getting a hiding due to a number of factors and manage to turn it around in the same 80 minutes.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and all that.

When did everyone rave about Foster after the Leeds match? ? ?

He was found wanting against Toulouse, Leeds, and now Salford.

As St Phil Clarke said, "experience is something you get immediately after you needed it"

I just hope it does not dent the young guys confidence.

Can't comment on the Toulouse match, but I thought he did well against Leeds. He returned the ball strongly.

I think his downfall against Salford was the fact that it was basically an U21 defensive line-up all down that side. That's always going to be a gamble, and when you give your opposition plenty of ball like we did at the weekend the likelihood is that they'll struggle.

He'll learn.

In attack, yes.

Look at the Ryan Hall try that was dis-allowed, look at the tries Leeds scored when Delaney and Hall scored, and look at Foster's reading and positioning...

You will struggle to find a junior who doesn't struggle at first.

Those mistakes will be ironed out of his game as he learns to read it at this level.

Too true.

Potter probably saw this as a game to let him cut his teeth. It didn't work out. It wouldn't have dented Foster's confidence half as much if we had gone on to win the game, but the rest of the mob on the pitch weren't capable.

From what I have read on Foster, with regards to his goal kicking, he is methodical, and will spend time assessing and developing the flaws in his game.

His feet appear firmly on the floor, and with so many postivies to take out of his time in the first team, he will have bits to work on, and bits to develop, but I feel we will see a better player come out of it.

Foster looks quite sharp with the ball, but you are right about the above. I certainly remember him being way out of position for Hall to walk in (only for the try to be dissallowed). He'd been sucked way in off his wing.

Potentially the downside of being a centre most of his junior career?

And having an inexperienced centre inside him (Armstrong was there wasn't he?).

Foster didn't look out of place at all for me in that game, playing against an international winger. Of course he made mistakes, but every player does in every game they play.

That was my initial thought. It isn't really an excuse though, a channel's a channel, and if he was playing centre, he could just as easily have wandered out of position into 2nd row territory.
I reckon he was just ball watching and would probably but it down to the relatively big occasion for him. I wouldn't worry until he starts doing it every week.

Plus, the try was dissallowed for McGuire running behind his own men, so that could've helped distrubt Foster's decision making.

Where is Armstrong? He's far better than Lomax and Foster?

i totaly agree you carnt slag them off after one poor performance, thats what happened to ian hardman (wakefield away) and ste tyrer (cass away) after that there confidence was shot, the best thing for them now is to get a few weeks in the reserves and then back into the 1st team

hurt himself when he got held up over the line against KR

Lomax is quality! Just wait and see.

Until he has a bad game then you'll consign him to the bin.

He has size on his side, which will help him avoid the bad games easier than Foster could initially, even if they had equal potential.

Not true at all. I'm a very good judge of young players. You can tell the ones who have the potential from those who don't very early on IMO.

I've never criticised a young player then watched as they became a star player. When everyone was bigging up Tyrer and Hardman for example, I said they wouldn't be any good. One is outside SL and the other at Salford.

As for Armstrong I don't rate him particularly highly, but as mentioned he is physically capable of tackling a big SL centre, he did a fine job against the Goons for example. He also has solid hands, which Lomax lacks.

At the moment I would have Dean at centre if Flannery or Gidley were out and Armstrong at either centre or wing if the first teamers were out.

Would you take Dean at centre in front of Wheeler?

I wouldn't. I would have Wheeler at centre, regardless of who was fit. However, Wheeler, Dean and Flannery were all non-starters for Saturday's match and so it was down to our more inexperienced young players. Potter should never have switched Foster to centre as he had only had two first grade games on the wing. He needed more confidence in the wing spot before taking the centre spot. Roby could have competently covered centre spot given that we had no centres left. In fact, Potter should have switched between Foster and Lomax on the wing so as to ease Lomax back after such a long lay off. To bring him back for a full match when he'd been away for 10 weeks was just ridiculous.

Mind you, not that any of the above would have made any difference. Bar James Graham and to a degree Eastmond and Roby as well, they were all rubbish.

nar, start with pryce at the centre with moore at stand off, and then have lomax/foster/armstrong on the wing

Neither of these are near Saints quality. Never were, never would be.

A knock to the confidence doesn't finish a quality player. For evidence see Gary Connolly in the '89 CC Final.