That's a good result for Saints' juniors isn't it?

Of course it is. I just happen to know "The Eclipse" and value his opinion on the junior game, particularly in Australia.
Saints have done very well on their previous tours over to Aus and I know they use the use them as a selling point to young players looking to join the club, and quite rightly so.

Put it one way rogues we at Saints do not throw silly money at juniors from Yorkshire.

That's Leeds and Wires prerogative. Saying that Cameron Smith is the best young player I've seen in quite a while, it'll be interesting to see how he develops.
I didn't realise Levy, Knowles, Grace and Wellington were from Bold Miners.

The truth is teams will offer kids what they think they are worth, and in most cases it's not just about money. Lewis Fairhurst for instance went to Saints because he thought it would be difficult to get in front of Williams, Hampshire and Shorrocks who were only a year or two older than him.

Wrong, but this is about Saints academy in Aus, so let's not derail the thread.

If you want to compare salaries/incentives for young players look no further than Smith and Smith.

I think he was implying Hampshire was at the time - I believe wigan even paid a transfer fee to Hull for him? 5k if I remember rightly.

The Smith brothers though topple all academy records in that respect - and didn't Leeds break the rules by signing Cameron before the rules let them? It'll be interesting to see if either of them develop into first teamers. So many academy superstars fall by the wayside ...

Sounded a good win for the Saints kids in their first outing, and a fantastic opportunity to open for Tonga v Cook Islands - all it can do is enhance our rep.

Do people think that this can lead to some of our players not returning to playing for us again? Take Levy for example, say he rips it up on the tour and leads the pack in every game, what happens if bids come in for him from Souths and Manly or whoever?

Do people think that as well as enhancing our players experience that we could also lose one or two future stars to the NRL at a young age?

It really was a great win against the odds, the players only had 3 days to acclimatise to the hot conditions and they lost Josh Eaves to injury early on when he was controlling things around the ruck.
Speaking to Matty Lees and Matt Costello after the game, they mentioned how fast the game was in tough conditions against a much bigger Tigers squad.
The Saints player who impressed me most was Kevin Brown who played on the wing, he may not be the biggest but he got stuck in, he is pretty elusive and made several pressure relieving runs.
Levy Nzoungou was strong and took some stopping, also produced a few offloads.
Rob Fairclough was a steadying influence, nice kicking game and made a couple of half breaks.
I thought Jorge Lewtas did a ton of work against much bigger opposition and never took a backward step.
The Wests Tigers had some highly rated players in their team, the fullback played for the Australian Schoolboys v NZ two weeks ago but Saints kept him quiet.

Josh Eaves broken his jaw

It's going to happen. Maybe not this year, but the NRL are now aware of Super League as a potential hotspot for talent and will be picking some of the cherries.

Does Australia have any form of work permit situation the other way? I'd imagine it would be impossible for a Super League side to sign a 17 year old pre-professional Australian as he wouldn't have played NRL or internationally.

That's rubbish. Loads of kids will pick Wigan due to the fact they develop a lot of good players and always give their homegrown kids a shot.

Career wise if I had a choice of all the local teams I'd choose Wigan. Lots of u14s kids at brook chose Wigan also.

So do we, although they will probably stay injury free at Wigan.

Not sure, but I think it would go down as some form of work experience fiddle or something. One of the Burgess', i think it was George, had hardly played for Bradford if he'd played at all when he got signed by Souths, so I don't think they're that stringent.

Most of the kids that go over are tied to deals for at least 12 months, so they wouldn't be able to approach kids without Saints permission.

Of the party that go out, there's no more than half a dozen that go on to make it anyway. It's more than a rugby trip, its about getting kids to make them more rounded individuals, becoming more independent and seeing things in a different light. It's brilliant, and for sure the pros outway the cons massively.