Can't argue with that to be fair.

Do you feel Ellis could've got more of a chance? Genuine question, because I can't remember who your halves were when he signed for Cas after the dual reg year at Leigh. Ironically, might have been Lomax and Gaskell. Just wonder whether Ellis and Lomax would've been a better combo.

Ellis had off field issues which was always going to impede his progress at Saints, or at least keep him lower in the pecking order than he perhaps should of been. Gaskell was Ellis' replacement, Eastmond and Pryce were the incumbents at the time iirc.

There's a lot of ifs and buts from Saints in terms of producing halfbacks. If Eastmond had made his long term plans clearer, Smith wouldn't of been let go is the classic example, in fact I think a Smith/ Eastmond combo now would work very well now, at both club and international level.

is chase not in the mix again?? been in good form so far

but i suppose he has had his chance

upto macnamara but some peoples faces dont fit.. i.e Brough

The big problem with developing young half backs, in my opinion, is the jump from u19's to SL. If we're not going to have feeder clubs or their equivalent then it'll take a longer time to develop young halves as they need exposure to open age play without the pressure of playing in SL.

The way the game's coached no longer favours the development of playmakers IMO. Once over, you'd get a young gobe of a player who effectively changed the way those around him played. Put his own stamp on matters, if you like. Too much control freakery going on with the coaches for that to happen now. And fans buy into it: often as not, if their team's failing to score enough, they're calling for attack coaches when what they should be calling for is for their halves to be given freer reign.

I'm not sure what your involvement in coaching is, but my experience is the opposite. Coaching and training is much more about mini games to teach players to play what's in front of them, rather than the historical approach of drills that run to set patterns.

I'll come clean here, I've no involvement with coaching whatsoever. As stated, my comments were opinion only and could well be incorrect. I gather you are a coach, so here's a couple of questions: is our apparent failure to produce decent halves in recent times a hangover from when drills/set patterns were in vogue?
Can we expect matters to improve under the mini game approach? If so, how long before the improvements become apparent?

I coached seriously (dabbled with a bit here and there) from 2007 until 2013, and have resisted the temptation to lose large amounts of time, so far, since arriving in SA



If I think about how coaching changed over the years, it's a lot. I'm 43, through school and my 20s, coaching consisted of little more than "run harder, tackle harder" with a little safety stuff in tackling, and the occasional "trick" of a team move or something. There was very little in individual technique. Lots of drills to practice skills, but it you had poor technique, you would just get better at that poor technique.
Since then, it's moved to real focus on individual skills, and learning those through mini games. Probably 2009 for it to get to me in Midlands RL. I remember hearing about how Spanish soccer made the change to training kids through lots of short sided, 3-7 a side mini games. We started coaching that way: technique instruction, mini-game to practice, break and question, mini-game, etc. It takes a long time to come through though to open age though. I was coaching U16s but it's almost too late by then. It's the ten year olds that matter, and so 12 years to come through. Remember though, our rivals are following the same approach.

This. Also unfortunately there are many many coaches in the amateur game who still go by the principles of run harder and tackle harder and pass it to the big kid. They ignore the overtures from the RFL, Coach Ed, etc to go down the route of small sided games and still do drills they've copied from SL teams.

I've seen an u10's team do fitness training. Basically doing shuttle runs and dropping to the ground when the coach blows the whistle. An u10's team. It's f***ing ridiculous.

Leon Pryce alongside Widdop

Pryce will never play internationally again, but he's played well this year. Mickey Paea aside he's been Hull best player so far by quite a distance (not that big a feat though tbf).

This again; the fundamental problem is that the community game is pretty much the Wild West, with a load of Dad's wielding their coaching badges like a Sherrif's star, 'coaching' kids in ways that would cause many people to shake their heads in disbelief. There is far too little control, guidance, or setting of standards from the governing body; junior league officials are next to useless; and most clubs, due to lack of resources, are just relieved to find somebody, anybody, who will take on the coaching of a junior team. I'm sure some are well meaning, as I'm equally sure that some are downright horrible, but the standard of coaching in the community game is, as a rule, appalling - with some exceptions.

It all changes when you get to U15 of course - when you start to notice men in SL club badge emblazoned coats watching your matches from a discrete distance, making notes on a clipboard, and singling out the parents of promising young players in the car park afterwards; have enough of those promising youngsters, and suddenly you have SL players turning up to train with the kids, coaching sessions held at the SL club, or your coach being offered some role in the junior set-up at the SL club, on the understanding that he brings certain lads with him...

It's a mess, and it won't get any better until the RFL take the community game seriously and start supporting the jr clubs so that they a) do a much better job for the young people they purport to be bringing into the game and b) face sanctions if they don't use that support to behave appropriately.