Quote: stillinthepast "For the last few weeks the age old question has raised its head, should we be exposing young player to the intensity of S/L, this has been mentioned a few times on the Wigan board today with regards to Powell, Williams and Hampshire..
No doubt the game these days is far more intense and faster than 50 /60 years ago, but in a way it was just as tough then.
The reason I am saying this is because TV coverage misses nothing, and any attacks on young players off the ball is almost always found out.
Fans say that todays forwards are 16/17 stone super fit players and young lads should not be exposed to this physicality, but scrum halves and standoffs are often said to be 13 stones.
This is why I have raised this point, in the 5os especially (when I started watching Wigan) there used to be some very tiny halfbacks, one in particular was Jeff Stevenson from Leeds.
He was 5ft 5inches and weighed 9st 10lbs and he played for GB 19 times , if you touched him the Leeds pack would sort the offender out.
One instance with Wigan sticks in my mind was a match in the 50s against Saints at Central Park when the young Wigan scrum half Tommy Parr was flattened by Dougie Greenhall ( a very tough centre), but there was always someone tougher.
Wigan's Harry Street a very hard Yorkshire born loose forward spent the whole of the second half going after Greenhall and he caught up with him at the end.
The most famous was Alex Murphy, the finest halfback in my opinion to have played the game, but what made him so good at such a young age (debut for Saints at 17,Australian tourist at 1icon_cool.gif?. His enforcer was Vinty Karalius which meant if you touched Murph you had Vinty to reckon with.
To sum up 60 years ago when the game may have been slower the refs had no TV to fall back on it was a known thing that if you touched a young player you could expect retribution and the ref turned blind eye until it was sorted.
Going back to the conjecture about Hampshire, Powell and Williams, here are my thoughts.
Hampshire is injured at the moment so we do not know how much he would have progressed if he had had a run.
Powell he reminds me of a Smith type player ( as has been mentioned) or a back up hooker.
Williams is the one for me who shows to me flashes of someone special, he is very well built and he shows he will not be intimidated, when he scored that try on Thursday he showed the composure of a class halfback. Joel Tomkins was backing up on his left when that avenue was blocked off he immediately went towards Charnley and was blocked off again so he cut back and went the rest of the way on his own.
He just reminded me of a young Andy Gregory, a bold statement I know but by never panicking that's the impression he gave me.'"
=roundpeg>it takes me back a bit talking about half backs being looked after by the loose FWD s your spot on when you say murphy was the best and the saying IF YOUR GOOD ENOUGH YOUR OLD ENOUGH it certainly applied to him. It was tough around the scrum in those days feeding the ball up into the face of the opposing hooker and getting a boot in the mush for good measure speed around the scrum base getting the standoff away and the loose forward keeping an eye on the scrumhalf and following the play. The game isn't as quick as today but the
scrimmaging was skilful.
