Quote: NickyKiss "It'll always be a massive transition to first team for a big lad like that because as you say he's not going to be able to physically bully teams anymore.
The best opppsition forward I ever say at junior level was Ryan Bailey! I'm sure he got about 4 or 5 try's in one game and opposition teams just couldn't handle him. Fast forward to first team level and he's a nobody. He's easily handled so basically goes down the route of being a trouble maker with an exceptionallly limited ability to damage teams in the right ways.
I'm sure young Kibula would love all Ryan Baileys medals but he's a prime example of a junior beast who couldn't do the same things at first team level.'"
I remember a lad from my age group (u16's around 2005) called Gerry Bridge, was on Wigan's books for a while as a junior and was an absolute beast at amateur level. The scariest thing I ever did was to try and tackle him. I retired not long after that!
But same story with him, just bullied his way through the younger age groups but ultimately struggled when everyone else caught up to him physically.
