To be fair to St Helens, I think its a cook-up on Keighleys part telling the town we had a Friendly v St Helens and not telling them its the U20's side. How many Keighley fans who havent been for sometime are going to come expecting to see the likes of Wellens, Cunningham and Pryce.

If it was always the U20's coming over, that should have been made clear from day 1.

However, anyone who has taken notice of both St Helelns reserves and junior acadamy teams over the last few years will notice how good they are. Grand finalists in both the last few years, becoming Champions at least once.

Exactly.

To be fair to Saints I don't think we expected to send the kids to play Keighley. We had a game arranged for Mike Bennett's testimonial which was cancelled due to the snow. The only available date to reschedule Mike's game was Friday against Halifax. So the first teamers who would probably have played Keighley played in the testimonial against Halifax instead, as it would be disrespectful to play a kids team in a benefit game.

Thus Keighley were the victims and got a squad full of no marks to play against. It would probably have been fairer to cancel the Keighley game once the need to rearrange the testimonial was known.

Keighley were always going to be playing Saints under 20 team.

Did Saints end up bringing many?

I wouldve guessed about 50 or so but fair play to them!Thought it was good of them to bother at all!

Yeah, we were led to believe by our own people that we would be playing the 'mighty' version of st. Helens, I don't think it's the Saints club's fault;

I don't think it was their fault that we didn't have the right equipment on stand-by either, or that they had to wait around for forty-odd minutes, or that they had to play a shortened game.
I think we deserve an apology, but I won't hold my breath.
If it had originally been advertised as '30 minutes each way, against Saints' kids team', I don't think I'd have paid a tenner to watch it!
On the plus side, top marks to Rach for getting two cracking beers on!!!

It mentions an 'equipment failure' as the reason for a delayed start and shortened game on the official website...
...No apology though...

I don't see a problem with playing a superleague reserve team, but it would have been nice to have one or two first teamers. The young saints lads clearly lost the plot and needed an old head or two to steady the ship.

Lets face it, when Bradford brought a virtual first team they put us to the sword. The last thing you need is to pick up needless injuries by getting bashed by a vastly superior side.

A few seasons ago Leeds brought a side full of youngsters who were on the fringe of the first team. Seeing a young Burrows in full flight was a sheer joy to watch.

Long may these games continue.

I agree, it's always better to see a good game than a vastly one-sided affair... but don't let people think it's the big names coming when it isn't. That's when folk start to feel ripped off.

Cheers, but Can you Bu*gers drink a bit slower at the next match, we'd run out before half time this week !