I thought for much of the game they were better than us from a skills point of view.
We were fitter and our forwards were stronger but their 7 had an excellent kicking game and their ŕight centre and wing tore holes in our left edge.
I don't know if was particularly Lawford but the flood only stopped when Kay when to defend at third man in.

The score did not reflect how good Swinton were.

Am I missing something, who's hyped Booth up? nobody really mentions him and he's just the next young player that Powell seems to have around the first team like Croft, who plays FB. He may have played a few different positions to try them in reserves but FB is what he has done as a junior and was brought in as.

100% true there mate

I haven’t seen any academy games this season but is there any young lads who are showing early promise?

I much prefer the structure of a league. There is an innate pride in being a top team, far more so than friendly games. It also far more mirrors the experience of being in the first team. If done properly it allows partnerships to be created. It’s the regularity of it that makes it work imho.

I think the loss of a full A team comp is the biggest reason that the game is failing to create enough creative players. For most forwards training gives them most of what they need, but HBs in particular need a place to work stuff out.Most Aussie HBs make their name in the reserve grades first.

Full game now on YouTube-

rlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v