U19s suffer more losses

Played 8 Won 1 Lost 7

Huddersfield Giants 34 v 14 Wakefield Trinity

Warrington 46 v 32 Wakefield Trinity

Think that brings the U19s results up to date

A rare win for the Academy this weekend, their 2nd of the season
London Broncos U19 18-34 Wakefield Trinity U19

I'm really disappointed by our Academy this year as I thought we looked bigger and stronger than last year. I don't watch them, any suggestions why we are so poor?

The 1/2's aren't good enough and our forwards seem to tail off intensity, all the good work is coming from the back line, but I would say that because I'm biased.
At the beginning of the season they looked so good in their first couple of games, then they seemed to only be able to play 40 mins (sometimes the 1st half sometimes 2nd) I also get the feeling they're not doing what the coach is telling them to do

I wouldn't read too much into it.
As I see it the younger teams exist to hopefully produce future senior players.
We've had all conquering youth teams before with little return in later years.

I agree but it’s the manner, there are some big defeats in there and that’s never a good thing.

To be fair the Bradford and Huddersfield results could quite easily have gone the other way if not for some "incredible" refereeing decisions, we were the better team against Warrington but just gave away too many points in the first half, only the saints and wigan games (both at home) were real drubbings, if they can play for 80 mins and do what Mash is telling them to do, they will turn their season round.

I couldn’t care less about results. We’ve run a reserves this year which means all our year 3’s play in that leaving our year 1 and 2’s to play against older kids.

It’s about producing super league players, not a load of results nobody will remember in 6 months.

it’s easy to criticise and find faults when people are not involved. There’s lots of hard work and commitment that goes into these, hopefully, future SL players. We’ve done okay so far.

I accept that and as someone pointed out we’ve had all conquering teams in the past who have produced zero players. I suppose as a fan you just like to see results.

Must admit in the last ten years or so none of our ‘teams’ have been great but some of the individuals have so no argument from me. However I do stand my ground that swing wins next to Trinity teams is more fun than not

Score lines are nothing more than an indication of where, as a cohort, our young players sit in comparison with those of other clubs.
At present those performances are miles away from the other clubs and that’s disappointing!

No doubt we’ll produce a diamond here and there as we’ve always done, it’s the ones in the rough that we don’t cut & polish who were letting down.

Its incredibly hard to 'make it' in rugby league. There's a handful of players who break through across the SL teams and stay at elite level each year. Probably doesn't even come out to one per club per year. I pay in to Club1873 to support the production of home grown SL standard players and currently we are producing those. They can't all make it and some years we'll perform poorly in the league table, that doesn't unduly concern me. If we were letting players go who regularly came back to haunt us I might worry but i'm not seeing that happen.

Its ridiculous that Wakefiled Cas and Fev all run academies. Just look at the Math. Each club needs say 30 players registered at each age group. Each club is scouting from the same area, plus other clubs outside of our area also scout in our area. I remember a couple of years ago Leeds marketing the fact that 8 of one of their age group teams had been selected for England, 5 of those 8 players were from Wakefield based amateur clubs. So let us presume that Leeds, Wigan, Warrington etc sign say 5 players from our area amateur clubs that means that those amateur clubs have to produce 95 players to fulfill the academy requirements of Wakey , Cas and Fev. Now if you list those 95 players you can bet that the notional 5 that sign for Wigan Leeds etc are in the top 10 ability wise. No one can honestly tell me that they think its a good system, players who you would rank from say 40 to 95 ability wise are basically shirt fillers, there may be the odd exception that proves the point. Also once these lads reach the 17 age group ie play for under 19`s then their amateur club losses them so it makes life really tough for amateur clubs to run age group teams passed under 17. The next thing that happens is that loads of players do not get a contract after under 19`s and many of these lads are lost to the game as their dream is shattered. Far better to have one academy for the three clubs with the best 30 players from our region in it. Means players are not been taken away from their amateur club just to fill required spaces. It seems to work in Hull why not in the Calder area.

Yet all 3 of those clubs continue to unearth a good quality of young player, many that make a professional career out of playing rugby league.