Not sure I agree. You become SL standard when you play in SL - a huge amount of that SL or NRL quality comes from being forced to raise your game - we proved that as a club for 25 years!


Where is the motivation at present? We easily win every game by just playing the full 80, I’m not sure what exactly you are expecting - I think we need to be realist here.

When we played Wigan we were superb, why? Because it was Wigan or at least a variant of them. Tgat is where you should be looking imho.

That doesn`t count for much though tbf, lets not forget Jowitt played a of a lot of his academy games at centre but he was always going to be a fullback and he came into the first team and was. I'm not sure the merit behind it, but you seem to get a lot of it throughout the game when bringing young FBs in particular through and more often than not, they are played at centre, Zak Hardaker was a classic example and I think with Zak actually he then came into the Leeds team as a centre before going to his natural position. Lets not forget also as a club, we are taking a view of the whole set up, so if Powell wants to take a look at if Franco might be a cover at FB right now, he`s going to play him in the reserves there.

Noah has lots of potential, so do a lot of the other young players we have at the club, every time I see Will Brough play, I`m impressed, he`s a HB but again he also often plays in the centre, doesn`t mean much really.

I agree but I don't think it needs to be a comp. He will benefit from a series of friendlies as long as they are competitive.
With that in mind though, maybe a DR loan is better for him.
He certainly has skills, but he's learning a tough role and it takes time.

I agree with this. Lots of potential within the youth set up. Those who always get the hype are not necessarily the best players on the pitch.

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