Signed for Wakefield on 2 year contract.



Good luck young man.

[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/10/10/08/RUGBYL_Wakefield.html[/url

Didn't he win the Reserve/Acadamy (whatever it is) player of the year?



We're shipping the Young Un's out like Wigan now a few years ago

He's a back row though so he's sitting behind Clough, Wilkin, Flannery, Soliola, Dixon, Ashurst & McGennis. He's coming to that age we're its make or break, so I don't blame him for looking else where.

Good luck to the lad.

It's a major problem in that one players get to 20 -21 - 22 years old and have not established themselves in the first team, what does a club do with them.

The three over 20's in the U20 team rule makes it difficult, and so the majority move on. The other option is to loan players out on dual contract, but even in that case many of the players tend to move on, Ainscough, Walker, Smith, Emmitt, Dean, Tyrer etc.



It must be a very difficult for a club in deciding who to keep.

What is he like/is he a prospect or a no hoper? Never seen him before. Judging by the great players who have come through from your academy hope we havent signed a dud. Thoughts on what he is like would be grateful.

I've only seen him at first grade on I think two occasions so it's hard to say how good he is but apparently he's played some good matches at u20s level. I would imagine he's been spotted as potentially a good player who now wants a fulltime contract but who is a bit too far down the pecking order at Saints to guarantee much first team action in the near future.

No world beater but will take the ball up all day and tackle all day. Looks to have a good attitude towards playing the game.

Was awarded Saints under 20's player of the year last year, and played a number of games for Whitehaven on loan. Was Saints player of the match in the reserves grand final.



Also played a couple of games for Saints 1st team this year and although listed in the backrow, took it straight down the middle acting like a prop. He was not afraid to run flat out at lads bigger than him, get smashed then run right back at them.



I think with Full time coaching, he was apparently only part time, then he should improve and become the type of good club player every side needs.

He will be in the championship within 3 seasons.

thanks guys !

According to the Wakefield site Mike Rush recommended him to them. It is good to see we are looking after all our juniors and not just the ones that make it with us.

To be honest Rogues if a young player has not made it by the time they are 21/22 then they are not going to make it. A lot is made out about your team letting go a lot of young players but in reality very few have prooved Wigan wrong. The same can be said about Saints, even the natural ability of Lee Briers has not been enough to prove that Saints reservations about his professionalism were wrong.



I personally think it a good thing that the 20/25 rule and the salary cap exist. It forces clubs to find out if their young players are good enough and if not they are allowed to go to a club who will.



The bottom line is that Paul is a good player who should be playing in Superleague but is probably not good enough to play at Saints given the quality of the other players coming through. In the past a lot of good Saints juniors that have only just fallen off the radar after just missing out at Saints.



I guess that a lot of clubs know who they are going to keep. Foster vs Armstrong and Dean Vs Wheeler are great examples of this. For a long time it looked like Armstrong and Dean were going to make it at Saints but Wheeler and Foster had always showed more promise in the juniors and the club gave them more time to prove themselves so eventually they got the first team contracts.

Do you not think robinson and brown as proving themselves as good enough for wigoon then?

I doubt Wigan would swap tompkins and lulu and/or finch for them

OK I have two issues with that comment.



1. Two players would count as "very few"

2. Luke Robinson would not get picked in Wigans team and Brown would not be guarenteed a plave either.

I think I've been very consistent on this one.



On the players that left, Aspinwall, Hodgson, Brown, Wilde, Brown, Bibey etc Kevin Brown is the only player I wish we had kept.



I am and always was a Kev Brown fan and was told he was very close to resigning for Wigan for next season.



I hope he has a great tour down under, and proves what a good player he really is.

I'd agree with that. I like Brown as a player and it's a bit of shame he hasn't quite reached the levels that the little dribble through try in the corner hinted at.

The unfortunate thing for many 20,21 year olds is that they are often competing with 25 to 30 year old Ausies or NZs for a place in the team and thats not a level playing field.



A club will almost always opt for safety when picking its top 20 players, ie. those who will make up the team for the majority of the season. Sadly that means many young kids with potential never get to finish their rugby education by playing regular 1st team football.

Agreed,

This is my solution, apologies to all of you who have heard it before.



Six substitutes and substitutions, but NO interchange (bringing fitness and stamina back into the equation).

Two of those substitutes have to be 21 or under at the start of the season (or an agreed date) and English qualified.



Thoughts please?

I like it, but I like interchanges too, so I'd have 5 on the bench, but like you suggest, 2 under 21's on it

There are a few issues with your idea rogues.



1. The Australian would never adopt such a scheme increasing the difference between the two main leagues in the world.



2. You would be guarenteed 2 under 21s on the bench but you would be discouraging teams from starting them.



3. The legality of saying that 2 players have to be British born is questionable. In fact our current system would probably not handle a legal challenge.



I do like the idea in principle but it would be hard seeing it executed.



My idea to solve the overseas issue is simple (and stolen from the RFU). Rather than just hand out the Sky tv money the rfl should pay each club for each player that is qualified to play for a home nation each time they play.



So take the amount of Sky money per club divide by 27 (rounds in a season) divide by 17 (players in a team) and that is the amount given for playing a player. If you wanted to reward teams that produce players you could give half to the team that produced the player and half to the team he played for. So when Michael Shenton Plays for Saints half the money goes to Saints half to Cas'. This would also reward Championship clubs that currently get nothing when Superleague teams poach their juniors.



No restrictions on overseas players so if a team wants to have all overseas players they can (they just won't get any tv money).



For this to work there would need to be a tightening of the qualification rules to prevent teams getting their players to register their players to play for england i.e. Manu and Maurie.

I like the idea of bringing a bigger stamina factor in and in the past have thought 4 subs with 6 substitutions would be perfect.



One quiet day in work last year I came up with a whole program for a 3rd competion to replace the extra SL games, so that teams only played each other twice in the league.



the main points of the competetion were as follows:



8 of the starting squad must be 24 or under.



5m offside rule - this will benifit two fold. First, it will reduce the impact on our forwards, reducing the stress on there bodies that acumulates over a season and puts the lighter, younger players at less of a disadvantage. Secondly, having the defensive line start closer means we will have to improve our playmaking skills, hopefully producing a couple more players with the playmaking touch of a Gregory or Goulding, who learnt their trades under the 5m rule. It will also place a bigger imprtance on the kicking game, as yards will be harder to win with ball in hand.



Encourage a fast PTB. The 5m defensive line should ensure that blind scooting isn't rewarded, so a fast play the ball will bring fast entertaining rugby.



I came up with a playing scheulde for 16 team (including 2 from the division below) in four groups of four, with semi finals and a final to finish.



The competetion will help improve our players skills, bring on youngsters, give us another trophy to play for instead of a handfull of repeat fixtures and generally mix things up a bit.

The reduction in the quota and removal of relegation has already seen improvements in this area.



Even Wakefield are signing young English players to give them a chance rather than dodgy old Australians.

I much prefer the idea of a separate, possibly midweek comp for under 23-under 25s, possibly also including 1st teams from clubs in the championship, to Rogues's idea. I think the restrictions that the RFL have introduced are gradually bearing fruit, and we don't need to introduce artificial restraints on game-day selection.



I'm with Rogues on reducing the number of interchanges though. Twelve is just too many.

I don't think so. You remove the interchanges and an awful lot of the impact would leave the game. By 60 minutes in your average game there would be very tired bodies and the standards would drop dramatically.