I love the fact that Penny has resurrected his career. It's not just that he's very fast, and I've a soft spot for a fast winger (we haven't had one at saints for a long time). It's that he seemed finished, he played well out of the top flight, he bided his time, and now he's back.

I wonder how much talent our game has lost because either people walk away in disappointment after not quite making it first time, or because our clubs are so reluctant to look again at anyone who didn't slot straight into a first team place.

Anyway, good on Penny, and good on Warrington for giving him a second dig.

Good post. Kev's game has come on so much. He has always had pace and great ability under the high ball but his game intelligence is really well developed now. His leg drive is great, rarely failing to make good ground in the tackle and has developed a good offload game. Like you, I'm delighted for him. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke and more enthusiastic player.

Hopefully the development of the reserve league will support late developers in the game.

The answer is far to many.

The British game seems to refuse to accept that young men mature at different rates, both physically and mentally. Coaches in SL for whatever reason seem very reticent to give second chances to players who didn't make it the first time.

There are a number of reasons for this that I can think of and they all point to a total short term attitude in SL.

1: We have no A Teams anymore, ludicrous decision in my eyes. I'd rather get rid of the under 16's and hand that job back to the junior clubs but maybe run schools of excellence over the summer. Then combine the under 19's to be two thirds 19 and under and one third open age.

2: This is compounded by the fact that unlike in the NRL there are no "feeder" clubs only the pathetic halfway house which is dual reg.

3: This leaves the championship and that provides very little. The reason being that a decent player rejected from SL can combined with another full/part time job earn some good coin which in turn makes a return to SL on a trial or one year deal look un-economical. I would say by the time a players 25 and been out of the pro ranks for a few seasons he won't make the move. Of course there are exceptions like Penny or Brough but not many.

4: In the history of SL the only time there was any serious movement from the lower leagues to SL was when P&R wa scrapped and the lower SL clubs and the players could take a gamble on a two year deal.

5: Aussie players can resurrect a career in the SL, UK players can only do that playing bush football in Australia. Only current SL players get a pop at NRL with the odd youngster who's got in at reserve grade.

The Championship is full of players who deserve a second look. As a Wakefield fan Cain Southernwood, Lucas Wallshaw and a few more spring to mind. I expect the Leeds, Saints and Wigan's reject pool is even bigger. Also players like Danny Kirmond took an age to mature, he was a winger at Fev and Hudds before he finally became a S/R at Wakefield and was picked for the SL Dream Team, it was a 6 year wait for that to happen.

When I first started watching RL in the 80's Trinity would often pick up amtuer players let alone lower leagues and some were very successful for us. Andy Wilson from Queens was a top try scorer for us in the old Div1 and David Jones from Wigan St Pats was a folk hero and that's just two off the top of my head. Just can't imagine it now. Now if you have not been invited into the gang by the time you're 20 you might as well forget it. Strange when you think that other specialist at that age are still at University or back packing.

There's a potential Andrew Johns or Elery Hanley or Sam Burgess in every city in the world. If only the whole world played rugby league. Even in the heartlands there are potentially better players working in a factory or driving a bus or tiling your bathroom than any player in Suoer League, they've just never played the game before. Then even lads who have and have just fallen by the wayside; there'll be hundreds of them who might have played at junior level or made it pro but fell through the net who could be very good rugby league players.

We're struck by 2 big factors that combine to cause this in my view. 1 is the lack of 2nd teams. But we can't afford proper 2nd teams, we cant even afford proper 1st teams, and if we did they'd siphon players away from the Championship.
2 is that the amateur clubs do a p|ss poor job of coaching the basic skills in players. This means clubs are desperate to get their hands on young players at as young an age as possible.

This means that if a player doesn't make it in the initial stages he, more often than not, drops out of the game entirely. I agree with the general point that clubs should look to the Championship players more than they do. But until we fix up those 2 issues to a large degree then I can't see the situation changing much.

Sometimes you have to take one step back to go 2 steps forward.
Kevin Penny is prove in can work if you work hard enough.

One of the best posts in the history of this forum.

good post.
and i agree with most of it, it's almost a closed shop now in terms of players, if you haven't come through a SL team's academy then you're perceived as not good enough.
and good points about taking players from the championship etc, Kirmond was turned into a back rower at Huddersfield, i don't think he ever played wing for us., Also Lunt, turned out to be a very good player after we picked him up from Workington.Tonks wasn't as successful as those 2 though.
Leroy Cudjoe, Michaeal Lawrence,and Jerry were both picked up from local amateur clubs.
So the talent is out there, it just needs clubs to look for them.

To true about the A teams many a time when i was a lot younger me and my mates went to A teams has well has the first sometimes their were 2 t0 3 thousands their it was great bring them back I say

Couldn't we bring back the A teams and, as Cravenpark1 points out, there could someimes be 2 to 3 thousand at these games. Maybe a little ambitious in this day and age but with a little promotion and a small fee on the gate maybe the games would go a long way to financing themeselves. Lets face it, there will sometimes be "big stars" featuring in these games if the games are taken seriously by the clubs and the coaches.

Really pleased to see Kevin Penny get a second chance. He's obviously had the right support and the vision of Tony Smith to see that he had untapped potential. On the point of second teams it's worth saying Jamie Peacock would have never come through at the Bulls without a second team. He was a very slow developer and took years to mature in the second team before taking his chance.

There is a "2nd team" league.

Sadly, most teams rejected the idea and so only a handful of clubs have a reserves team.

Funnily enough, the teams that do:

Wire
Wigan
Saints
Hull FC
(There's a couple more I can't recall)

Are all at the correct end of the table..

The other teams are ran by Championship teams.

Keighley Cougars (League 1) Reserves gave St Helens Reserves (Inc Burns, Fages, Savelio etc) a run for their money recently.

You have to admire his attitude, good on the lad.

Didn't I read somewhere that he was driving a delivery van in his hiatus from SL?

Fair play to him and to Tony Smith - he's been given a second chance and appears to be making the most of it; he's still lightning fast and doesn't shirk in terms of making the hard carries.

Kevin Penny is an example I have used with my kids a few times to show if you really want something and try hard enough, don't give in if you get knocked back but keep trying, and you can get there.

Sadly they seem to have taken that to mean if Dad says no, then keep asking!