With several highly rated young players knocking on the door, the question is when will they play SL? I can't really understand why Fairbank has not been given a chance particularly given the under performing pack. Surely Connor and Leeming (I know he is injured at the moment) have to be given the opportunity soon. Johnson has had a couple of runs lately and to me has been more effective than koppy. I Don't want to see the young talent drift off to other clubs without being given a chance. Other clubs seem to feed the young guns in gradually but we seem reluctant. I know Cudjoe, Bruno, Crabtree and Jerry came through but it's not a regular thing. I know Wardle was put in early but I'm talking about players we have brought through ourselves from juniors. It particularly concerns me because after the 19's there is no other regular option, which seems a barmy set up to me anyway.
Just a view from me and interested in other opinions, but hope it stays sensible and hope all opinions are respected not ridiculed!

good points, today was a good opportunity to give the likes of miller, connor etc a run.
the game wasn't much of a contest and giving them 20 minutes could have done them some good.

Further to that, Mullally came on and had some real go forward for the Giants today but must have only been given half the game time of Kopczak who probably made half as many meters per carry.

TBH I can't see how the kids would have been given a chance today. We are playing rubbish and are nowhere near where we need to be. Throwing kids into that won't help them. We need points at the moment to build confidence. The timing is wrong for kids being blooded IMO.

ml;

There is some truth in this. putting them in a losing side damages confidence. But some of them need to be blooded soon.

Agree about Mullally. Should play every game from now on. If we need to loan a prop then maybe Koppy back to Bradford?


I just dont think some of our players look as fit as last season and have maybe bulked up too much

Is it fitness or is it attitude?

They don't run as hard, albeit Eorl and Ta'ai ran harder today. Koppy is happy to put himself at dummy though; he didn't earn his wage today for me. Wakey made more metres than us today and that has been a common theme all season. They looked more interested than we did. And they get penalties off the back of it.

You make your own luck and we don't look like we want it as much as the opposition. When we switch on in short spells we smash them but then quickly switch back off.

Maybe some of it is fitness but I think a lot of it is still attitude and on field leadership.

There shouldn't be a wrong or right time. Look at wigan last season. They threw the 'kids' in willy nilly regardless of form and won two trophies. They will be better for it this season too.
Playing time for our youngsters will come I suppose when Anderson feels the time is right. I'm sure he'll be speaking with them privately and they'll know where they stand. If they want to go it's our bad luck.
I feel Fairbank might feel abit frustrated because of the game time he's got in the past. He didn't let us down either. Connor has had a huge taste of super league including a semi final so I hope he isn't frustrated.

I'm personally disappointed that Anderson hasn't rotated as much as I thought he would and given some super league experience out to our young guns.
Johnson is proof enough that it can work. He's been really good.

I think now is the perfect time to blood some youngsters. They might give us the enthusiasm the senior players aren't showing.

I feel that Anderson has had the opportunity to put Leeming in and opted for a very average wood.

Also choosing koppy over fairbank and Mullally.

Wakey was perfect game to rest grix and play Connor.

I have been thinking about it for a while but if we don't start seeing some youngsters given a chance I will be pulling my squad builder subscription.

As it stands we are producing good players for other clubs.

I feel frustrated so can't imagine how the young lads feel.

If Anderson had played youngsters and we lost when experienced players sat in the stands we would want to know why Anderson was playing the young lads!
We have been inconsistent hitting good form against Leeds, Wigan, saints and poor against hkr, widnes, cats! We need to get our first team to show up week in week out before adding new faces to it!

Grix could have been rested yesterday for Connor but as we know he is a confidence player let it build for him plus he wouldn't have had a game for 18 days if hadn't of played!

My only one really would have been mulally for koppy! Koppy has been outshone by Johnson, fusi, fuey, Patrick and now eorl seems to be bringing it! Mulally was looking very very good yesterday!

End of the day we are now pushing mulally, given Johnson a couple and the young lads keeps making the 19 man squad! In ando we trust and four points over Easter has proven that

Having watched leeming play for the academy on many occasions I can tell you that wood offers more! (By the way you did notice he wasn't playing at hooker yesterday did you???)
Some of kyles passing yesterday was absolutely top draw! Leeming doesn't have that speed to his passing that Kyle has- although he is accurate. Woods defence hasn't let us down either and he's been targeted as robbo is.
I think our biggest let down has been our line speed. It seems the tactic again this season is to stand our ground and let teams run at our line. It means we conserve energy? (Although how much given the increased momentum of the opposition) but concede ground- that coupled with our poor discipline has meant the other side have been in our half of the field far too often.
Keep hearing from the players nowts won in April-which is correct - but nowts won in October if you don't make the 8!

I agree with Jools, I thought Kyle Wood looked very comfortable at scrum-half with some crisp passing and intelligent kicking.

Leeming is injured, no?

I honestly don't understand why Wood ever gets any criticism... He's a quality player! One of our best, and I get the feeling he has a lot more to give! Would like to see him take the line on a bit more though. For his size he rarely misses any tackles either.

Kyle Wood has been very good for us this season. He has come in and done the job asked to do and you can't really ask for anything more. I would say that he has been one of our better players. Unfortunately, for some reason, he seems to be one of those players that people "don't get" cos every week irrelevant of how he or the team plays people want to drop him. It's quite bizarre.

I agree Wood has looked better this season, and I think he has looked better at Scrum Half than Hooker, maybe leave him there and use Robbo with Lunty?. However we still have to find out whether Leeming is upto SL or not, and the only way to find that out, for others as well, is for them to get some game time. My worry is that we can never find the "right time" to play them and we arrive at the start of a new season with untried youngsters, who may then end up playing elsewhere, and leading to the question - why develop them at all?. I'm noy advocating we put teams full of kids out, but a gradual introduction as subs on a regular basis - i.e 1 kid per game. If such as Grix is injured (easy example)don't move othere around just put Connor straight in. To me Johnson has looked good when he's played and added more than Koppy at the moment, and Im sure Fairbank would offer a lot as well. Maybe the problem is with the structure in RL - i.e 19's straight to SL with nothing in between. there must be a lot of players kicking their heels every week.

That structure was voted for by the clubs to save money when sportuk pulled their funding! Anderson regularly goes to watch the academy play- and sees them train every week and I'm pretty sure he knows whether and who is ready. I also think that our poor start has perhaps forced his hand a bit. There's a lot of stuff goes on that we don't know about- if PA doesn't think their ready then that's his decision to shoulder.

think we should of given connor a chance at full back by now..if not at the start of the season then when? back end when its getting to big games?

disagree on kopczak, he will come good again and still puts in some big runs.

wood for me has been poor in defence last two games, been targeted and not matched up the way robinson does.

You sure about that brearley?
Wood 286 tackles missed 14
Robbo 182 tackles missed 25

And just to really put the point home
Lunt 140 tackles missed 13

Please now tell me wood doesn't match up.
He's struggled the last two- but remember how many 80 minutes stints he's put in in the middle of the field recently!!!!

I think the problem with Wood is that in the 2 positions he covers - Scrum half and hooker, we have been spoilt with 2 very, very good players there and Kyle isn't at the same standard as those 2, so when he does replace them we look weaker with him on because he isn't Robbo or Lunty, he's a decent player who's ok as a squad member as cover though.

As for the youngster's apart from Bruno, Eorl, Leroy and Jerry how many youngsters have we actually given a chance to in SL ??
We've never been reknowed for given our home grown talent a chance in the 1st team and players never fulfilled potential and ended up at Chaampionship etc, whether they genuinely weren't good enough for Super League we will never know as none of em ever got more than a handful of games.
Johnson, Leeming, Connor, Miller, Aspinall etc should be playing SL or at least blooding them in gently rather than having them in the 19's or at Batley - they will get match fitness there but not the intensity needed to find out if they are cut out for this league.

blooding youngsters didn't do do wigan any harm last season! it didn't do them much harm playing the kids on monday either!

wood does a job i suppose but nothing flash and he just seems steady, ok if you want to stay a mid table team.. you can tell when lunt is on the pitch at hooker

same with robinson, notice him in attack but havent really noticed wood in attack last two games.

but have noticed his poor tackling..gave him benefit of the doubt against salford with it being hock but again on sunday he was singled out by the wakey 2nd rower who had a belter of a game.

What poor tackling- he's doing better than both robbo and Lunt on that front. He'd played 4 games in less than two weeks-after some brutal 80 minute slots against the biggest blokes on the park- He's not a better halfback than robbo and he's not a better hooker than Lunt - but he's matched up to both in defence this season-I'm not having it brearley - I just think you are wrong.

I know wood has played last two at sh.

I would not expect Leeming to be better than Wood at this stage in his career, however time and games will tell if he has the potential to be so.

Personally I would just like to see us give these kids an opportunity.

Surprised that Connor did not get a go over Easter - understand the argument about not blooding kids in a losing side but don't see the point of going in to a season with claims of "genuine pressure to play well to keep place" when we are then reluctant to rotate the team.

For me at this stage of the season the most important thing is to establish some real hunger for cementing a first team place, and to prove that when youngsters are blooded that they do not offer more than the first teamers. That of course can work the other way, with the youngsters proving their worth and the benefit there is the first teamer being more determined to get their place back, work harder etc...

With ref to Kyle - his better position is at SH - and I thought he played well over the two games there. Against Wakey his distribution was good and did not really notice any issue in defence.

More worrying was our lack against Wakey of moving the ball. Such a poor game really with one out runs and then more one out runs. Really pleased we got the two wins - but not impressed with either performance. We will need to be much better to beat a very good Cas team. They seem to be doing what we did last year and are high on confidence.

josh johnson has been given a chance, albeit quite limited

but come in due to lack of props

the others youngsters have senior players ahead of them like connor - grix would have to be dropped/rested which anderson obviously doesnt want to do.

leeming is injured.

aspinall is on loan at sheffield and from what i have seen of him wont make it at super league but would like to be proved wrong

Although I agree with the initial post, two things come into play, the form of those you replace and more importantly the form of the youngster. Anderson is in the best position to judge this. We do have the broncos and bulls coming up so there is perhaps a couple of opportunities there.