Quote TheButcher="TheButcher"Quote TheButcher="middleman"? Luke Menzies
Kyle Amor didn't start playing professional RL until he was 22- then despite being bought by Leeds he spent two seasons playing Championship RL with Whitehaven , then two seasons playing for Wakefield unremarkably . then in 2013 5 years into his career he had a storming season playing his 3rd season with Wakey , and is now one of Saints chief battering rams .
Chris Hill spent 6 seasons , playing various positions in Leigh's squad , after 5 years he became a regular fixture at Prop for Leigh in their Northern Rail Cup winning year , and ' got noticed ' by Warrington
Alex Walmsley - Batley , got Noticed by Saints
Hill , Walmsley & Amor are reputedly 3 of the best English Front row forwards playing in SL and non came through an orthodox SL academy structure.
so 2 points ;-
Props , take time to mature
some talent does get overlooked , more SL sides appear to be noticing Championship Players , especially forwards ,
they obviously see some potential , that may flourish given a full time training environment , and it's pretty low risk - as opposed to flying in overseas forwards who may not settle or be half as good as they think they are ..
You're right he deserves his chance and it would make a great good news story if he made SL level , some players have the talent & waste it ..some might just need the right time - right place .'"
Fully agree here.
I've never understood the arrogance of people who seem to believe that because a player played a certain way for one team means that's the way they'll play for the rest of their career. Clearly, players generally don't emerge world-class and at the top of the game, sustain it for fifteen years before retiring as a legend. People are far too quick to judge. The stupid part is that they must clearly see the fallacy of their argument yet put it forward anyway.'"
I fully agree, but our coach seems to have taken time to watch his new recruits before signing them, but has not watched the likes of Ford, Owen, Davidson or Tyson while he has been here, while bringing in players of the same age from other clubs on the basis that their coaches had the balls to do something he hadn't - expose them to the bigger game. Why is Caton Brown better than Ford? Or Menzies better than Davidson, Groat better than Tyson, or Lee better than Owen?
Will Hope captained the Academy teams at 18s and 20s and played a number of SL matches for SRD. He then was sent to the wilderness, got hacked off by having to train full time at SRD AND both training nights with the Eagles, playing at the weekends, incurring all of the travelling costs while earning far less than his mates who worked fewer hours in normal jobs. He has left and now has a normal job which gives him more money and is less intensive. An extremely promising talent wasted by mismanagement.
At they very least, you would imagine that, with all of the "so called" rugby geniuses at the club, they could have figured out that the lads out on loan shouldn't have to train full time with their home club AND their loan club. But this lot, not only don't seem to have noticed, they don't seem to care. Other clubs and their coaches take a more sensible view of it, to ensure that the players are not over- trained.
That said, over- training seems to be the SRD way. Even Sky's ex GB internationals commented on it tonight!
I personally think the coaching, conditioning and player development staff need to take a good, long look at themselves. They may not just be contributing to the demise of a club, but certainly to the careers of some extremely promising players.
