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cpwigan wrote:I daresay Manfredi thinks these 2 opportunities were very valuable.

cpwigan wrote:

DaveO wrote:

Whelley Warrior wrote:Surely the idea is to see how the younger fringe players go on at a higher level than just playing against their own age in Academy games.

They went as expected - they got well beaten in both games and so how anyone can draw any conclusions about the young players in mismatched games like this I don't know.

A quite predicable outcome and so in my opinion we have simply done Leigh and HKR a favour by given their teams some match practice.

Maybe the motivation for taking part in these games was different anyway. Send a team to HKR as part of the transfer deals and keep Leigh sweet so we can loan them players given the lack of a proper reserve competition. I hope so because from a Wigan point of view they were IMO pointless.

A tried and tested method of junior development is to put your team in the age group above competition for a season.

Is that actually allowed in RL? It certainly isn't in RU.

In any case this is two games not a season and in both they were mismatches so I remain skeptical any meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

They get beaten more oten than not BUT the season after you play them against their own age and they often rarelt if ever lose a game.

We (fans) often complain about not giving youngsters opportunities. Hey presto youngsters get 2 good opportunities and some still complain. I daresay, Wane Et Al have a much better idea now which youngsters can potentially step up and are worth keeping with the first team and which others need to go on dual contract / loans.

I do not see these 2 defeats as any cause for concern personally.

As I said I am skeptical you can draw any meaningful conclusions from these two games.

The result in friendlies has never really mattered apart from perhaps the Locker Cup! It's whether they prove a useful exercise or not.

So it depends what the object of the exercise of the friendlies are. I would have thought with such a new first team line up Wane would take the opportunity to play it (or most of it) as often as possible but he has chosen to look at the younger players instead in these two games (though he wasn't even at Leigh...).

As to fans moaning about youngsters not getting opportunities they refer to opportunities in the season playing alongside first team players not opportunities in friendlies.

Muphy getting one game all season before the play offs being a prime example of what fans complain about in that regard.

Whelley Warrior wrote:There is now no competition over the Under 19's, so the club has to decide which players from number 19 to keep for the season and which to allow to go the other clubs on long and short term loans.
Blame the RFL for what is taking place and not the Coach or Club.