SEVERAL of the young Saints handed a rare start for Monday’s clash with Wakefield emerged with enhanced reputations and gave an indication of potentially bright futures in the red vee.
Only three members of the club’s 1-17 were selected – Tommy Makinson, Joey Lussick and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, with the latter of those being twice the age of the youngest members of the team.
The fact that Jake Wingfield, Jon Bennison and Ben Davies (above) were classed as seniors in this line-up gave an indication of the side’s youth.
But there was a real buy-in from all concerned, and despite a 34-18 reverse, the team earned a deserved ovation at the end of the game.
Had it not been for a succession of first half errors, which put them under the cosh, or the finishing prowess of four-try Trinity wing Lewis Murphy then the scoreline would have been even tighter.
Coach Kristian Woolf said: “There was a lot of young men out there – four made debuts, but a few more who made debuts against Castleford (at Easter) and have played one or two games.
“Our experienced guys included Ben Davies and Jon Bennison who have just come into first grade themselves and started to cement themselves into the team.
“It was a young team and I thought we beat ourselves in the first half and made too many errors, with little things like not finding touch or play two errors coming out of our end.
“It meant that we spent the whole of that first half defending our line and Wakefield had 66 per cent of the ball.
“We put ourselves under pressure.
“But what I was really proud of in the second half was that I thought we got the better of them and played with a real energy and got 50 per cent of the ball and ended up 12-all on the scoreboard and unlucky to not find more points.”
There was a stand-out performance off the bench from 18-year-old packman George Delaney, who fearlessly hit the ball up fast and hard.
“He loves contact. Every tackle or every run he makes looks like a big hit because he loves running into them and he does it with a real intensity,” Woolf said.
“He was the stand out and he certainly has a bright future at the club. He is a great young kid coming through and there are a number of them.
“Young Keane Gilford dropped a really testing spiral bomb early on and that can knock a young bloke’s confidence on debut, but he kept going at the game.
“He was defending a really good winger there - you take that bloke (Murphy) out of their team and they probably don’t find three tries because of the way he can finish.
“I thought the way he cleaned up a couple of kicks there, the way he scrambled the way he ran off his own tryline was a good sign.
“Ben Lane did a good job on the other wing, Ellis Archer has got some ability – the way he kicks the ball and does some other things really well.”
Woolf was pleased that the one-club system fell into place for this one with the Academy and Reserves players slotting into the first team structure.
“The club works really hard on making sure that we can do that in terms of what we do through the Academy and how we recruit kids and produce and develop them and there’s a lot of effort and time goes into that.
“It is something we do really well at first grade – we have always got four or five guys who have come out of the Academy and come through to the first grade team – we work in developing them and helping them be first graders.
“Jon Bennison is the leading example of that at the moment,” Woolf said.
Having fielded a strong side three days ago at Wigan – sustaining further injuries and suspensions – both Saints and the Warriors fielded youthful teams with eyes fixed on further down the track for the start of play-offs.
Although a long-standing critic of Super League’s onerous fixture list, the opportunities for the youngsters was the silver lining.
“There is a positive side to it,” Woolf said.
“A Good Friday weekend where you play Friday and Monday can still be kept in a schedule and there’s a positive side to the strategy in terms of who you play and what you play.
“There’s no doubt that young guys get opportunities off the back of that and that is great to see and it is exciting.
“But what we can’t do is what we are doing, playing too many times for 27 rounds, with play offs and Challenge Cup on top and international trials in the middle that we keep on adding and adding and that becomes reckless,” Woolf said.
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