Mark Percival : Sun May 15, 2011 11:23 pm  

Saints have a awesome talent in our hands called Mark Percival. The lad was called up the first team last week to train with the players, despite only being 17.

Very classy centre who as terrorised every defence this season and scored 2 on Saturday to win his home town club Widnes.

Keep up the good work lad!

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 6:31 am  

Hopefully he won't see the first team for 4 or 5 yrs .Probably,we'll see him next week

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 7:48 am  

Why isn't he playing u20s? Other clubs have 16 year olds playing for the u20s.

What's he going to do with Widnes now he has won it?

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 9:08 am  

snowdog wrote:

Hopefully he won't see the first team for 4 or 5 yrs .Probably,we'll see him next week

Nonsense. If a kid is good enough at 18, he should be playing firsts. If a kid (especially a back) isn't breaking into the firsts until he's 22 or 23, then he's not good enough, or the club is not serving him well.

I know that it's become a mantra that young players need to be "protected", but ultimately, they have a top-class playing career of about 10-12 years, barring injury. Cutting five years out of that helps neither the player nor the club. At 18, any man is physically mature enough to get on the field. If he can't cope with the tackling/speed of the game at 18, then either he needs to work on it in training fast, or he isn't good enough.

I think I might be getting old. That sounded like an old man post.

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 9:11 am  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

Nonsense. If a kid is good enough at 18, he should be playing firsts. If a kid (especially a back) isn't breaking into the firsts until he's 22 or 23, then he's not good enough, or the club is not serving him well.

I know that it's become a mantra that young players need to be "protected", but ultimately, they have a top-class playing career of about 10-12 years, barring injury. Cutting five years out of that helps neither the player nor the club. At 18, any man is physically mature enough to get on the field. If he can't cope with the tackling/speed of the game at 18, then either he needs to work on it in training fast, or he isn't good enough.

I think I might be getting old. That sounded like an old man post.

It's true though, even in todays game young player can thrive. Sam burgess was ripping it up at 18 and thats in the pack!

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 9:22 am  

Todays game suits young players, less physical/dirty than 30 years ago when cheap shots and high tackles were legal, oh and 10m helps.

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 9:24 am  

Paul Youane wrote:

Why isn't he playing u20s? Other clubs have 16 year olds playing for the u20s.

What's he going to do with Widnes now he has won it?

He was out for 8 months with a broken leg. Saints arnt rushing him back. He missed all the U16 fixtures last year.

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 9:27 am  

Was that a training injury or an impact injury?

Just need to clear this up as some people on here seem obsessed with this topic at the moment

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 10:20 am  

TheJudge wrote:

Was that a training injury or an impact injury?

Just need to clear this up as some people on here seem obsessed with this topic at the moment

I think it was a shrapnel wound from Gary Wheeler taking a tackle near him. He had biscuit crumbs embedded in the bone, a horrible injury.

Re: Mark Percival : Mon May 16, 2011 10:24 am  

Saddened! wrote:

I think it was a shrapnel wound from Gary Wheeler taking a tackle near him. He had biscuit crumbs embedded in the bone, a horrible injury.

Leave Gary Wheeler alone. If it hadn't been for that dirty git Hoffman from Wigan, he would have still been our stand off and we'd have been ripping teams to shreds.

As for Percival ... since Scott Moore had his debut at 16, I don't see why a 17 year old can't have his debut at 17. That guy Clarke at Cas is 17. He's injured at present - a big risk with young players yet to develop physically - but a real talent when playing. If Percival has missed a large chunk of time due to injury then he won't be match fit for some time yet. But when he gets there and if he's good enough then throw him in is what I say. If they're good enough, they're old enough (with props being the exception as they also have to be big enough!).