1984saints wrote:
how can you judge a lad a thirteen come back when he is eighteen and tell us then that he is better than lomax wheeler tomkins myler saints signs loads of world beaters at 13 but no many do anything
Whoa!
I qualified as a primary school teacher last year. Before I started my PGCE I went on the obligatory two week voluntary service in a local primary school. While there, I spent a couple of days in their reception class. The teacher asked me to help out with an 'art work', which basically involved covering up the children while they lobbed tennis balls soaked in paint at a massive piece of cardboard. They loved it. There were 28 children in the class. One stood out a mile. He not only lobbed the ball, but did it with absolute confidence, incredible accuracy and exactly the power required. I tested him by asking him to put a splat on the halfway fold. He did so perfectly. This little lad was 4 years old. He had fantastic hand-eye coordination and I fed this back to his teacher. He had a natural gift and could go on to make it in a sport involving the skills he had to offer - cricket, for example.
If the OP is written by a scout then they too will see raw talent in someone under 13. By that age they will be able to see some application of that talent in the way they play. Having coached under 10s in rugby league I know it is perfectly possible to separate the naturally talented individual from the rest. I'm quite sure the person writing the OP has had a similar experience to this and has been thrilled by it. It is thrilling to see a natural talent at work, no matter what the field. Whether the boy in question will do anything with his talent remains to be seen. But if the talent is there by nature, it will have shown itself by age 13.
Oh, and the other week there was an article on Jonny Lomax on the RFL website. Mike Rush was quoted as saying that Jonny was the best player in his age group at every stage of his development. So that's a present day, real life example of what I was just saying. Some people just stand out.