Experience - what experience?

[BigCat2]

That's an insane gap in there. Suddenly dropping 40 games, or half their experience.

Yep, that was the thing I picked up on earlier too. Another thing is that gap neatly divides our premiership and non-premiership players - with the exception of Richard Hadley.

Like Grim said, after a couple more years, our side should be young enough to stay together for a while, if our club can hang on to them. Then it's just a matter of weeding out the deadwood and picking up good kids each year, until we're a force to be reckoned with again.

Although if everybody is fit, next year our starting 22 would still look fairly impressive...

 

[ZoBlitz]

Only one thing you can really do with an inexperienced side... play them till the younger players become comfortable in their role in the side and start to gel as a team. Of course that's one of the main problems we had this season, the team didn't get a chance to gel with all the young guys coming through and the injuries that affected the side. I was watching some of our games from 2002 and the quick movement of the ball, the slick handballing and accurate kicking to the right areas just look so easy but it takes time.

It'll be an interesting season in any case. If our main players stay out on the park and some of the youngsters grow into their roles, we could possibly slip into the eight but that's probably not the most likely scenario.

 

[BigCat2]

Aye, while injuries to Lappin, C Scott and Johnson affected our season, it gave us a chance to see what the youngsters could do. With those 3, we already knew what they're capable of. The shame was the likes of Hadley and Garner getting injured, as this year could've been a good chance for them to stand up.

Our champion side of 2001-2004 was being built from 1993 onwards. There were a few before then in White, Hart, Ashcroft etc, but they were the exceptions. Voss, Lappin, Scott etc all started playing around the same time. It was good of Robert Walls to keep giving them the chance to develop. A second batch arrived around 1999 with Black, Power, Brown etc. These 3 should still be good enough when our side is ready for another tilt at the title.