A year on from England Academy’s win over Australia Schoolboys – how have they got on since?

[Total Rugby League]

It’s a year to the day since a bunch of young English lads sent the Aussies packing. December 8th is the first anniversary of England...

View the full article

[Dunbar]

The talk of youth development on the Zane Tetevano thread got me thinking about how the development of the Academy team that defeated the Australians 2-0 at the end of 2018 is going.

Just to put a bit of context on the 2018 team. In 2016 the England Academy team played the Aussies and from that team just 6 have gone on the play more than 30 Super League games (out of a total of 349 Super League games played by the full 17).  These are Mikolaj Oledzki, Cameron Smith, Matthew English, Danny Walker, James Bachelor and Morgan Smith.

Similarly, six of the Aussie team have gone on to play 30 or more NRL games Nic Cotric, Campbell Graham, Thomas Mikaele, Payne Haas, Zac Lomax and Blayke Brailey.

What I find interesting about this is both Cotric and Haas have gone on to play State of Origin and for the Kangaroos and and Zac Lomax was in the NSW SOO squad this year and yet when we discuss the English kids we are constantly saying they are not ready yet... what is it that is different about the Aussies where they seen to develop much faster after the junior level.

Anyway, on the 2018 team.  While the 2016 team have played 349 Super League games between them, the 2018 team have already played 245 and every one of the 17 from the first test have tasted first team rugby (only 6 of the Aussie team have played in the NRL so far...with Bradmen Best, Stephen Crichton and Tom Dearden being the picks).

Here is the England team with Super League appearances to date (high to low)... which of these are on their way to full international honours do we think?

Harry Newman - 35

Morgan Smithies - 35

Innes Senior - 32

Jack Welsby - 26

Louis Senior - 23

Oliver Wilson - 17

Harry Smith - 15

Tom Holroyd - 12

Cameron Scott - 11

Ethan Havard - 10

Callum McLelland - 8

Owen Trout - 8

Joe Shorrocks - 5

Sam Walters - 4

Muizz Mustapha - 2

Corey Johnson - 1

James McDonnell - 1