It bugs me when the club has spoken of our rebuild and how we're a young side on the rise, who've finished bringing in youth. While we've turned over our list a great deal, quality youth is not what we've brought in most of the time yet it should be what drives a resurgence after a rebuild.
At present, it's the older heads carrying a bunch of middle aged players with few young players making it into the side let alone impacting the play. In almost every game we've played this season, we've had on the whole, a more mature side than our opponent and I don't think it was demonstrated better than yesterday afternoon.
The Tigers had a bunch of 21 and under players (many of whom impacted the game) including Bolton, Stack, Castagna, Baker, Balta, Ross, Higgins and Garthwaite. Supporting them were very few of the senior stars who should be teaching and carrying them through the season and yet they travelled across the country and belted us.
On the other hand our under 21 players included Cerra, Brayshaw and Cox who tried hard and I thought impacted the play as much as most of the middle aged players. However that's less than half the number of young players the Tigers who are in premiership contention played.
My worry is the rebuild isn't happening and we're being placed in a position where we sit around the middle/lower end of the table for a little while before completely bottoming out once again, having to institute another proper rebuild.
