Re: squad for gateshead : Thu May 05, 2011 9:08 pm  

Seventeen-year-old Dan Sarginson will take a break from his A-level studies to make his Harlequins debut in Friday night's Carnegie Challenge Cup fourth-round tie against Gateshead.

The England academy stand-off, who turns 18 later this month, was given a Super League squad number at the start of the season but the club have allowed him to concentrate on his school work.

With full-back Luke Dorn injured and loan signings Karl Pryce and Lee Mitchell both Cup-tied, coach Rob Powell is forced to make changes and Sarginson is one of seven locally-produced players in his squad.

"Dan is likely to play," said Powell. "He's come through our system and is one of our brightest prospects. He probably hasn't been selected so far because he's still at school.

"But he's been able to train with us tomorrow and he's got the day off on Friday so that he can come up on the train with us.

"With him travelling down from Hemel Hempstead for training with us, he's used to doing his homework on the train and I'll be keeping an eye on him on the way up to Gateshead, making sure his mum's happy.

"He's in his second year doing A-levels and has his final exams in less than a month."

Sarginson, who joined Harlequins from his local amateur rugby league club Hemel Stags, has already represented England at Under-16s and Under-17s level.

"He's a stand-off but he can also play loose forward," added Powell. "He's played for England at loose forward and is tough defensively."

Three other youngers - Lamont Bryan, Ben Bolger and Olsi Krasniqi - have also been called up to join fellow Londoners Dave Williams, Jamie O'Callaghan and Tony Clubb in the Harlequins squad for the match against the Championship 1 club.

Meanwhile, Sheffield-born Powell will be back on familiar territory on Friday as he played his first game of rugby league in the north-east while studying at Newcastle University in 1998.

He was so taken with the game that, after gaining his degree, he went on to coach his old university team following a switch to Northumbria University for 18 months to do a masters degree in sport management.

"I enjoyed it," he said. "It's a good place and I had a good time. Rugby league was just kicking off then. There had been a lot of activity for quite a while but there was only one team.

"A guy called Rob Jones coached the university team and he is still a development officer in the north-east. He was the first person to encourage me to go into coaching and I'm still in touch with him."

Re: squad for gateshead : Thu May 05, 2011 9:50 pm  

A lot of the chat on here has been the boys having a lack of confidence, so we now have a game where they can practice some of the basics of "throw ball catch ball" and when they other team are doing it, practicing stopping em walking straight through you! And we are all saying give em a rest!! So RP plays the kids and we win by 20! then the lads get more downhearted coz we will rip em apart on here or plays the full squad and we put 70 past em
and then the next SL round we all say "oohhh the lads are knackered"
Put the best squad out let em have free reign hopefully batter the poor northern lads and get some points scored!!

Re: squad for gateshead : Fri May 06, 2011 8:27 am  

I think Sargy has been recently picked for England U18's

Re: squad for gateshead : Fri May 06, 2011 9:16 am  

A great prospect-Good with the ball and good in defence

Re: squad for gateshead : Fri May 06, 2011 1:09 pm  

When Rammo was talking to Lamont Bryan on wednesdays rugby show. Bryan said about Sargy that he is the real deal (not so much in those words but you get what i mean), that hes one of the best HB's he has seen at his age. He went on to say that he can kick of both feet, got a good sidestep and one thing hes got that not a lot of HB's have he claimed is that he can tackle and tackle hard. And one thing which is important i think is he said more then anything hes got a good rugby brain on him.

So i say bring him along slowly make sure clubs from up north don't come knocking (ie Wire or Wigan with checkbooks), and most of important of all keep him away from the RU lot at Quins who could start to take a look.

Just one other thing on squads for games like this. I see that Wigan have announced a very strong squad for their game against Barrow and their fans are even wondering why at least couple were not rested and couple of young guns given ago.... And yes i know before anyone points out that Barrow are in the Championship and far better then gateshead,but think it shows that even teams like wigan not resting any of their first 17.

Re: squad for gateshead : Fri May 06, 2011 4:26 pm  

Surprised that it's the same old 19 once more as the majority of you guys are. Surely an opportunity to give some of the team a bit of a rest.