Wigan Warriors: Matty Peet says reserve grade rugby league is 'miles off' where it needs to be as he discusses the club's dual-registration agreement

The Warriors have recently announced a dual-registration agreement with Oldham Roughyeds, in order to offer some of the club’s younger players an opportunity to gain regular first team experience.

Peet states the partnership with the League One club will prove to be useful throughout the season, but insists more should be done to improve the reserves programme.

“We will use it to the extent required,” he said.

“We need to look each week and month at what is the best opportunity for each player, whether that is loan, playing reserves or dual-reg.

“We’ve got pretty much a 30-man squad, so when everyone is fit and healthy we’ve got players that need games.

“The reserves programme isn’t where it needs to be.

“It’s better than nothing, but it’s miles off, so we need to keep pushing that forward as a game.

“Everyone agrees the most intense standard in your pathway below first-grade should be the reserves, and at the moment that’s not the case.

"I’d put that right at the top of the things the game needs to be striving for in the next few years.

“The better it is, the better prepared players will be.

"It’s very labour-intensive on the staff at the clubs to go through the players not playing and trying to find the best opportunity for each of them on a weekly basis, while fitting them into other people’s training programmes.

"It could be a lot simpler if we had a regular pathway, you could be playing in the Wigan shirt, playing the Wigan way, in competitive games each week.

"That would give our coaches the opportunity to work with them, and we wouldn’t have players travelling to Whitehaven and London, which does have its positives but brings a new set of challenges.”

The Warriors currently have a number of players out on loan in the Championship, with six players in action over the weekend.

This included Zach Eckersley, who went over for a try in London Broncos’ 26-18 defeat to Halifax, with Harvie Hill and Ramon Silva also involved.

Meanwhile, Junior Nsemba, Jacob Douglas and Tom Forber all featured in Whitehaven’s 76-4 loss against Featherstone.