Last updated at 12:20, Wednesday, 04 July 2012

Ex-Whitehaven scholarship prop Liam McAvoy has been left in no doubt at the challenge facing England Academy ahead of their forthcoming Australian tour.

Liam McAvoy

The next generation of Super League stars, including the former Broughton Red Rose junior, depart on July 19 and face two challenging warm-up games before tackling the Australian Schoolboys in a two-Test series.

England will play New South Wales Under-18s on July 25 at Narrabeen before taking on the best of Parramatta’s Juniors on Saturday July 28.

The Academy youngsters will then face the Schoolboys on Sunday, August 5, and the following Saturday, at Canberra and Wynnum-Manly respectively.

“The first week on tour is going to be very tough – there’s no escaping that,” said England coach Dave Elliott, from Whitehaven.

“We’ll be basing ourselves at Narrabeen for preparation as the facilities there are first class and then we go into two tough games in short succession.

“We have purposefully set it up so that we test ourselves to the limit early on. I didn’t want to go into a Test week worried about picking up injuries from a midweek game so we’ll get a good chance to test our game-plans early on and then we have a week to focus solely on the first Test.

“It will be a challenge for everyone but winning a Test series isn’t easy and the staff and the players are under no illusions as to what it will take.”

First published at 11:30, Wednesday, 04 July 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk