Kiedan Hartley's playing himself into first-team contention at Featherstone Rovers

FORMER LEEDS Rhinos academy back Kiedan Hartley is playing himself into first-team contention at Featherstone Rovers, according to reserves' boss Paul March.
Featherstone's Ben Shulver takes on Hunslet Club Parkside's Aaron York.Featherstone's Ben Shulver takes on Hunslet Club Parkside's Aaron York.
Featherstone's Ben Shulver takes on Hunslet Club Parkside's Aaron York.

Hartley impressed when a second-string Rovers side lost 14-10 to Hunslet Club Parkside, whose chairman Glenn Rawson believes the National Conference champions are set for another good season.

Hartley joined Rhinos at the end of the 2018 campaign and March said: “He played really well at full-back in the first half.

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“We moved him to the wing in the second half, that was always in the plan.

“Obviously [he is a first-team contender].

“He caused Hunslet a lot of problems.”

Rovers fielded mainly reserve team players and trialists and March insisted: “I thought we played well.

“We always knew it was going to be tough and our young boys handled it quite well.

“We probably won’t – apart from the Hull reserves – come up against a better team in the reserve league.

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“The reserves lads only started training on Tuesday and the young lads will build from this.

“They have got to take confidence, we only touched the ball as a group on Friday so there were massive positives.”

Parkside also impressed in a 34-4 defeat by York City Knights in their previous match and Rawson paid tribute to captain Jamie Fields who returned from injury against Rovers.

“Featherstone put a lot of young lads in there, but we showed some quality,” Rawson said.

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“We had six or seven new lads in there too, but they all showed up well. It’s a few more weeks before the season starts and I’m hoping they’ll be really good.

“It was Jamie Fields’ first game back after breaking his arm on the BARLA tour and he hadn’t been training. He gets the goods out of people.

“Andrew Hullock and Danny Rowse, our other BARLA players, were outstanding for us too.

“We’re very lucky in that we manage to keep hold of players like these when the professional clubs are chasing them all the time.”