Saints boss Nathan Brown looking after the long-term interests of Mark Percival (From St Helens Star)

Saints boss Nathan Brown looking after the long-term interests of Mark Percival

8:50am Tuesday 12th March 2013 in Sport By Mike Critchley

SAINTS boss Nathan Brown expects fleet-footed centre Mark Percival to play more than his fair share of games this year despite him being stood down for last Friday’s trip to Warrington.

The 18-year-old Widnesian had made a memorable debut the previous week with his pace, poise and footwork engineering two tries for Francis Meli in the defeat by Leeds.

But coach Brown is adopting a slowly but surely policy when it comes to the career of the young prodigy.

Brown explained: “Percy is a young kid with many years in front of him and we have to make sure we use him right this year.

“He has a lot of filling out to do – he will play a number of games this year but we don’t want to overuse him.

“He had come up against Leeds the week before and facing a big bloke like Carl Ablett can take a lot out of a young kid.

“It seemed like the wise thing to do. He will play his share of games this year – and many more in thr years to come. The short term is not the biggest part of his career, but for us we will need him to play a certain amount of games this year which will be good for us and for him.”

As a tactic, nobody can have any doubts it worked on Friday, with Jordan Turner swapping sides of the pitch to produce his best display in a Saints shirt so far and 19-year-old Josh Jones making a solid return to the three-quarters.