Salford Reds Devils French star Theo Fages has been told to take a bow!

Super League’s master scrum half and Theo’s former mentor - Sean Long - says he could not have done what young Theo has been doing of late.

Fages has been ploughing a lone furrow by going into battle without a recognized half back partner.

Salford have still somehow managed to be competitive in games with Fages coming of age and earning his spurs.

Long cannot speak highly enough of the tough and tenacious Fages.

They meet up again on Friday night when Salford travel to Saints where Long is assistant coach.

Long told MEN Sport: ‘‘I have known Theo since he was 16 and he has really stepped up to the plate in recent weeks.

‘‘He is a talent and good on him for what he has done.

‘‘I honestly do not think I could have done at the age what he has been doing.

‘‘It’s been an incredible effort on his part.

‘‘It will have made him an even better player.’’

Fages will have Rangi Chase for company on Friday and Long is expecting a stern test from his former club.

It's natural progression. France -> Salford - > St Helens.

For all Marwan's cash, you can't prevent players like this stepping up should they wish to. Unless you make him your marquee player?

He has stepped up: for France!

I heard the rumour weeks ago of Saints' interest.

This should bring the Fages love fest brigade out.

I've not heard anything on our side, nothing has been muted on our rumour thread. Is he a 6, 7 or 9 primarily?

I feel his best position is 9.

With him being club trained we could offer him a better deal than anyone else - unless they wanted him as their marquee player.

And he isn't marquee player material, IMHO.

Theo's best attributes are his enthusiasm and never say die attitude, make of that what you will.

I don't thinks he's ' Dieu '

but he's a pretty good , tenacious and he's racked up 55 SL appearances for Salford & he's still only 20 .
Halves hit their prime in their mid to late twenties.

Losing Tasi is one thing ,but if we cannot hold onto Fages , who speaks ' salfordian with a French accent' and bleeds Turkey red in the cause , it will not bode well for our owners new faith in Youth policy .

And it will only serve to make that compelling utterance 'the days that other clubs come to Salford to take their best talent...are gone!' seem very hollow indeed.

As much as that's what fans want to here, it just cannot be stopped unfortunately! Well it can, but you cant stop a certain player from wanting to leave!

Lets be honest If I was a player and I was good enough I would be wanting to play at a club like Leeds, Wigan, Saints - playing in front of big crowds at home games and winning silverware, Not Wakefield. And that is no disrespect, that's just fact.

Yes in time, if the right foundations are put in place, there is nothing to say a so called `smaller club` couldn't consistently compete with the named clubs in most aspects but this takes time and a RL player has a short career! So when these opportunities come up 99% of the time they will want to take it.

Ellis going to Leeds springs to mind, as a fan Wakefield fan I was completely gutted at the time when it was announced but look at what a great career he has had. I very much doubt West Tigers would have shown any sort of interested him been one of the best in the WT team at the time, playing for Leeds and playing in the big games (Grand finals, CC finals, WC challenges) are what got him noticed.

The best way to look at it is as a fan why would you want a player playing for your team that doesn't even want to be here? No matter how talented they are.

Can't see Saints going for Fages. They will have a bucket load of half backs waiting in the wings from their top class academy system. Shouldn't need to be feeding off the scraps from clubs which apparently have no youth policy.