By Martin Morgan

Last updated 11:41, Tuesday, 10 June 2008

FOUR West Cumbrian youngsters fly out to Italy with BARLA Great Britain Under-23s tomorrow, touching down little over 24 hours before potentially facing the host nation in Test action.

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Elbra’s Kyle Lofthouse

Egremont pair Reece Davies and Richard Farrer, Ellenborough’s Kyle Lofthouse and Scott Lofthouse of Kells are included in a 34-strong party for the tour.

The Brits then face a clash with a French Select side on Friday and will field two teams in the Simone Franchini International Nines over the weekend.

Manager Mick Turner said: “We have got a lot of new faces and a lot of young lads with a lot to prove and these lads are full BARLA Great Britain internationals for the future.

“It is a very good party going out there, a good competition to have a go in and to see players and see how they behave off and on the rugby pitch, and then we can evaluate them better.

“To see how people react away from home, as well as playing, is important, but we will take it on from there and all the party are looking forward to it. Everybody is buzzing and BARLA are doing a great venture again and getting their name about in rugby league.

“We have a great record on our tours of Italy and we want to beat as many teams as we can.

“But we also like to go out to Italy and develop the game, which is our main aim really, and hopefully though our development work in future years we will see Italy become a force to be reckoned with.”

Ex-Workington Town and Whitehaven forward, Gary Charlton, a joint coach of the victorious Cumbria in this season’s county championship, is among the coaching staff to make the trip.

GB head coach Kevin Thompson said: “It’s great that we have a lot of young players coming through with outstanding ability.

“The ‘23’ squad is part of the BARLA pathway to the open age side and we pointed this out to them a couple of weeks ago, when we played the England Students, of the opportunities, particularly to get through into the open age squad who are going to the southern hemisphere in 2009.”