and every one on here is going on about us and exceptions they had a bloody good one there then

give over, it was for ONE SEASON ONLY, not like your team who choose to fill their roster with overseas regardless

no sorry yea i forgot that you were saved by a merger by super league, aloud to play ineligible players in the challenge cup, play suspended players in a 9's tournament to clear there suspensions have i forgotten anything and you don't really get away with much do you how silly of me to question your club

can i just say if there going to get away with it can you blame them any team who can will so were not the only ones iam sure fc saints whoever would do it if they could

This whole thing about how its bad to have foreigners in your side really annoys me.

Who cares about International RL ? Its a complete farce anyway considering you can play for more then one country and you only need a grandmother who was born in that country from two centuries ago to qualify to play for that country. They will only ever be three good international RL sides and then again it can be argued they is a massive difference in quality between them. Hence why international RL will never come close to Club RL, I'd go well out of my way to watch FC play but never would to watch England.

If signing an Aussie improves your team, then do it. If you happen to sign a couple of players who have had very good careers and even if they are getting on can aid in the development of local players then so be it. Its about time people stopped concerntrating on international RL and started to concerntrate on improving what we already have.

So who cares if they are foreign, if they improve our competition then let them over.

Not sure what the fuss is about Morgan is only signing just 2 overseas players this year. www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html

Not sure what the fuss is about Morgan is only signing just 2 overseas players this year. www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html

It's indicative of the current mindset of this sport that you're pretty-much the only person in this thread to actually question the point of the overseas rules in the first place. It's all 'stadium this' and 'homegrown that'. Apparently thats what makes you the best team these days.

As you say, how one organisation can dictate that it's clubs select players on country of birth whilst it's own national side (and pretty much the only place this form of xenophobia is acceptable) is selecting Samoans and Tongans, is beyond me.

Winning teams who play good quality RL is what will get people playing and watching this sport. Yeah, youngsters want to know theres a route to the top, but if they're good enough they will get a chance somewhere to prove it. Until they are, clubs should sign the best players they can afford and try and win games - that is the point of sporting competition.

Because when the day comes that England beat Aus in the 4 nations no one outside the RL heartlands will care where teh players came from.

Just the same as they dont when they watch the RU world cup, or the 6 nations...or when they watch the State of Origina and the number of islanders and kiwis playing in those teams.

so lets get rid of the salary cap and actually sign the best players because that isnt close to what we are doing now

Not true at all. Well partly true, it might get people from Hull watching it but it won't get someone from Birmingham. What about those people who don't have a local RL team and no ties to the game? They don't care about watching Hull or Leeds they care about watching a winning England team, a team who they can 'support'.

national leagues?
lunt,raleigh,kirmond,kyle wood,greg mcnally were all signed from national league clubs by us,fair enough mcnally hasn't played in super league but he's a decent player.

surplus to requirements at other clubs?
not mentoning the first team regulars at the giants but good british players come off contract all the time,im sure hull kr would be aware of which players they were?

exactly, 60 million people have an automatic affiliation with our national team, right there we have easiest hook we are ever, ever going to have to get people involved in the game.

But not only that, we arent signing the best players, we are signing at best 2nd tier antipodeans, mostly third tier antipodeans, and rarely formerly top class antipodeans who are now pretty old. The argument may hold water if SL was like a premier league with most of the best players in the world of rugby playing in our league, but it isnt, we dont have most of the best players in the world, the SC and general financial constraints will stop that ever happening. The only way we can improve the standard of SL to the level of the NRL is to create more of our own world class players, relying on NRL cast offs simply makes ours a 2 class product

nooo, dont be silly, the Hull KR fans have told us that it would be totally unreasonable to expect them to find some diamonds in the rough. Apparently the only option is to have an academy set up the quality of Leeds or buy lots and lots of overseas players. There are no players in the national leagues and no english players off-contract as good as Ben Fisher, or Rhys Lovegrove apparently

name ours then

Now then, I got a little bored, my boss is not happy in the slightest.

Bradford 25 man squad:
Academy - 12
UK - 7
Overseas - 6

Castleford
Academy - 12
UK - 8
Overseas - 5

Catalans
Academy - 10
French - 8
Overseas - 7

Crusaders
Academy - 4
UK - 5
Overseas - 16

Harlequins
Academy - 9
UK - 11
Overseas - 5

Huddersfield
Academy - 3
UK - 15
Overseas - 7

Hull FC
Academy - 11
UK - 7
Overseas - 7

Hull KR
Academy - 4
UK - 13
Overseas - 8

Leeds
Academy - 12
UK - 6
Overseas - 7

Salford
Academy - 7
UK - 11
Overseas - 7

St Helens
Academy - 14
UK - 5
Overseas - 6

Wakefield
Academy - 10
UK - 7
Overseas - 8

Warrington
Academy - 8
UK - 11
Overseas - 6

Wigan
Academy - 12
UK - 5
Overseas - 8

Now I'm sure I've probably got a couple wrong slightly here and there but you get the gist. However, simply looking at the figures it looks like, for instance, Warrington, Wakey and Bradford are doing ok. But when you look at what would be their first 17 squad theres usually only 3 or 4 academy products in their respective squads. Whilst they may well be good for the future, most of their academy products in their 25 man squads are simply young lads, most of whom won't make it in the future and will drop down into the Championship.

On the flip side, teams like Saints & Leeds have 1st 17 squads with a large number of academy products, usually around 8 or 9 and then topped up with quality UK and overseas players.

The most worrying are Huddersfield & Hull KR in my opinion.

Does that overseas total include our England international?

So youve named 3 players there. Hardly a pool of talent.

You do know you signed Raleigh from us dont you? Dont let Smokey know that though...

Yes it damn well does.



It wasn't only for the reason that I didn't want Saints to look good in this aspect (honest

) but more that he didn't really come through Saints academy system.

its three fewer overseas players that Hull KR would have if they did something similar
not sure quite what your point is?

not wishing to be pedantic,but if your going by squads then we have far more than 3 academy players. crabtree,lawrence,cudjoe and raleigh are the first team regulars, but jermaine mcgilvary,josh griffin,elliott hodgson,adam walker,jacob fairbank,keal carlile,alex brown,have all played in the first team or have been named in a first team squad,larne patrick was signed as a reserve team player despite starting out at bradford as a junior academy player.
as for our 7 overseas players, whatuira was released after only playing 10 times, drew was brought in as more of a mentor,although he has played 10 games this year fa'alogo ( 14) lolesi ( 15) have featured in only half the games.
like i said im not being pedantic just pointing out that it's not that worrying for huddersfield.

3 players over the course of 3 seasons is hardly enough to run a squad from is it?



My point is Andy Raleigh was a player we unearthed and moulded into a SL player for Hudds.

Something you seem to think HKR have been incapable of.

yes,when you were an average national league club


my point was that if you want the lower talent it's there if you look hard enough for it.

At least give us slightly above average.

We won the NRC that year!

Im not argueing that talent isnt out there. Im argueing that a newly promoted SL club needs time to find, blood and mould these players and that its not as simple as Smokey makes out.

or signed from sheffield??, he was a good prospect at hull kr which is why we signed him because we saw the potential there,we didn't have to, we could have gone out and signed a 2nd rate aussie,which is what the point of this thread is about.

Uneartherd/signed from Sheff. Hadnt he just been playing at Uni the season before that?

You could of gone out and signed a 2nd rate Aussie but when you signed Raleigh you werent a newly promoted SL side, which is what my point is about.. Had it been your debut SL season and with barely no academy to choose players from, i think you would of done things pretty similar to us.