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.

i agree to a point,but as someone has alluded to,next year is rovers' 5th in super league,surely by now they could have found some young british talent to bring upto SL standard? and especially given the amount of amateur/junior clubs on their doorstep too.

It was 25 man squads as deemed by the RFL to be a clubs First Team Squad. I did include Whatuira, which simply a judgement call as to who to include and who not. Drew, mentor or not, is an overseas player in Huddersfield's first team squad, as are Fa'alogo and Lolesi.

As for your other young players, thats why I restricted it to a first team squad of 25, otherwise its simply a case of which team has a bigger academy. Which means sod all. Josh Griffin was signed from Wakey, Keal Carlile was signed from Bradford and I didn't include them or McGilvary, Hodgson, Walker, Fairbank or Brown in the 25 man squad due to more senior players above them.

Andy Raleigh, I thought, started out at Sheffield however if I'm wrong about that I'll happily change it.

It is slightly (and no more than that) worrying in my view that Hudds only have 3 (or 4) academy products in their team, however I don't know enough about Hudds academy system now to judge what potential it has for the future. Same goes for Hull KR by the way.

we weren't a top side either we were in our 4th season back in the top flight and we saw a good young English prospect, which is what rovers are guilty of not doing in their 4th season.

We've got some good young english prospects given full time contracts in this our 4th season in SL. So lets see how we are the end of the season shall we?

The work being done by Martin Dunn at Rovers with the academy is excellent.

fair enough,i wasn't trying to make out you were being naughty


we have some good prospects in the academy set up who will only improve with brad drew as their coach, we beat hull in the eliminator last week 33-14 and now play wigan. hopefully we will see some of these lads coming through next year as mcgilvary has done this year, 7 tries in 5 games.

good stuff,hopefully some of these lads will start to come through next year if given chance?

Hopefully mate.

Its not an overnight solution, stuff like this needs time, its only fair to judge in a couple more years time.

you dont have to run with a squad of 3 players over 3 seasons, just if you had brought in three players like that, you could have run with 3 fewer overseas players


Im sure Hudds were fairly sure of his existence prior to him playing for you considering he had already played for their academy He had also played for Sheffield and was 24 and had been in the nl2 dream team for 2 years before spending 1 year with hull kr

we are into the play-offs, which players are you expecting to bring through in the play-offs?

where are the prospects you signed 4 years ago? where are the projects?

if the academy work is so good, why do you need 10 overseas players next season?