Those results put us on par with or better than 3/4 of the league. Not bad at all for Superleague newcomers. Plenty of clubs would have been happy with those results. Thanks for that Kippers



Plus, let's not forget Rovers won exactly the same number of trophies last season as former champions Leeds and if I recall correctly they did the double over the former champions.

no it doesnt, it averages out at an average position of 7th. Mid-table. BTW you arent newcomers anymore.

if only we hadnt put the time and effort into scouting and youth development and instead employed as many mediocre overseas players as Hull KR, we too could have failed to reach the CC final, finished lower in the league, and been knocked out of the play-offs earlier.

Your results are ok but Catalans, probably the most comparable club to you, are a more impressive addition to SL.

Is this another croissant reference? Tell it to the Kipperman, he likes them.

Whilst running up massive losses and playing few homegrown players. The myth that Hull KR don't have a youth set up is absolute guff. The biggest and most difficult part of the youth setup are the amateur clubs that produce the youngsters. They've been there in Hull all along even whilst Hull KR were out of SL. Setting up an academy is a piece of pie. Get a place to train, hire some coaches. Job done.

I can understand KR's approach in signing players instead of producing them in their first few years back in SL, they needed to establish themselves as a mid-table team instead of a bottom of the table team. They've done that, now they need to prove their worth to SL by taking advantage of the popularity of RL in Hull and producing some local players.

Very good post tbf, although I would say that we contribute more then half the teams in SL e.g. the support (and revenue) that we take to away games.

Sorry should have expanded. First year in Super league was 2007. Put an Academy side together in 2008. Martin joined to head up our junior develoment in 2009. We are 2 years into his plan.
To be fair aswell, 4 of our 2008 inaugural side have already played first grade for us.

Quote ="Cooper Crank"RFL clear up Mason transfer fiasco: www.rugbyleaguetoday.co.uk/rfl-c ... er-fiasco/ Makes for an interesting read!'" Eh? So when Nigel Wood says that Mason classes as Federation Trained, what he meant to say was [iNon-[/iFederation Trained? So who are HKR's 5 non-federation players?

Quote ="Cooper Crank"RFL clear up Mason transfer fiasco: www.rugbyleaguetoday.co.uk/rfl-c ... er-fiasco/ Makes for an interesting read!'" Eh? So when Nigel Wood says that Mason classes as Federation Trained, what he meant to say was [iNon-[/iFederation Trained? So who are HKR's 5 non-federation players?

Quota - Galea, Webster, Dobson, Clinton & Green
Non-Fed Trained - Mason, Vella, Newton
Special Dispensation - Lovegrove (was here while he was 20 for half a season then the rules changed), Fisher.

Pardon my ignorance

'Federation trained'???

What exactly does that mean?

You have to hold a CIU affiliated club membership card, have been resident in the North East for at least six months and can drink 15 pints of Fed bitter without puking

When and why did you ditch your youth set-up, prior to gaining promotion to SLE?

Fishers a resident.

cant remember exactly the year but we couldn't afford to run an u18 and u21's team in line with a lot of championship clubs at the time as funding was cut from the RL with sky cash going directly to superleague clubs, it was a year or 2 before we went up I think. For about 3 years the championship clubs got nothing before some level of funding was reinstated. Maybe an expert on the championship could give you more info, but the upshot was we jettisoned one of our youth teams (which we reinstated when we reached superleague), concentrated on the scholarship lads coming through which effectively put us about 4 years behind getting them through to the first team. The likes of Scott Taylor, Jordan Cox, Dave Peterson and louis sheriff are all now part of the full squad for next year.

was at this the time you were paying plenty of money to Michael Smith?

Ahh, about the time that promotion to SL was the only goal for most clubs in National League one, what with licensing coming in and the removal of P & R and all that entails.

To be fair though Widnes (who Rovers beat in the Grand Final to win promotion) were pinning their hopes on young English hopefulls like Barry Mac and Terry O'Connor so they were clearly showing the way to go.

No, it's a good point Kipperman, well done.

seems a very short-term outlook ah so Hull Kr were aware of the franchising system, and how they could have got a place in SL by not spending loads of money they didnt really have on an expensive old, fat overseas player and gambling on promotion. But they could have spent that money on keeping their youth system going, so that when they entered SL they didnt need special dispensation for overseas players and to try and find loopholes to circumvent the rules put in place for the good of the game. They were aware they could have built in a responsible way, and contributed to the game and the player pool when they were offered the opportunity of a franchise.

All the more shame they chose to put a mid-table finish ahead of long term growth and stability. Thankfully this type of thinking is slowly but surely being driven from the game.

Yeah, bringing ageing forwards based on reputation rather than quality, using them to get bums on seats even though they are completely spent and will struggle at the top level. Thats definitely definitely a terrible idea. Willie Mason told me

Smokey your obsession with Michael Smith is alarming.

Yes Rovers paid him and a few others a healthy salary, this helped Rovers achieve what we have now. Without these players getting a healthy salary our ability to now offer top quality training to more youngsters in the city (who were not able to get a place in Hull's scholarship due to lack of funding they could offer) would have never happened.

Had we remained in the lower leagues we probably wouldn't have been able to offer the kind of training they are now able to get. Having two clubs in Hull both offering a five star youth set up is surely better than one club having limited number of places and more youngsters being left to rott in the amateur game when they could be so much more than this.

As much as people like to see young home grown players pulling on their home club shirt it is not something that can be rushed. Rovers had a championship winning academy a few years back but only really produced one star in Jon Wilkin. As you pointed out Leeds have a very good production line as do Wigan and Saints who are all bearing the fruits of all their hard work due to years of five star youth systems at work. This however could only be produced because they were in the Super League.

So our policy to speculate to accumulate I feel is justified against your argument that we could have offered this kind of high standard of training on the same wages just one player was earning back then. Lets not forget we also had to stick to a £300,000 salary cap back then so as an academy costs in the region of £50,000 a year to run I do not see that one players salary is at fault for us not running one.

I think the game and the youngsters in this city have gained more from Rovers paying Michael Smith a good salary than they would have had we not gained promotion.

So? Spaven, Latus, Mariano and I'Anson were "all part of your full squad" for last year and have all been released. You have to name 8 homegrown players, it's in the rules. Sadly for them, you are also able to bin them off and "promote" a different set of token youngsters for their 12 month stint in the reserves next season.

I'Anson has had long enough to prove himself, he was never going to be an answer and was only fair for his own career that he moved on.

Latus has the potential but with players coming through who our coaching staff feel are better options he too will gain more from a stint with a club that can give him first team experience.

Spaven I don't think has ever had Super League quality, he is only young and may develop into that player we wish he could have been but again I feel the youngsters coming through are better options.

Mariano was Rovers longest serving player, he's been at Rovers for over 10yrs, his recent run in the first team was promising and yes he is the one player I feel an Aussie will take the place of but can you really blame a team for replacing a below average local youngster with players such as Mason, Newton and Galea?

Sandy was suggesting all was now sorted by simply listing the homegrown players that you are required by the squad composition rules to name as full time squad members. This in itself is meaningless as evidence of a robust commitment to delivering homegrown talent until they are played on a regular basis. There is no evidence to suggest this will happen. In the past these type of players have been recycled on an annual basis simply to meet homegrown numbers, and the fact that Rovers are still on the front foot with their quota stretching extravaganza despite already having 10 overseas players in the squad is pretty clear evidence of priorities and intentions going into your 5th SL season.

I agree with what you are saying Mrs B and yes I see that Rovers are - as many clubs do - just naming names to meet the criteria.

What I will say though is that the new names we have mentioned all have the potential to make it in the Super League. As I just explained the players that were released probably were never going to be good enough but as they were the best of the bunch we had to name some.

As they have been replaced by better up and coming talent it was only expected these players would be the ones to make way as their game time would have been even less. These players will probably gain more from being released than had they just been stuck in our academy.

Hey how come you got banned from our board by the way?

Because your mods have a problem with facts