I don't want to get into one of your quotathon debates, mainly because i'm not disagreeing with your main argument. I'd just thought I'd point out that lovegrove seems to be making a substantial contribution on the field for HKR, even despite a high missed tackle count.
Sooner or later, number of foreighners will be as low as we want. Clubs who don't start integrating more british talent rather than exploiting the temperary loop holes will be succesfull - those who currently rely on signing foreigners will be scratching around trying to find british talent to sign to fill gaps.

Pray tell, with your clearly superior scouting network, who you consider better, and (crucially) available to fill the position.



I never said it was, but he's infinitely far more qualified than you or I to make that judgement, and yes he's not got all of them right, but his %age rate is pretty good.



If you care to read my post again, I clearly state this is a quality based decision, not a nationality one. You chose time and time again to ignore that fact. Why does that not surprise me?

Lovegrove only made 6 more appearances than Leuluai but yet made 50% more in metres, 40% more carries, twice as many tackle busts. Ok the negatives nearly 3 times as many missed tackles twice as many errors and 75% more penalties. But I'd say for the effort put in he is worth more to us than Leuluai is to you.

It's great that you picked up on O'Loughlin but how many metres did he make? About 40% less!? How many errors? How many penalties? In 3 less games! The same as Lovegrove!

L'estrange 'fully' 14 fewer tackles missed equates to 0.5 missed tackles a game less and lots more errors and penalties and made 1200 metres less!
And none of those mentioned above made more meters than him!

When you make comparisons make sure its about all the stats don't just be selective for your argument!
Keep digging!

Tomkins, Myler and Eastmond dont fall into your lap, you need to go out and find them. The fact Hull KR dont have one isnt a freak of chance, it is because the didnt go out, get one and give them a chance.

Who's to say he wont be another Andreas Bauer? why are you so happy to take that risk with an Australian lower league player and not with a young British player or one from the lower leagues.

because i care about our game, and not just my club. no, it really isnt all that matters
and why are we happy with this, oh it doesnt matter that I'anson wasnt good enough, its ok, we can go get a reserve grader from the NRL to come in, thats healthy for the league isnt it, we cant create our own so we will just go get a player not good enough for the NRL.

Greg McNally, Kyle Briggs, Danny Allan, Kyle Wood, Cain Southernwood.

whether that is true or not is irrelevant.
how can you justify signing an NRL reserve grade player, a 24 year old player who couldnt get a regular gig in the NRL, who was though not good enough by NRL clubs on the basis of quality?

Lueluai also isnt good enough either.



are you using all the stats? i dont see any kicking stats, try stats, assists stats, or offload stats. It seems you have picked 2 stats that show Lovegrove in a good light, ignoring the fact that his high tackle count has led him to a MASSIVE missed tackle count, his low offload count, his low try scoring, kicking, etc etc.

Fact is you cant justify Lovegroves MASSIVE missed tackle count by the amount of tackles he makes because many more players make many more tackles and many fewer are missed.

You cant then try and justify it by comparing the amount of metres he as a prop forward makes with the amount of metres a Loose forward and a hooker make because they have different jobs.

Well, you see him every week, but he always looks good against Saints and the last time I saw him play, in the play off defeat to Wigan, he was outstanding. Surely you rate him higher than L.Burgess and Bailey?

Lueluai is a big lump who hits hard and runs hard, but that is it, he tires quickly, his defence isnt outstanding, he doesnt really have an offload. He is, well, average, he does the basics well enough, but is nothing special.

Dont get me wrong, he has been a great servant for Leeds, but he isnt what we need to be bringing over and I think he isnt as good as Ben Cross.

L Burgess will mature into a fine player, i hope we keep hold of him. He is only 23, has a fair bit of experience but is still maturing. He has some negatives to his game, some problems like a bit of flat footedness on defence, to overcome but he has many things in his favour. Look at his stats compared to Kylie this year, in 6 less games, he has made a comparable amount of tackles with fewer missed, has a similar amount of metres per carry, more tackles bust and the same amount of clean breaks with only about 60% of the carries, and more offloads.

He has however made more errors and given away more penalties but I see no reason we cant get that out of his game with more experience. He has hands Lovegrove and Lueluai could only dream of.

Bailey is Bailey, he does a job, and its a job he has done a long time, he is still only 26 and probably has a bit of improvement in him.

Fair enough. If all imports were of his quality, i wouldn't mind. Also, he obviously hasn't stopped younger english players like burgess and scruton getting game time.
The addition of Cross on top of Kylie may start to hinder the other props mentioned, but Bailey's had plenty of chance to show his ability level and if he drops off selection, that's his own problem. He can either hang on, fighting for his place or seek 1st team rugby at another club.

The first few times I watched Burgess I thought he was going to be a real star. Do you remeber that winning try he scored for Leeds at Knowsley Road? The year later, in the game that got a bit tastey, Burgess was the guy who really stood up and took the fight to us (with ball in hand) after the initial bust ups. So i'm thinking, why does he seem to be low on the pecking order when he can do like that? The more I've looked out for him though, the more silly penalties and knock on I noticed detracting from his game - not dissimilar to Joel Tomkins, to be fair.

He sure is. Do you think he'll stay on with Cross coming in?

Which is what im getting at really, Kylie gives you good value and bang for your buck,if you want to use one or two of your quota spaces on him, fine, there are better out there but we cant legislate for peoples opinions and he hasnt held back Burgess, or Scruton, or now Ambler. Personally i think we as a club, could use an import elsewhere in the team which is why i would lose Leulaui, i dont think he is good enough to demand one of our quota places. But that stops being a decision when you step up to 9 or 10 imports, they arent being 'rationed' or used sparingly when you are going towards double figures.

Cross will replace Eastwood, we arent actually adding an import here, just replacing one. Kylie will be gone next year, and Cross the year after. We have big injuries in the forwards, Burgess and Peacock will be going into the season on the back of big injuries which is why we have brought Cross in. I expect we will see Ambler and Pitts get a fair bit of game-time early on in the season and Burgess and Peacock less, I think it would be a huge ask for Ambler, Amor and Pitts to replace Peacock, Eastwood and Burgess. Also Peacock, Cross and Kylie will be winding down as Pitts, Ambler and Amor 'wind up' so I think Bailey will stay just to add the experience next year and the year after. Otherwise we could possibly be looking at going into 2012/2013 without a prop over 26.

Its experience. In Australia these issues are trained out of players between 19 and 22 on the fringes of first team and in reserve grade football. Here we do it between the ages of 21 and 24 in first grade. Both Tomkins and L Burgess will come good imo. Both also i think have that double edged sword of their name and younger brothers. Half the time it means they are the next big thing who are going to go on and have great careers, the other half they only get a game because of their brother.

there is a level of consistancy they need to hit, and both came through a little later than normal so havent had those couple of seasons where these little silly mistakes are forgiven. I would hope to see a big improvement from both in this area next season.
I think he will. He has his job to do, he does it. I think he is probably the best 4th/5th rotation prop in the league, he is cheap and good at what he does. His experience will be invaluable over the next two or three years when we lose Peacock, Cross and Kylie.

A big problem for the english at the moment is our lack of backs. We seem to have been producing a better class of forward.

Now, since forwards are generally rotated through the game, meaning there's more places in the squad available and perhaps less pressure on the players, it perhaps makes it easier for us to bring the youngsters on in these positions. We are succeeding at this, Saints have a hatful of young forwards who will now do a decent job for a SL club (as good as the below average imports you dislike). This show we can produce the players when we have to.
The problem with back is there's no rotation through the 80 minutes and teams rarely take a back on the bench. Should your centre get injured, its too tempting to move one of your established players (like flannery at saints, ablett at Leeds), meaning its perhaps harder for young backs to get their chance?

The tightening of the quota rules will mean that young british back will get more chances - whether its moving clubs to get first team action, like the signings wakefield have been making, being loaned to other (perhaps lower) SL clubs and NL teams, or their clubs finding a way to blood their young back gradually, without throwing them in the deep end to possibly crash and burn.

You can't tell me british people just are better at being forwards genetically, so we can produce these guys. All they need is a chance.

If you're heavy-set and powerful you're going to be attracted to Rugby (whichever code is popular locally). In the UK quick, nimble kids will be more attracted to Association football. The lack of assoc. footballing tradition in eastern Australia means they get and retain more speedy, skilful kids. Union has the same problem. Like their kids, ours mostly still play in the cold English winter, likely stunting their progress.

i dont disagree with this, however i would argue that the 'throwing them in the deep end and crashing and burning' argument is used for simply not blooding players,backs should have no real problem moving towards first team at 18/19/20, forwards tend to need a bit more time after adolescence to pack on the weight and mature so start coming through at 19/20/21

the problem isnt throwing them in to early, its casting them out too early. There should be no reason why we cant make top quality players out of naturally gifted athletes like Ainscough and Penny. We should have the big clubs fighting over these types of players not giving them away. These are rough diamonds we should be fighting to polish, but we dont, because they can easily be replaced by an Amos Roberts or a Chris Hicks.

Yeah, it is easier to develop a forward, giving him a place on the bench and sticking him on and seeing how he does, if he is a disaster there are probably three other on the bench to replace him with. It is a concious decision to develop a back, you cant carry a winger, centre, fb on the bench so you need to make the decision to develop them and stick with them when things go wrong. I have seen both Lee Smith and Ryan Hall have poor periods at Leeds, where fans were getting on their backs, calling for them to be dropped, saying they wouldnt be good enough etc etc, but we stuck with them and now have to young, british wingers, who are assets to the club. I hope we do the same with BJB and Watkins,

i dont believe that is the case. I think it is an excuse. I dont believe that there arent enough sprinters, basketball players, RU players, and RL players who with the proper scouting and coaching couldnt be world class RL players. We make very little effort in getting these athletes involved in our game, and very little effort in coaching them.

There are the players out there, we simply arent bringing them through.

Also, there seems to be a strange kind of disregard for the three-quarter positions in this country, Big, strong, fast kids are made to pack on the weight and become 2nd rowers instead of centres, Wingers all need to be fullbacks and not wingers, and they want fullbacks as stand-offs.

Think the Quins acdemy is trying to change this mindset.

Actually, Mick Potter's done well for us in that sense. Wheeler, Lomax, Foster and Tom Armstrong were all rotated on the wing during the 2009 season when Meli was having problems with his work permit. He did the same whe introducing Bosc at Catalan, letting them dip their toe in then sending them back to the reserves for a bit to build on their experience.

As another poster mentioned, the alleged massive increase in kids playing RL in the london area would suggest that if the proper work's done, we can attract the youngsters.

So 3 brilliant youngsters between 14 SL teams, can't just be us then! Them 3 are exceptional and few and far between, we tried developing our own but sadly didn't work out this time.

Oh and by the way we are developing our own youngsters :-

"Despite the defeat, the Valvoline Academy campaign has been one of great success for Rovers.

In the new revamped format of the competition, the Robins lost just one game in Phase 1 meaning they were pooled with the very best sides at under-18's level, including the likes of more established youth setups at St. Helens, Wigan Warriors and Leeds Rhinos.
Injuries at first team and under 20's level affected the second half of the season for the youngsters with debuts for the likes of 16-year old Sonny Esslemont.
However, the Robins still more than held their own, twice beating Wigan Warriors in Phase 2 of the campaign and also claiming a second win of 2010 over St. Helens."

Satisfied? They'll come through when they are ready and not when they are out of their depth for the sake of giving them a game.





We'll have to see about that one but how many games do you think I'Anson would have been given in the NRL? Or any one from the lower leagues? I trust Morgan that Green is better quality then what we have at the moment.




I care about the game, but I care about my club more, if they are not quite ready they are not ready, we are within the rules and progress is being made with our academy. Like I said before when our ooc overseas players leave their spaces will be filled with our up and coming young players.

4 years in SL and you expect us to have 17 quality brits in the team

So who do you want me to compare him to? Graham? Peacock?




You are having a laugh aren't you? What would I include kicking stats or assists for? He's a prop forward!! And yes I did mention that he isn't an offloading forward, he is a metre maker taking 3 or 4 players to stop his momentum, remember?



True but I can say he also makes many more metres than those with a higher tackle/lower misses count by a considerable margin between 750 and nearly 2000 metres!!! So while these brilliant tacklers are having a nice rest Lovegrove is taking the ball up time and time again, take a look for yourself below:-

Dallas Johnson, 1106 tackles, 33 missed,..2085 Metres
Malcolm Alker 964, 30 missed,................1099 Metres
Heath Lestrange 944, 77 missed,............1814 Metres
Luke swain, 910, 48 missed, ..................2288 Metres
Danny Houghton 843, 29 missed, ............1666 Metres
Lincoln Withers 834, 51 missed, .............1676 Metres
Craig Fitzgibbon 829, 26 missed, ............2218 Metres
RHYS LOVEGROVE 787, 91 missed, ..........3029 Metres
Sean O'loughlin 783, 21 missed, ..............1720 Metres
Ryan Hudson, 773, 42 missed, ................1464 Metres




Oh sorry forgot you were making the rules, and it wasn't me who used them as examples first was it?

Jesus wept windy.....don't ruin a perfectly good thread with information about youth development

You'll upset a few on here and confuse the Hull Kingston Australians who have no idea what a yoof set up is

Quote ="gutterfax"Jesus wept windy.....don't ruin a perfectly good thread with information about youth development You'll upset a few on here and confuse the Hull Kingston Australians who have no idea what a yoof set up is '" Of course GF, you're absolutely right. www.hullkr.co.uk/article.php?id=1384 Just one of many examples of progress recently, along with lads like Watts, Welham, Murrel etc seeing their careers develop nicely at Hull KR. Some clubs meanwhile have no experience of good home attendances, taking a good away following, selling thousands of season passes, selling thousands of replica shirts, been part of huge local derbies, etc etc. Be interesting to see how your pass sales are going this time next year if you've been placed in your correct league for your size and progress.... I'd kick you out of SL on principle.

Quote ="gutterfax"Jesus wept windy.....don't ruin a perfectly good thread with information about youth development You'll upset a few on here and confuse the Hull Kingston Australians who have no idea what a yoof set up is '" Of course GF, you're absolutely right. www.hullkr.co.uk/article.php?id=1384 Just one of many examples of progress recently, along with lads like Watts, Welham, Murrel etc seeing their careers develop nicely at Hull KR. Some clubs meanwhile have no experience of good home attendances, taking a good away following, selling thousands of season passes, selling thousands of replica shirts, been part of huge local derbies, etc etc. Be interesting to see how your pass sales are going this time next year if you've been placed in your correct league for your size and progress.... I'd kick you out of SL on principle.

Good Morning Roofs....

Tony Clubb (born 12 June 1987 in Gravesend, Kent) is an English professional rugby league footballer for Harlequins RL of Super League. An England international representative centre, he has played his whole professional career to date with the Harlequins. He is currently part of the England Squad in the Southern Hemisphere for the 4 Nations Tournament.

That's player development.....not picking up other clubs rejects

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Anyway with the money and unfair advantages you've been given you certainly should be bringing players through.



So if you're increasing interest in RL in the capital (e.g. through more young players), why aren't the old crowds rising at the same time?

which is a reward for Saints, Wire/Salford, and Wigan for bringing them through, it isnt a random act of chance. Saints, Wire, Wigan have these young british players because they went out and got them not because they fell into their laps. The same as when Leeds brought through Mcguire and Burrow, and are now looking to bring through Ward. This is what Hull KR havent done and why they dont have these players.


giving 33 games to a youngster you got from leeds then replacing him with an NRL reserve grader isnt youth development.

if they are so good why do you need 10 overseas players next year? the under 18s are players signed this year and last, what has happened to the other three years of SL?

and if they arent ready, go british, pick up one of the numerous British players out there, you and in the lower leagues.

who knows? why take the risk with Green. What we know about him is at 24 he has proved he isnt NRL material, There are a few youngsters in our lower leagues and the fringes of SL squads who have the potential to be NRL material. It took Wakefield giving Ellis a long time for him to prove he was SL material never mind NRL but they gave him the opportunity and look at him go. What i can tell you is that some of the 18/19 year old halfbacks on the fringe of making first grade here are much more likely to become NRL quality than Green who has proved he isnt.


and there is your true answer, sod the game as long as Hull KR are successful. Which is plainly idiotic as without the game there is no club for you to be so rose-tinted about.

and when we see that happen then the criticism wont be valid. But until it is Hull KR are failling in their duty to the game and to the young players of Britain.

no, i just expect more than 7. In fact if you were putting out 10/11 quality British players, with 4 or 5 development products every week I would be more than happy.

re-read the thread title.......unless it was a report on one of our crowds in 2010 and we had more foreigners than Englishmen in the crowd of 17 that turned up, it is about playing staff at SLE clubs.



Interested on the development point that you disagree with.....surely development of talent means finding, training, playing in the Under age teams, the u20's/reserves and then the first team for 1 club is the goal........I mean to say, with all those millions of fans you say you have, surely you must be able to find 30 players from your area..