By virtue of being granted a license, Hull KR have a duty to the game and to the young players of this country. There is no justification for avoiding this duty, it is shameful self interest.

The chairman is a shameful self interested person!! he will be the ruin of that club, believe me

Superleague shouldn't have two Hull teams in the competition and i know which one i'd kick out



IMO HKR playing that many johnny foreigners is a disgrace

Who would look after our interests if we didn't do it ourselves?



Look, you like this rule, so you think it should be followed in spirit as well by the rulebook. You dislike the salary cap as, in Smokey World, Wigan and Leeds should be allowed to selflessly sign up all the best players, creating a massively unbalanced competition for the benefit of all. Fair enough, we all have our preferences. However, you so clearly dislike Hull KR and have been so consistently and wilfully blind to our circumstances, that your opinion has absolutely no traction with us. In fact the opposite has become the case. I've got some reservations about this, but your posts only serve to diminish them.

Anyway - the charge that re-signing Galea, for expample, would be at the expense of youngster such as Scott Taylor is misplaced. We know we are screwed if we don't get more players coming through and becoming senior squad members - the squad will remain thin, with a disproportinately high number of kids there making up the numbers. To add depth we need more Welhams and Watts - and ultimately some Sinfield/Cunningham-type figures.
The real choice we face now is who will fill our fed-trained spots. Should it be fed-qualified Aussies like Galea or would ooc mid/late-career Brits complement our club-trained youngsters better. Lee Radford and Michael Worrincy are the examples I've used elsewhere. There is a genuine debate to be had here. Should we discriminate in favour of Brits and against EU-qualified antipodeans? Obviously we'd have to pretend that we weren't, as it is illegal, but there is a part of me that'd like us to have more good, experienced British players in the squad. They just aren't available, though (clubs are selfishly hoarding them). Or there are so few that their scarcity boosts the amount they cost to prohibitive levels. Perversely, if you can find a quota spot, antipodeans look more attractive than ever.

Maybe, but to date he has done extraordinarily well in view of the challenges he faced. A truly self-interested person wouldn't put as much time, energy and financial backing into a club as he has.

Fair enough, he is keen to look out for HKR's interests - but that is his job as chairman. He has to do what he thinks is best for his club, within the rules. [iThat[/i is his duty. Deciding what is right for the sport in the UK is the job of the RFL.

He looks out for FC fans too - advising us last year that a club making mid-season signings for 2010 like O'Meley and Fitzgibbon was "selling the fans short", for example. You can't put a value on that sort of public concern. Well done Neil.

you are wrong, for a change.

for the umpteenth time, i dont have a problem with stopping clubs signing all the best players from elsewhere. I just dont believe this salary cap acheives that.

it doesnt surprise me you are trying to misrepresent what i have said, it is because you know your defence of your club is so poor.

and you will never get them if you are continually replacing your overseas players and adding them. It isnt misplaced, it is fully correct. Keeping Galea and signing Finch not only means you dont have to give a young british player a shot, it means you dont have to bother going out and finding one who deserves a shot. You dont wait around for the next Sinfield to come along, you go out and find him.


there is a simple answer to the legal question, and its something i have proposed for a long long time. We change from using the stick of quotas to the carrot of big salary cap dispensations for club trained players, and we cut the sky money to £1m and have the rest paid back of having british qualified and declared players in the squad, so clubs MAKE money by having british qualified

Not true. Yes we have bought overseas players in, some of them short-term fixes, but a hell of a lot of investment has gone into our youth set-up. The academy sides are performing very well, but at the moment the real potential is at U18 level and below - too young to rely on for the first team at the moment.

Welham and Watts are regulars in our 17 as are Netherton, Murrell and Cockayne who we brought with us from NL1. As I said earlier, Joel Clinton is our only overseas signing of the last 2 years. The rest have been English, most under 25 and most of whom are now getting more first team games than they did at their previous clubs.

But as usual you decide to completely ignore any positives that may form a reasoned argument and, considering the OP was referring to a story in the local rag that hasn't even happened yet, end up sounding yet again like a bitter troll with an axe to grind.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that you are planning to [uincrease[/u your number of overseas players next season through a series of exemptions and technicalities, when the point is that you're supposed to be reducing them.

Here's a question for you. By bringing in 2 more overseas players, are the chances of players like Taylor getting first team rugby under Morgan (who has a clear preference for playing older players, even if out of position, to young players) increased?

Rovers will look to exploit any grey areas in the rules - they have previous for doing so, that's life. The thing that irks me is not so much that, but that when the franchising arrangements were set out the requirement to reduce quotas was absolutely clear and some clubs have embraced this more genuinely than others as part of their long term squad structure planning. Subsequently changing the rules and introducing exemptions just provides an advantage to the more opportunistic clubs who've not invested in signing up homegrown talent on long term deals but whose stock in trade is Aussie journeymen .

how can a hull fc fan come on here moaning about a rugby league team after all fc have got away with i seam to recall when gateshead merged with fc and practically every player was from aus being that gateshead had virtually a full team of aussies so dont go moaning thank you

Utter, utter garbage. In that first season after the merger, local players Horne, Cooke, Poucher, Craven, Fletcher and King averaged 16 games each. Brian Carney played 16 games, Paul Broadbent 25 games. The following year Yeaman got his debut as a 16 year old.

You should stick to discussing rugby league instead of de-railing every thread on the Rovers board, you actually make a reasoned argument in this case.

FWIW [iif[/i that is what we're doing, I actually agree with you. That doesn't stop me resenting smokey's allegation that we have no interest in investing in youth when we're currently pouring resources into that area and seeing real results.

Given the choice, Id sign a young English half and prop, hey I'd get them from our academy if they were available - question is; are they?

As for Taylor, he's one of only a few u20's players who look like they could make the grade and I'd love to see him given a run. Watts and Welham established themselves as regulars despite being behind some bigger names and overseas imports - no reason others cant do the same if they're good enough.

When Cooke left, I was among those insisting that I'anson be given a shot rather than us trying to sign a replacement immediately. I really hoped he'd step up. At 23 though, he looks like he isn't going to be more than a versatile squad player in SL. No shame in that, but he isn't our long-term answer at 6. Our next hope is a lad called Bell, who HKR went out and 'found' in Saints foundation. There's a feature on him on the Rovers website. He's only 17 though. We need somebody from outside the club to do a job for a couple of years. The choice isn't between somebody like Finch or Bell. It is between somebody like Finch and maybe Danny Orr (as one of the very few british ooc halfbacks). Or maybe trying to get somebody like Wheeler on loan for a season - I'd be happy enough with that.



I'd have no problem with that. But all clubs have to deal with the world as it, not as you or I might wish it to be.

Point being that Morgan's not shown a huge appetite for giving young players extended runs in the first team and there could now be 2 more senior overseas players ahead of those trying to break through.

People are congratulating Quins on having 4/5 juniors playing for them after 15 years of SL , Rovers are getting there slowly but for the usual suspects it isn't quick enough after 4/5 seasons

It is not HKR's fault we cannot beat the aussies

We haven't had many youngsters capable of stepping up and we haven't been too badly off with injuries (touch wood). Welham was given a shot and Morgan stuck my him when his form dipped a little. Watts has done well this year, despite some people

, mocking his lack of involvement last year. He's not 20 yet. Taylor too is only 19. He may or may not make it, but he isn't near to running short of time.
Whether he is kept out of the team by an Aussie or a Brit, is neither here nor there in terms of his development.

It is worth remembering that next year the top 25 earners must contain 8 club-trained players minimum. So that is most likely 17 senior players, in the squad. Finch and/or Lima would replace senior players not kids. They would not be additional senior players. The only question is whether they will replace brits (Walker or Wheeldon perhaps) or fed-qualified Aussies (such as Galea).
[uThis will not affect our club-trained youngsters[/u - it will impact on more senior members of the squad. All we have is more flexibility for recruiting players for those 17 'senior spots', not any extra places in the squad.

The only way we can get extra places in the 'senior quota' is by having club-trained players grow into them.

C'mon, you know as well as I do that an appetite for playing youngsters can only be fed if good enough youngsters exist. Welham, Watts, Kirk Netherton and I'Anson have all been given a chance by Morgan and the former two took that chance. He's also given game time to Ratu and Hodgson this year. Thats the same Hodgson that couldn't get near the Hull squad because of an overseas import.

If it was just a case of playing youngsters no matter what their talent, surely you'd still have the likes of Tommy Lee, Anthony Thackeray and Graeme Horne?

Rovers didn't have to start from scratch - there are loads of amateur clubs in Hull and the schools have been playing RL for a long time. Or were Rovers only formed in the 80s?

Think he was referring to the financial advantages of being in Super League.

Hull FC had a great academy, they could afford to. They also (quite understandably) snapped up the top talent in Hull whilst Rovers were little more than semi-pro. Its why the majority of your best homegrown talent is from east Hull.

As a NL club with a SL neighbour it was always going to be impossible to recruit and retain youngsters with SL potential. We've had 3 years or so of competing on a level playing field (not the local monopoly Hull FC had). The first batch of players signed in their mid-teens will now be reaching their late teens.

There is potential to exploit, but the returns were never going to be immediate.

It'll be interesting to see how Widnes, another heartland team out of SL for a few years do in this respect, if they are given a licence. Would people expect them go straight on to the 8 CT, 12 FT, 5 NFT quota?

The justifications for signing yet more overseas players are all garbage. Fans of virtually every club trot out the same cr*p - 'learning' by watching or playing alongside Aussies, lack of British players etc etc. Do you really believe signing Finch and Lima (for example) will make KR capable of winning anything? I very much doubt it.

All clubs are culpable. Leeds should never have signed Delaney for example - an average Aussie (please don't any Leeds fans try to make him out to be more than that). We also shouldn't have signed Buderus - great player but we have Diskin and McShane as a real prospect. I bet McShane gained a shedload more in development by playing at Hull for a month than he would have admiring Buderus from the stands.

Leeds have a great crop of homegrown players in the first team. Nice one. Unfortunately the majority of them are in their late 20s. We haven't produced a halfback remotely looking like replacing Burrow/McGuire since they got in the first team nearly 10 years ago. We haven't produced a decent backrower since Ablett.

That's one of the key differences betwen NRL and SL. NRL sides generally produce good prospects in most positions every year or so. Certainly good enough to pressure the incumbents.

Clubs doing things within the rules but clearly contrary to the spirit of the game, and often in direct contradiction to public utterances about youth development really p*ss me off. We need to have a mindset of every club doing far far better. And we as fans should stop trying to defend our clubs when they sign cr*p overseas players.

No one expected hkr to get promoted and comply with the quota rules, but as they've already got 2 players with dispensation.

Do they need two more?

Because they are sad individuals who really need to get out more

Some clubs have an intent to populate ther teams with UK players (home grown preferably)

Wigan have always had the potential now it is being realised, Leeds have some great home grown players, Saints also. Quins have a strategy to have an English based team ed on London trained players. The process takes time. There is no question Wigan, Leeds etc are bearing the fruits of ther previous endeavours and investment(Lennegan has publicly said they will use the youth).

It would appear the likes of HKR at this stage either dont want to use HG players or dont have them available-Instant success maybe in comparison to Quins who are near the bottom due to playing to much youth(forced by injury)

I think the clubs and the game in general want a UK player based game-having said that it is good to see the best Aus players

I think we've actually played 9 players this season who've come through our junior set-up. There's obviously necessity in that, but I think it will help us come license time because we can show we're no longer a squad full of Aussies.

What your comparison doesn't really recognise is that 15 years ago the grassroots infrastructure in London was extremely limited, so it's only now that we're seeing players who've been playing from a relatively young age, and even then I'd argue that most come to the game later than in more traditional areas. Someone like Tony Clubb was in his teens before he tried RL. Is the same thing true in the Hull area, was there little in the way of junior clubs back then?