Subtlety not a strong point then?

Lot of people jumping on this 70 k. Why do you think he signed so quick. If hull had made a poor/middling offer by time Wigan among others came calling with their offers he'd have probably been mulling ours over still and had his head turned. Green Bowden shaul on significant upgrades, not 70.
Danny Houghton is on tremendous money now after being massively underpaid until fairly recent. Want local kids still gonna have to pay! Then hope loyalty and local connection keeps them happy as well. Cos in Dannys case Salford where willing to pay big!!

I know. There's no sarcasm emoticon otherwise I would have used it.

Been the operative word, how and where did you obtain yours I wonder,? even more surprisingly, how did you learn to operate it?.

Who's on £70k Tony?

Or is it Adam?

That's why Tomkins left. He was only on £30k

Let's face it, if anybody else had said we were lucky to get three juniors take to SL so well so quickly, nobody would have been bothered and more than likely agreed.

Even if Neil Hudgell stated that he thought Hull FC were a top 4 team.
People on here would still think he was having a dig.

Under Agar/Hetherington the lack of emerging young homegrown players (apart from Houghton) was attributed to systemic failures in our development systems. We get three players coming through, plus Green and arguably Bowden, plus [usix[/u players in the England Youth and England Academy teams in October, and we should accept that it's just "luck".

Speak for yourself, I'd have resented the way it was presented whoever it had come from. Especially within the context it was; immediately after identifying the development of youth as the way forward in RL, his own club promoting more youngsters next year and it being his coach's main brief, he labels our achievement of the exact aims he has as 'lucky'.

It would have been far better and more sensible to say something like 'Hull reaped the benefits of that last season' or similar. Even if he had commented on them exceeding expectation it would have been fair enough, but lucky is an exceedingly poor (or exceedingly good, depending on the intent) choice of word(s).

Well, lets take the three plus Green and Bowden only, as the others have only come into the club on a full time basis since AP took over. Why is it not even a little lucky, that given the chronic under investment of our youth setup during the tenure of the people you mention, that we've got at least three top class SL players from it?

So you can hand on heart say that there is absolutely no element of luck involved when the club has thrown three kids in at the deep end and two of them make the SL dream team in their first full seasons? Just how often does this happen? Nobody can ever be sure how a young kid is going to react to the step up, there's only so much you can do to prepare them for it.

Top class Super League players earn way more than £70k a year.

Crooks breakthrough season was 2012 IMO - he played 13 SL games.

Who mentioned breakthrough? I said first FULL season.

Ah, well done.

Shaul only played 7 games, so not his first FULL season. That leaves Crooks who'd already served a good half-season apprenticeship and Lineham, who'd played 5. 2 very good players coming through a year at 20-21 is what you'd hope for given improvements in development and increased emphasis on ensuring homegrown youth getting the right opportunities at first team level. Hardly outrageous fortune, but must be very satisfying for Last and co nonetheless.

I didn't say there's no element of luck involved in developing youngsters, but I do resent it being referred to as 'lucky' in such a dismissive manner as it seemed from Hudgell. It's not just about being 'lucky', it's about reaping the benefit/payoff of training youngsters and giving them a go. Dismissing it as 'lucky' has a certain implication that we did nothing to create the situation and are undeserving of it.

Think of it this way; if you encourage and help educate your kids through school, if/when they get excellent results, go on to further education, and end up in an excellent career path, would you be happy if people described it as you/they 'got lucky', or would you think you all deserved a bit more credit and respect for the achievement?

I also agree with Mrs B that Crooks largely emerged in 2012, so it's not like he came entirely from nowhere, we knew what we had with at least one of them. I also remember plenty of calls last year for Lineham to be given the number 2 shirt and questioning the need for Crookes, so he also had a fair bit of backing going in.

I only mentioned two when it came to full seasons.

All credit to Last indeed, but Lineham was brought in to the club and I reckon even Lasty will be (pleasantly) surprised at how well Crooks has done.

Similar comments made by Shaul.

Sounds more like astute decision making than "luck".

Neither did I say it was all luck.



That's the problem, it only [iseemed[/i that way. I don't think he meant that the production of the players was lucky, merely that how well all three had done was. Which is not totally true, it's certainly not all down to luck. To say it is is doing the players a disservice.




Not sure that's exactly how it happened for them, especially during the last few years of Kath's reign.



But it [iwas[/i both of them lads first [ifull[/i season.

Right, i'm saying that it's been a little bit lucky how well the three of them had done, not that they weren't good enough to make the step up.

Also, it's not like they are the only 3 we threw in and they all excelled. Kent, Hadley and Bowden are also all inexperienced and saw game time (the former 2 particularly), so we showed faith in half a dozen or so and half of them played well enough to stay in the team. Whilst probably more expensive, Miller is also a youngster in his first full season.

So whilst there is a certain element of luck in players making the grade, it would also be pretty unlucky (unless it was spectacularly poor judgement) for none of them to do so.

And nor did I suggest you did, or speak for you like this:



Which is not at all what I said in my original post.



Let's have a look at the quote:

"Hull got lucky last year as Ben Crooks, Tom Lineham and Jamie Shaul all came through and established themselves on a less established wage."

Established themselves. Not got in to the dream team, or excelled, just that they established themselves as first-teamers whilst still on a low wage. That should be the aim of every team in SL, and indeed he said about getting more youngsters in his own squad, so it is not just 'lucky', it is the reward for choosing and training the right lads and then having the balls to give them a go. Every single player who ever breaks into a first team will do so as one of the lowest earners in the squad.



The club offered them contracts. Then trained them. Then picked them. They are not the players they are in spite of these things, they are contributing factors.



I'm not fully understanding your obsession with this. Similar to earlier, every player has to have a first full season, and that obviously comes when they prove ready and usually on the back of a partial appearance the year before. That's exactly what happened with both Crooks and Lineham. That's not to say you can [iexpect[/i players to go on to seasons like those two just had, but IMO it's not quite as against the grain as you seem to be suggesting, either. Nobody would expect young players to do [ithat[/i well, but having them establish themselves as first-teamers before the season is out is not a ridiculous aim either.