Which is not what Hudgell said. In essence, he said we were lucky for doing exactly what rugby club youth systems are designed to do.

What a complete obsession thread this turned out to be, no real surprise there though suppose. If Pearson had sad that you’d got lucky with these players you’d no doubt all be nodding and saying how true. There is a whole article of valid points made by both chairmen that could have been debated, most of which effect the future of the game as a whole and effect the whether there will be a game to watch in the long term but just because NH said one word that’s all dismissed.

Did Hull get lucky with Crooks, Lineham and Shaul? As has been said it’s a bit of both. You lot on here have been saying for years how much underinvestment in youth has taken place, how Pearson had to completely rebuild the youth structure. Add onto that a coach who has now been sacked because he couldn’t motivate or had the wrong ethos to game preparation. A pack that had no teeth and a lack of half backs directing that team around. So in that context to get 3 players to come through and perform then yes it either has an element of luck or KH and co did a good job of getting these players into a position to step up.

Just to add context, its widely recognised that Wigan got lucky with Tomkins as they had to throw him in when Tim Smith got injured and he stepped up.

Unless he was deliberately trolling,

, then something like ' it's been great for Hull...' would have been more politic. No need to lavish the lucky lovers with praise, but I did think it'd provoke a reaction in certain quarters. We were fortunate Salter stepped up to fill in competently for Welham and Gleeson and that the relatively untried Walker turned out to be a decent replacement for Taylor.
There's a sensitivity, based on different interpretations and distrusts, on our side too, around this issue at the moment. There's bound to be some jockeying for position, for when these initial issues are resolved.

There is no luck.
Crooks played for England at every youth level and having started watching the 20s 3 yr ago even i could tell he had it. Only thing was building his body up
shaul was playing for skirlaugh 2years ago, anyone could of come got him, we saw something in him, now reaping the reward. Same with green.
Same with lineham from York.
We've identified them then given them the means to progress.
Astute really, not lucky.

It really is a simple fact of life that the harder you work at something the luckier you get

I know what the implied meaning of that is, but taken at face value that's simply inaccurate.

Another fact of life is that successful people often assign a relatively small portion of their success to good luck, whereas the unsuccessful are generally much quicker to mention their bad luck. It's a comforting self-deception, though potentially dangerous.

Anyway, projecting my unpleasant Machiavellian thought processes onto the RL world...

The RFL have, deliberately or otherwise, created a high-stakes game of musical chairs with their plan for 10 academies which will receive central funding, in a 12 team SL. Our rubbish score on their assessment exercise (Rovers fans: 'yeah, because independent RFL assessments have [isuch[/i credibility.' / Hull fans: 'well if you hadn't wasted so much money on overpaid Aussies and invested properly...' etc, etc - comforting, innit?). This provides AP with an opportunity to exploit, hence his eagerness to predict there'll be a single academy in the city, run by Hull. It presents NH with a problem to overcome, and might explain why he's ready to minimise the credit Hull get for these players, knowing AP has spoken negatively about the facilities and investment in youth in place, prior to his takeover.
It gives the RFL, accidentally or otherwise, a degree of political leverage - much more so than if they'd gone with 12 teams, 12 academies.

Can we all just settle on the fact that Hudgell is a bit of a c**t and be done with it. That's not lucky or astute

Small in stature, small in mind.

Luck is a funny thing. Everything happens as a result of chance but we pretend not to notice. Just part of being human I guess.

I think Hull were lucky to produce those three kids. Lucky they were so naturally talented. Lucky we had them in the system. Lucky we had coaches willing to work hard to improve them. Lucky they had the drive and attitude to succeed. Lucky that they got their chances thanks to other players bad luck. Lucky they didn't go to pieces in their first games... And now that we are working harder to recruit and promote more youth players I think we are going to get even luckier in the future.

I just hope that we are going to be as lucky with our recruitment. If our two young half-backs hit it off then we'll be the luckiest club in the league.

So all our poor signings in previous years were just down to been unlucky ?? My

all these years I've been wasting my time watching the game, we should just get a representative of each club to have a coin toss against their counterpart from each other club, the luckiest team will win every round and be declared Grand Finalists, we can then maybe play "Paper Scissor, Stone" against the Aussies for the WCC?

luck, my 'se

Dynamite comes in small packages.
Also Short people have a great perspective on life; they are always looking up.





As Oscar Wilde once said...We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Spoken like a true short ass

I can understand NH feeling uncomfortable about the success of Lineham, Crooks, Shaul, Green and our 6 players selected for England Youth and England Academy last month, the latter particularly after his declaration on promotion that "all the good Hull lads will want to play for Rovers". To badge it once as "luck" could be construed as silliness. To make the point publicly twice in a week just highlights justifiable anxiety at his inadequate pipeline of talent (relative to ours) at present. While Rovers keep binning off the likes of Beaumont to accommodate the likes of Maki, their "luck", or lack thereof, in delivering homegrown players to first team is unlikely to improve. Why does he feel the need to belittle our success in this area? See MR's post, he could be onto something....

As for ignoring the rest of the interview, there's no new information there, just chewing over the RFL's commercial and fan engagement failures that both have aired at length already and talking up chances for 2014 before season pass deadlines expire. Bit dull really.

I can't speak for NH, but IMO, based on what I can see and my own inherent bias, it is at least as much a political or presentational problem as it is a real one. I ceased [ucompletely[/u trusting the measures you're using there a little while ago, so my anxiety as a result is not that pronounced. There's room for improvement, but I'm confident we'll keep producing SL players - obviously if we lose central funding, then it'd become much more difficult. Though there are ways a Centre could work, it'd be very much plan B for me.
Obviously it is going to go down like a lead balloon among Hull fans, but he's got to fight our corner (assuming it wasn't just an offhand comment - we do tend to over analyse, you and I

). 'One academy in Hull, run by Hull' wasn't cheered to the rafters at chez Mild, but that wasn't AP's purpose.

Some FC fans have an unhealthy obsession with everything NH says, it's usually the same ones.

Neil Hudgell probably meant you were lucky to get 3 or 4 quality youngsters coming through together, rather than meaning it was pure luck lol

Absolutely not! Never heard such rubbish!

You only have to look at football and the huge amounts of money that go into the youth setup. 90% of those who go through the system fall by the wayside because they are not good enough. Of the 10% a large amount are only good enough for the lower leagues with just a small percentage making the grade.
Manchester united got "Lucky" when they got their golden crop years ago, we got lucky with ours last year.
Maybe luck is the wrong word to choose but there is an element of it.

What a good youth setup will do is help you supply your own run of the mill steady players year on year. You just hope that it also produces the standout players at the same time.

I'd much rather listen to hudgell than you, personally.

It's also unstable.

agreed, one of the worst trolls ever

At the risk of sounding pedantic.
It was in the old days when dynamite was made predominantly from Nitro glycerine which was incredibly unstable,
I believe it is now made with Cordite etc which is more stable apparently.

I'm gutted, I'm sure.

I'll take that as a compliment from you.