: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:00 pm  

no, not at all, a club who has done well in youth development will have that in their favour, the financial difficulties are irrellevant, other than to say a club in financial difficulties arent really in a position to apply for a place in SL

In thier favour but still well behind other criteria ,

Not financial difficulties , but excessive financial constraints that hinder clubs from running junior teams despite those clubs having been successful at that level in the recent past

yes, that is true

Yet they are

probably so yes

At last you admit they are not perfect

really? third year in SL, still struggling financially, still not got a team which will challenge, still not got the basis of long term sustainability, still not bringing through the youngsters they would need to add depth to the squad, and over the next 2 years they will need to cut down their imports by 5, and replace them with british players to comply with the rules, as well as put a competitive team out!

So no different to several other clubs , at the moment they are concentrating on what has proved successful for them and very likely 5 players in 2 years will not be a problem

it seems to me to very counter productive, had they used this season and last to blood a few youngsters rather than compete with Quins and Wakefield, then they would be closer to complying with the rules and had made it easier to compete because of a smaller playing squad turnover

They are playing to the current rules set by the RFL

Your opinion as a non proffessional fan

added to the fact they would have saved a bit of money not paying these aussies which could have been used to mitigate thier financial issues, maybe the could have even gone on the pre-season training camp Justin Morgan reffered to as the most important part of pre-season?

Thier option , didn't know pre season camps were obligatory

if they want to be in SL you have to, if they dont we can drop them

Can but wont as they dont have anybody to replace them with , and also because there are several others who are much weaker on several criteria

it will if we change it

They couldn't change a wheel on a bike , let alone the bosman rule , thier record on enforcing rules is a hell of a lot worse than HKR's juniuor development record

or they can implement rules which force clubs to invest in youth development, and where failure to do so becomes an obstacle to putting out a competitive team,

But they wont because the gap between the top and the rest is already too big and it would make a laughing stock of SL

and anybody who doesnt realise heartland clubs and expansion clubs are clearly different are clearly idiots and should be roundly ignored

And then we will here a lot more fans grumbling than me and it would again make a laughing stock of our ' sport '

hang on a minute here

are you starbug, implying that different criteria have differing levels of importance? and that not all criteria are weighted the same? and that you not knowing the different criteria have argued long and hard that this wasnt the case and that there is no way celtic could have scored higher on the franchise applications than widnes and leigh? are you now saying that the scoring was weighted? and if you are, surely you must accept that, not knowing the weightings, it was untruthful to put it politely for you to cast doubt on the integrity of the process? are you now admitting that to say the process was bent is clearly errant nonsense

No nothing of the sort , different clubs had different levels of importance , not the criteria and yes the scoring was weighted and will be weighted again , but what will happen is they will not decide anything until they know who can apply and who they want

As for ' integrity ' well that word and the RFL dont go together , in the same way as having ' balls ' and the RFL dont go well together

: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:05 pm  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

I also wonder how much of that incredibly generous £50k you've given them goes on the increased police presence that is generally needed whenever either Hull club come to visit?

There really is no need.

I've never noticed a particularly increased police presence at most grounds, apart, for some reason, at St Helens. Even the local derbies have less on horseback than at Saints

And as for the police escort of the coaches out of the town.... well, it's your money to chuck away, but really...

The daft thing is, I think Hull and Saints fans have rather a good relationship. Rommel excepted, I've always found you an amiable lot and managed to share several pre-match drinks in the pub without a single glassing

: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:55 pm  

RossRhino wrote:

in fairness to HKR, they arent the only team with ex Leeds academy in.

Hull FC have a fair number too.

Just as Huddersfield have a fair number of ex Wigan academy players not deemed good enough.

Fairness to Hull KR!!!?? This is Smoky TA you are talking about, he has a deep hatred of Hull KR.

Ian Kirk played in Rovers academy team

: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:58 pm  

[quote="joburg"]Fairness to Hull KR!!!?? This is Smoky TA you are talking about, he has a deep hatred of Hull KR.

Ian Kirk played in Rovers academy team[/quote]

Yes but your ' facilities ' weren't good enough for him to progress

Now when he came to Leeds

: Thu Feb 12, 2009 9:48 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

£50k turnover, a fraction of that as profit, and they dont take 2k to every away match, never mind 2k more than another team would bring,

im not privvy to every clubs turnover, we do know though that most, if not almost all clubs are turning over more than £4m, even if we take this bottom figure as the average we are still looking at the £50k turnover hull KR bring (which they dont get close to, but seeing as how we are pretending, lets pretend they do, will still only contribute 0.013% of a clubs turnover

its really not that big an amount

So it's actually £50k x 13 then which equals £650,000 benefit to SL by Hull KR being in over a team that does not bring so many away fans. That seems worth having, how many clubs would spend £650,000 per year on youth development?

50K would be 1% of turnover if a club's turnover was £5m, the % button on your calculator doesn't work right.

So what you are saying is that by including Hull KR in SL a club with a £5m turnover can get a free 1% increase in turnover simply by Hull KR being included. Wow, how many chief exec's would turn that offer down?

And, the only costs associated with that are variable, so almost all of it is profit! Even better!

You make a very good argument for Hull KR's inclusion to SL and subsequent contribution to SL finances Smokey. Well done!

Imagine how much worse off other clubs would have been if Hull KR had taken an alternative route and not gained entry to SL or had been relegated in their first year! It's a good job they weren't isn't it?

: Fri Feb 13, 2009 1:21 am  

I love the way words like Junior Development are thrown around in the UK.

Super League clubs have never been able to develop talent. EVER! The players they buy from juniors clubs around the UK don't kick on and get any better.

Thats why England is a joke at Test level.

: Fri Feb 13, 2009 5:06 am  

As a HKR fan I am very happy with decisions the club have taken to this point. As the point in any business is making the customer satisfied then they are being succesful. Fortunately altruism isn't a criteria for sports business so I hope we keep doing what we need to do to be the best club we can be for the customers that matter, the HKR fans.

: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:10 am  

Starbug wrote:

In thier favour but still well behind other criteria ,

Not financial difficulties , but excessive financial constraints that hinder clubs from running junior teams despite those clubs having been successful at that level in the recent past

if excessive financial constraints stop them doing enough at youth level then those same excessive financial constraints would see them failing at Sl level

Yet they are

for now

At last you admit they are not perfect

they arent, they are good, and massive massive improvement on what has gone before, but they arent perfect

So no different to several other clubs , at the moment they are concentrating on what has proved successful for them and very likely 5 players in 2 years will not be a problem

no different to most clubs, very few will go from 10 - 5 in the next 2 years, because few have 10 now, and if going from 10 - 5 in the next 2 years isnt a problem, why lobby to change the rules because it was sooooo difficult to go from 10-8 this year?

[/b]

They are playing to the current rules set by the RFL

rules they lobbied to change because they apparantly struggled so much to get the required number of british players in,

Your opinion as a non proffessional fan

is there such thing as a proffessional fan?

Can but wont as they dont have anybody to replace them with , and also because there are several others who are much weaker on several criteria

we can in three years, and who is much weaker right now? the only criteria HKR are better than the clubs who around them is they have slightly higher attendances, not massively higher but a bit, the rest isnt particularly impressive

They couldn't change a wheel on a bike , let alone the bosman rule , thier record on enforcing rules is a hell of a lot worse than HKR's juniuor development record

unfortunately the RFL have to work within the laws of the land, and this area requires some voluntary contribution to the game, some clubs wont ever do that

but i think if we made the changes i proposed clubs who didnt invest in youth would simply be left with a poop team

But they wont because the gap between the top and the rest is already too big and it would make a laughing stock of SL

well the clear answer to that is to drop some clubs and cut down the size of the league. in your opinion it is clear some clubs arent big enough for SL, though i dont know which clubs you think this of, i think all in SL have put out a competitive team, i think there is a clear gap between top and bottom but the bottom is pretty close and the top 2 or 3 are pretty close too, i dont have a problem with the relative quality of the teams in this league

And then we will here a lot more fans grumbling than me and it would again make a laughing stock of our ' sport '

but we can ignore the idiots, because by definition they are idiots and what they are grumbling about is wrong,

we could have half the fans grumbling because we allow tall players to play, we would still ignore them because they were being idiots, however many idiots there are

No nothing of the sort , different clubs had different levels of importance , not the criteria and yes the scoring was weighted and will be weighted again , but what will happen is they will not decide anything until they know who can apply and who they want

As for ' integrity ' well that word and the RFL dont go together , in the same way as having ' balls ' and the RFL dont go well together

so in other words, you were always just guessing about Leigh and Widnes' application being better, you were just guessing the process was bent, but it was still bent because you need it to be to fit your paranoid notions?

how do you know the RFL wont weight youth development very highly on the next round of franchises? when even if we take your paranoid premise, they will want to keep celtic in, and celtic are likely to be in and around the bottom, so they would likely weight the performance aspect pretty low, they arent going to get 10k in every week, so the attendance aspect wont be important,

what are celtic going to do? introduce a fair few young welshmen who havent played before, bang youth development would need to have a pretty high weighting to make a difference wont it?

the clubs that havent done, well they are going to lose a stack of brownie points arent they

: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:11 am  

joburg wrote:

Fairness to Hull KR!!!?? This is Smoky TA you are talking about, he has a deep hatred of Hull KR.

Ian Kirk played in Rovers academy team

and that is relevant because?

: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:18 am  

Barnacle Bill wrote:

So it's actually £50k x 13 then which equals £650,000 benefit to SL by Hull KR being in over a team that does not bring so many away fans. That seems worth having, how many clubs would spend £650,000 per year on youth development?

none, but then no club has Hull KR visit their stadium 13 times a year either so.............

50K would be 1% of turnover if a club's turnover was £5m, the % button on your calculator doesn't work right.

So what you are saying is that by including Hull KR in SL a club with a £5m turnover can get a free 1% increase in turnover simply by Hull KR being included. Wow, how many chief exec's would turn that offer down?

plenty when they can get a free increase of £300k profit for having a better make up of the league, or the league can bring in an extra £4.2million a year, profit, guaranteed, and actually real instead of in the heads of HKR fans (considering they dont get close to bringing in 2k away fans to every game, never mind 2k more than clubs would otherwise get)

And, the only costs associated with that are variable, so almost all of it is profit! Even better!

when did this happen, is this a credit crunch thing? do we no longer have to pay variable costs? do i no longer have to pay my water, electricity, gas, or fuel costs because they are variable? awesome, have you like an official link or something because this definately sounds too good to be true

clubs no longer having match day costs, that should make a huge difference to the profitiability of our clubs, we could put them anyway and almost guarantee profit,

You make a very good argument for Hull KR's inclusion to SL and subsequent contribution to SL finances Smokey. Well done!

Imagine how much worse off other clubs would have been if Hull KR had taken an alternative route and not gained entry to SL or had been relegated in their first year! It's a good job they weren't isn't it?

if there is any club in SL who would have gone bust or suffered financial difficulties because they didnt get the 2 or 3 thousand pounds profit on matchday revenue Hull KR bring, they shouldnt be in SL, we want stable clubs