[Mild Rover]

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:48 pm  

fun time frankie wrote:

We won’t attract anybody decent until the middle 8s finish as we’ve been in them every season

It doesn’t help, but focusing on that or Scott Taylor being a Hull FC fan, risks distracting us from bigger issues that the club could potentially do something about.

That reads a bit like i’m grumpily saying it shouldn’t be discussed. I don’t mean to be like that.

Sorry - i’m just a bit frustrated ahead of another ‘brave in defeat’ performance at Cas tomorrow.

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:09 pm  

[quote="Mild Rover"]It doesn’t help, but focusing on that or Scott Taylor being a Hull FC fan, risks distracting us from bigger issues that the club could potentially do something about.

That reads a bit like i’m grumpily saying it shouldn’t be discussed. I don’t mean to be like that.

Sorry - i’m just a bit frustrated ahead of another ‘brave in defeat’ performance at Cas tomorrow.[/quote]



I think the club have sometimes used it as an excuse for us missing out on some players rather than going the extra mile to attract them Scott Taylor left to go to Wigan to win things the fact he’s ended up at Hull has nothing to do with us really

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:16 am  

Mild Rover wrote:

It doesn’t help, but focusing on that or Scott Taylor being a Hull FC fan, risks distracting us from bigger issues that the club could potentially do something about.

That reads a bit like i’m grumpily saying it shouldn’t be discussed. I don’t mean to be like that.

Sorry - i’m just a bit frustrated ahead of another ‘brave in defeat’ performance at Cas tomorrow.

Hope you are smiling after a well deserved point!

The problem KR have is money, Hudgell has said often enough he'd sell, given the chance.

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:46 am  

Whether Harris & Taylor ended up at Hull is a non-issue really. Dozens of players over the years have played for both sides.

The real issue is player pool, both at local grassroots & youth/reserve levels.


Personally, I think it should be mandatory for each SL club to run a reserve side and their own academy, funded in-part by dedicated central funds and in-part by creative ticketing/sponsorship deals. Halifax are a brilliant example - they're a part-time club, who through hard work are managing to fund a reserve team. If they can do it, so can every SL club. Similar can be done for an academy.

I'm a big advocate of a reserve league, rather than the dual-reg system, to get youngsters/fringe squad players game time, as well as players returning from lengthy injuries. It allows for players that develop a little later than others, who could walk away from the game.


Grassroots (junior clubs) is something else I'm passionate about, and due to the RFL having almost no money, we need to see a joined up effort from Hull & Rovers to nurture & support existing clubs, as well as look to create more junior clubs. This is where the clubs should have "merged", rather than at academy level IMO.

I've been involved in Junior RL in Leeds, and the support each local club gets from the Foundation is outstanding. There seems to be a couple of new clubs each year, fully backed by Leeds, with clubs being able to support more age groups. My local club for instance have gone from a single U16's side around 4 years ago, to 9 junior sides. 10-15 years from now the talent Leeds will have available to them will be frightening.

To do the maths, they have 35 affiliated community clubs. Hull have what, 10 clubs to share between us?

With only 10 or so clubs, it's no wonder they merged the academy due to a shallow player pool, but that was a reactive move rather than trying to fix and improve the real issue.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:49 pm  

Leigh_Manning wrote:

Hope you are smiling after a well deserved point!

I am, thank you

Leigh_Manning wrote:

The problem KR have is money, Hudgell has said often enough he'd sell, given the chance.

There's truth in that, but there are still things we could do more rationally IMO.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Mon Jun 18, 2018 4:11 pm  

DGM wrote:

Whether Harris & Taylor ended up at Hull is a non-issue really. Dozens of players over the years have played for both sides.

The real issue is player pool, both at local grassroots & youth/reserve levels.


Personally, I think it should be mandatory for each SL club to run a reserve side and their own academy, funded in-part by dedicated central funds and in-part by creative ticketing/sponsorship deals. Halifax are a brilliant example - they're a part-time club, who through hard work are managing to fund a reserve team. If they can do it, so can every SL club. Similar can be done for an academy.

I'm a big advocate of a reserve league, rather than the dual-reg system, to get youngsters/fringe squad players game time, as well as players returning from lengthy injuries. It allows for players that develop a little later than others, who could walk away from the game.


Grassroots (junior clubs) is something else I'm passionate about, and due to the RFL having almost no money, we need to see a joined up effort from Hull & Rovers to nurture & support existing clubs, as well as look to create more junior clubs. This is where the clubs should have "merged", rather than at academy level IMO.

I've been involved in Junior RL in Leeds, and the support each local club gets from the Foundation is outstanding. There seems to be a couple of new clubs each year, fully backed by Leeds, with clubs being able to support more age groups. My local club for instance have gone from a single U16's side around 4 years ago, to 9 junior sides. 10-15 years from now the talent Leeds will have available to them will be frightening.

To do the maths, they have 35 affiliated community clubs. Hull have what, 10 clubs to share between us?

With only 10 or so clubs, it's no wonder they merged the academy due to a shallow player pool, but that was a reactive move rather than trying to fix and improve the real issue.

Wholeheartedly agree about grassroots and junior clubs - that is where the big difference can be made and where investment should be made, IMO.

On the reserves team, what level should it aim to be in your opinion?

I think there's value in Fax running a near-amateur A-team to develop semi-pro players. A SL reserve team needs to be operating at a higher level IMO - but running a decent part-time championship-level teams would be much less affordable (or even 2 thirds of of one, hoping enough first team squad players are available to make up the numbers to fulfill fixtures). Also, for those players considering walking away from the sport, is Hull A or Rovers A much more attractive than Batley, say?

Given that some clubs have tried it recently and it has really struggled to take off, what would you change to make it more viable?

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Tue Jun 19, 2018 8:04 am  

Mild Rover wrote: Wholeheartedly agree about grassroots and junior clubs - that is where the big difference can be made and where investment should be made, IMO. On the reserves team, what level should it aim to be in your opinion? I think there's value in Fax running a near-amateur A-team to develop semi-pro players. A SL reserve team needs to be operating at a higher level IMO - but running a decent part-time championship-level teams would be much less affordable (or even 2 thirds of of one, hoping enough first team squad players are available to make up the numbers to fulfill fixtures). Also, for those players considering walking away from the sport, is Hull A or Rovers A much more attractive than Batley, say? Given that some clubs have tried it recently and it has really struggled to take off, what would you change to make it more viable? The reserves should be a better more attractive option to both the club and player than using dual-reg, certainly a higher standard than L1. There's a great article from Fax's Head Coach ahead of 2018 regarding their reserves: https://www.halifaxrlfc.co.uk/article/5 ... x-reserves And another on the benefits Fax are seeing via LoveRugbyLeague: https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ha ... erve-team/ Superleague squads operate with around 30 players, so the bulk of a reserve side are already on the payroll, supplemented with some top local talent where & when needed. Exclusive sponsorship deals separate to the first team, a small entry charge for matches, chuck in a beer tent, food, a merchandise stand etc, along with some dedicated central funds - it's doable . I think the issue with the reserve league was the lack of matches, a lack of clubs that made the commitment. Wigan spoke very highly of the reserves, but it's very difficult to run when you only have a handful of games a season. I'd make it compulsory, immediately gets rid of that problem, and trial it for a couple of seasons.

Mild Rover wrote: Wholeheartedly agree about grassroots and junior clubs - that is where the big difference can be made and where investment should be made, IMO. On the reserves team, what level should it aim to be in your opinion? I think there's value in Fax running a near-amateur A-team to develop semi-pro players. A SL reserve team needs to be operating at a higher level IMO - but running a decent part-time championship-level teams would be much less affordable (or even 2 thirds of of one, hoping enough first team squad players are available to make up the numbers to fulfill fixtures). Also, for those players considering walking away from the sport, is Hull A or Rovers A much more attractive than Batley, say? Given that some clubs have tried it recently and it has really struggled to take off, what would you change to make it more viable? The reserves should be a better more attractive option to both the club and player than using dual-reg, certainly a higher standard than L1. There's a great article from Fax's Head Coach ahead of 2018 regarding their reserves: https://www.halifaxrlfc.co.uk/article/5 ... x-reserves And another on the benefits Fax are seeing via LoveRugbyLeague: https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ha ... erve-team/ Superleague squads operate with around 30 players, so the bulk of a reserve side are already on the payroll, supplemented with some top local talent where & when needed. Exclusive sponsorship deals separate to the first team, a small entry charge for matches, chuck in a beer tent, food, a merchandise stand etc, along with some dedicated central funds - it's doable . I think the issue with the reserve league was the lack of matches, a lack of clubs that made the commitment. Wigan spoke very highly of the reserves, but it's very difficult to run when you only have a handful of games a season. I'd make it compulsory, immediately gets rid of that problem, and trial it for a couple of seasons.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Tue Jun 19, 2018 7:19 pm  

DGM wrote: The reserves should be a better more attractive option to both the club and player than using dual-reg, certainly a higher standard than L1. There's a great article from Fax's Head Coach ahead of 2018 regarding their reserves: https://www.halifaxrlfc.co.uk/article/5 ... x-reserves And another on the benefits Fax are seeing via LoveRugbyLeague: https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ha ... erve-team/ Superleague squads operate with around 30 players, so the bulk of a reserve side are already on the payroll, supplemented with some top local talent where & when needed. Exclusive sponsorship deals separate to the first team, a small entry charge for matches, chuck in a beer tent, food, a merchandise stand etc, along with some dedicated central funds - it's doable . I think the issue with the reserve league was the lack of matches, a lack of clubs that made the commitment. Wigan spoke very highly of the reserves, but it's very difficult to run when you only have a handful of games a season. I'd make it compulsory, immediately gets rid of that problem, and trial it for a couple of seasons. Super league squads may typically contain 30 players but they rarely contain 30 fit players. With extra fixtures to fulfill the number of injuries would be likely to rise. I think you’d have to be looking at adding about 10 part-time players to the squad to have a decent chance of fulfilling a worthwhile number of fixtures. They won’t be immune to injury themselves. That is doable, but i’m dubious there’d be a good return on the required investment. As for making it compulsory, what sort of sanction would you have in place for not fulfilling fixtures? I suppose you could do it on an escalating scale, so a team that is genuinely struggling for numbers for a couple of weeks isn’t unfairly punished, but not really bothering has a serious cost associated with it. I just can’t help but feel that if something is attractive, it wouldn’t have to be made compulsory.

DGM wrote: The reserves should be a better more attractive option to both the club and player than using dual-reg, certainly a higher standard than L1. There's a great article from Fax's Head Coach ahead of 2018 regarding their reserves: https://www.halifaxrlfc.co.uk/article/5 ... x-reserves And another on the benefits Fax are seeing via LoveRugbyLeague: https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/ha ... erve-team/ Superleague squads operate with around 30 players, so the bulk of a reserve side are already on the payroll, supplemented with some top local talent where & when needed. Exclusive sponsorship deals separate to the first team, a small entry charge for matches, chuck in a beer tent, food, a merchandise stand etc, along with some dedicated central funds - it's doable . I think the issue with the reserve league was the lack of matches, a lack of clubs that made the commitment. Wigan spoke very highly of the reserves, but it's very difficult to run when you only have a handful of games a season. I'd make it compulsory, immediately gets rid of that problem, and trial it for a couple of seasons. Super league squads may typically contain 30 players but they rarely contain 30 fit players. With extra fixtures to fulfill the number of injuries would be likely to rise. I think you’d have to be looking at adding about 10 part-time players to the squad to have a decent chance of fulfilling a worthwhile number of fixtures. They won’t be immune to injury themselves. That is doable, but i’m dubious there’d be a good return on the required investment. As for making it compulsory, what sort of sanction would you have in place for not fulfilling fixtures? I suppose you could do it on an escalating scale, so a team that is genuinely struggling for numbers for a couple of weeks isn’t unfairly punished, but not really bothering has a serious cost associated with it. I just can’t help but feel that if something is attractive, it wouldn’t have to be made compulsory.

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:32 am  

Mild Rover wrote:

Super league squads may typically contain 30 players but they rarely contain 30 fit players. With extra fixtures to fulfill the number of injuries would be likely to rise. I think you’d have to be looking at adding about 10 part-time players to the squad to have a decent chance of fulfilling a worthwhile number of fixtures. They won’t be immune to injury themselves. That is doable, but i’m dubious there’d be a good return on the required investment.

As for making it compulsory, what sort of sanction would you have in place for not fulfilling fixtures? I suppose you could do it on an escalating scale, so a team that is genuinely struggling for numbers for a couple of weeks isn’t unfairly punished, but not really bothering has a serious cost associated with it.

I just can’t help but feel that if something is attractive, it wouldn’t have to be made compulsory.

True regarding injuries, which is where top local talent & U19's fill in, I don't feel there'd be a significant additional financial outlay. Even with our injuries on Saturday, we still had Turgut, Lane, Sanderson, Litten, Scott, Bieniek & Osborne available to us.

I'm not sure the senior players would end up playing more matches, particularly with the league changes for 2019, but the youngsters certainly would.

Sanction - I'm really not sure as I'm not sure what's in place now.

Plenty of things are compulsory that work for the greater good. The salary cap, the non-fed rules etc. Part of a clubs membership to SL, in return for the central funding they receive, should be commitments to 'give back' to the game, and a great way to do that is to increase participation and increase the player pool.

I get your point re investment, but if every club adopted that attitude we'd see our academies dry up. In fact, we're already seeing the start of that with our clubs pooling their investment. Some clubs with be non-believers and see it as a financial burden, but as I mentioned, there are ways they can commercialise the reserves if they put the effort in.

Re: Academy lads and their allegiences : Wed Jun 20, 2018 9:39 am  

On a side note, I think allegiances start at grass roots Hull amateur clubs. My lads play for a club at in a younger age group, I won't name it for now. We're Rovers fans and it's plain to us that the club has a very obvious FC bias although the club officials will always deny it. We get some good natured banter but sometimes it goes over the top, even from coaches, and some parents refused to go to Craven park to watch their lads play at half time last year which I thought was disgusting at the time! The only games we get invited to are FC games, players come for training are FC players, we never see anything from Rovers. When I challenged this they just said they invite Rovers but they never hear back from them. Rover deny any knowledge when counter-challenged. Some of my lads pals who have never been interested in RL have come along and are now Black and Whites because that's all they know.

It's getting a bit annoying now, so can Rovers do more to spread out from their East Hull Heartlands or do they feel they are flogging a dead horse..?