Good point but if there aren't any decent British players available what do you do.

Still one fewer overseas player than Leeds though

That's a bit rich coming from a club who will have seven non England qualified players in it's squad in 2010.

www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 86,00.html

www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 86,00.html

no not really it was in reference to the creative spine of the team been all overseas for the next 3 years where Leeds are all acadamy players and the core of the team is made up of local lads! It is also likely 3 or 4 of our overseas signings will come off the bench. That's the difference

In addition to the Leeds players in the England squad Carvell, Morley and Fox had also come through our Academy so I don't think a Wigan fan is in a position to preach to us just yet.

Leeds undoubtedly have produced heaps of SL quality players yet feel the need to have extra overseas players and more than the official quota allows. I don't get it really, as the champions and with the backing of one of the best RL service areas why buy more overseas players than you need?

I think Leeds are a club who realise that maybe a few of our lads arnt quite ready yet! and the squad size means we have more time to develop rather than push em in at the deep end. the fact we have signed 2 players from the lowers leagues and a young jay pitts shows we are a progressive club who arnt affraid to look out side our own talent pool. the club have identified where our acadamy isn't as strong and acted on it.

people can pick holes if they like. but why would the club brake up a winning team and not strengthen it, or weaken it by pushing kids in who arnt ready.

Like Matt Diskin?

More than the official quota allows?

I think you'll find Leeds are quite happily within the quota for next season thanks. That the RFL don't have the brass goolies to properly implement a rule without giving retrospective clearance to anyone who was here before they introduced it isn't the club's problem.

Therein lies the crux of the matter. The clubs aren't there to benefit the international game, they are there to benefit themselves. Same issue with rugby union, football and cricket - that's why Northants had a team full of Kolpaks, because all they were interested in was their own welfare as a county.

The only way you'll escape it is to have a small number of centrally run and funded franchises set up to provide a high intensity competitive environment with rewards for the development of youth players.

Otherwise, club self interest is always going to damage the prospects of the national side.

Well Leeds are exploiting loopholes so they can have have more than the the quota of five overseas players. I'm not sure why they feel the need to do this, that's my real point. My own club has exploited quota rules in the past but they've never had the junior systems in place to ensure they could bring through good young players from the academy. Leeds do yet they sign players like Buderus and feel the need for six antipodeans next year.

I've answered that question already.

They are putting together the strongest possible squad they can within the regulations of the competition they are playing in. That's the job of those in charge of recruitment, irrespective of where those players come from.

Unless you'd like to try and convince me that Buderus and Eastwood aren't actually any better than Paul McShane or Jay Pitts.

I guess I'm a little disappointed in that attitude. Given Leeds performance in 2009 they did pretty well without Eastwood or Delaney and without Buderus for long periods. I'd suggest that they wouldn't need all three of them for 2010 and that some of that cash could've gone on their juniors e.g bringing on Kallum Watkins or spreading the game a bit further in the service area.

However if Watkins or McShane get disillusioned as a result of their paths being blocked by imports I'd hope we could find room for them at Odsal

Why would any business choose to make itself weaker than it could possibly be, exposing it to more risk of being usurped by its competitors?

Leeds have absolutely no obligation to produce players for the home nations international sides. Their sole obligation is to provide themselves with the best possible chance of winning every competition they enter.

A more pertinent question would be why a club with such a large junior amateur community around it is finding it necessary to go overseas to give itself that chance. What are BARLA clubs doing to produce English equivalents of Lockyer, Inglis and Hayne?

From around 1999 to 2004 Leeds decided to put the majority of their resources into junior development rather than relying on big names from overseas and it served them really well. In the long term I think it's proven as the best approach. IIRC for some years Leeds chose this route and didn't take up the full quota. They certainly didn't push it to the limit. In fact I remember reading plenty of posts on here deriding Bradford for taking on lots of overseas players and not bringing through the juniors.

Of course Leeds have no obligation to produce players for the home nations international sides. But it would seem the policy of growing your own is best for any club in the long term. It would appear to me as an outsider that that policy is no longer as important as it once was though I could be wrong.

Or possibly, to use your agricultural analogy, the crop has not been as bumper as it was during the years you mentioned and has to be supplemented by buying in from elsewhere.