Mark Butterill

Respect a lot of your comments Gotcha but to say weve had a lot better academy than the golden generation ones is laughable.

That wasn't actually what I said, and either a play on words or just misunderstood. What I said is that our under 16's have had a lot better teams than the golden generation. Difference then is the development of that side was completely different.

I repeat, that last years under 16's were excellent and had ten players signed up to the academy.

As for how many games. As many as I can, but my son plays under 15's too with and against a lot of the players, so I see a lot of these players each week.

Sorry Gotcha but we will have to agree to disagree on that one.

Having spent some time studying the coaching of junior rugby league (I am a sports coach specifically working with junior/youth development), specifically scholarship level rugby I see Leeds as a "producer" rather than a "developer" of young players.

In the past few years it appears that "the more we put in the system" ... "The odd one should pop out of the other end" has been the philosophy. I see young Cameron Smith as a good example of this and slightly further back perhaps Lilley and maybe Handley. Going further back, I can't remember many great young players that Leeds have brought into the first team that remain today. Happy of course to be corrected. Ward maybe??

With Leeds track record in Super League and general superior business reputation off the field it appears that at Scholorship level they can generally attract the top players in the area, across all postcodes. Let's call these players 9 out of 10 players and by this they are the very top of their peer group. Teams like Wakefield, generally get left with the 6 out of 10 players, or in other words the poor mix of the "talent" pool.

As I have observed, Wakefield manage to DEVELOP their 6 out of 10 rated players into 8 and 9 out of 10 players by he time they reach the U18 standard. The Leeds players in my view have hardly been developed at all and by the time they get to Under 19 level they have plateaued or in some cases regressed. But the good news for Leeds of course is they know that if they need to go and pinch a Wakefield youngster at Under 19 level they can usually get them. Wakefield do the developing, Leeds get the player. Harsh, but that's life I guess.

I feel if Leeds had a better DEVELOPMENT pathway rather than putting players into a system and seeing who "pops" out then we may see greater fruits and a better pool of players.

Well that would tie in with some of the info more ITK posters on here have been saying for a while on here.

Having the right people in the right positions is crucial at that level. I suspect that due to the unprecedented longevity of the golden generation all at the same time we haven't really had to bring through a constant stream of players. I do feel that where once we set the bar, others looked on, adapted and then surpassed us in some areas.

I still cant believe we have buried our heads in the sand on the reserve league.

A lot of this is true, but whether it is down to more better players coming through, or something else, you might be a bit harsh there on Wakefield. Hudson is doing an excellent job with the scholarship over there, and gets a lot of respect. I think because they were more of a front runner in the area with embracing the RFL embed the pathway, they might have had a jump on some. So if they are then better at development going forward, they will get some success from it.

The under 15 year olds that are coming through, as you see at Leeds we have some class, although they did concentrate on the unbeatable Siddal side, then next best Lock Lane. However, they also missed out on a lot of class players because of this. Cas picked up some really good ones, so did Wakey, and even Bradford who were left picking up scraps ended up with some class players. Next years under 16's match of Leeds v Cas will really be worth watching.

It will be interesting to see who signs up who of this years under 14's. Kippax are untouchable in that age group, but Dewsbury Moor and Hunslet are also extremely good sets. Even in other teams there is some real standouts in that age group. Interesting fight on one particular player, where Leeds have the older brother, and Cas signed up his next older brother, mainly in the hope of getting this player next year.

Ryan Hudson left Wakefield earlier this year, Richard Kelly took over in March.

I forgot that the coach of Kippax under 14's is also one of the Wakey scholarship coaches isn't he? Might give them an edge with that particular side in attracting them.

I was actually trying to complement Wakefield as I believe their coaches do a much better job of developing youngsters than it appears Leeeds have over the years. It's just a shame these clubs then cannot seem to keep hold of them. It has been slightly more refreshing to see players such as Jowett and Johnson recruited,developed and more importantly retained by Wakefield.

I have also seen the Embedded Pathway work first hand and they do some great work. Can I ask (as I am not actually involved with grass roots rugby) why Leeds Rhinos don't seem to have a real presence in this pathway? Or are they involved just simply under the Leeds Foundation banner?

One of Kippax u14's coaches is Danny Orr.Apparently 7 Kippax players have been offered terms at various clubs.

Leeds refused to sign up to Embed The Pathway,stating the foundation do similar work and they now have an "elite" program for u13's headed up by Francis Cummins.