Quote: Greg Florimos Boots "Posts like these get my goat and its not aimed at you Bullseye or even at Bradford for that matter, its more the system that is in place. Bradford are good at producing young players? Well its easy when you can go in to any catchment area and offer the bright lights of full time rugby isnt it, you are bound to "unearth" one or two gems. Just taking the all conquering Siddal U16 team from this year, how many of them will we see at Fax? Zero, we do not even get a look in, in the past though Bradford would have taken some of these players but as far as I know Bradford now hardly get a look in when it comes to the top young players and none of the players will be heading Bradford's way to produce so although you say its a shame other clubs are not as good as producing it will only be a short time now before the same will be said about Bradford.
Maybe the dig was aimed more at SL teams though and it that sense they will be like vultures knowing full well that if they want one of your players they can simply take them without having to pay a fee. The system is a shambles and until that changes the game as a whole will not improve and we will keep losing players who could have made it because they have nowhere to play.'"
Despite all our off-field dramas we certainly do still attract some of the very best young talent in the country thanks to the setup and culture John Bastian has installed at the club. Remember the names Joe Brown, Jake Trueman, Daniel Waite-Pullman, Luke Hooley, Cameron Scott. All those players will be household names in a few years. All began and chose the Bulls academy because of the culture John Bastian created. All flourished under the coaching of Matt Diskin and John. We still attract, produce and develop some of the best in the game. We still managed to keep a few despite the latest off-field farce. Theres a lot of problems with the club but our academy is still draw IMHO
Regarding the catchment area Greg, not sure if this was your point, so apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but i don't get that if a player plays/lives in one particular area, then he should have to play for that club E.G. if he plays for Siddal he should play for Fax academy. Matty Storton who is part of our academy played for Keighley Cubs. Should he have to play for Keighley cougars?
I hope the rule where a player under the age of 21 who has come through a clubs academy, is offered a contract by the same club, but decides to go to another club, the the club that developed him through their academy gets compensation. I believe it used to be around £15k.
I think RFL tried to address the issue Of rewarding clubs for developing young talent, but in true RFL style loved it up by bringing in compensation rules for 16 year olds which is too young.