Prior to SL we didn't. We did 96-2003 but after that we haven't.

It did take long but once the players became first teamers the rise was rapid. They weren't really week in week out regulars until 2003 and by 2004 they were champions.

With the crop you are trying to bring through, you'll know pretty quick if they're good enough.

Was it only a scouting problem. I had the feeling that under Nobby he went and bought his team whilst the juniors were trained up and then let go. I'm sure that people will point to the one or two that made it through the ranks at Bradford but it would be interesting to see how many Leeds and Saints had promoted over a similar period. It always seemed that any succesful juniors we had were despite the system not because of it.

That's been as good as said by the club, both at the Fans' Forum and in individual conversations. I think its safe to say now that I was told by a then-Community Development Manager that Nobby would not let the players go round the schools or do other community development (i.e. the players of the future) work, and that Macca was precisely the opposite.

I understand that Millwart identified a similar youth/academy development problem at Stains around 2001, and promptly took the sort of steps the current Bulls administration took from 2005. That gives them four years start on us, so its maybe not surprising that they (and Leeds) are much further down the track than us?

But at least we ARE on the track, and a way down it now. It would seem that under the previous regime - if all we are given to understand is correct - we would probably still be in the tramshed.

Yes scouting was a major problem. The club waisted some serious money and time on lads who were never going to make it. It's no surprise that the head scout was one of the first to be replaced.

Nobles biggest problem was not playing the good juniors we had players like Nicky Saxton, Paul Clarke, Ross Greenwood and Richard Dobson got so issued off the left the game all together.

Rubbish.

Care to expand on that? Given that I did say "if all we are given to understand is correct", which invited intelligent comment and rebuttal of what now seems to be the club party line from anyone who is qualified to do so.

I thought better of you than that

Forget pre Super League, that's not what I meant.

I must have imagined Matt Cook, Sam Burgess, David Halley, Craig Kopczak, Ryan Atkins, Brett Ferres, Karl Pryce, Andy Smith, Chris Bridge, Aaron Smith, Matt James, Jason Crookes, Richard Johnson, Rich Hawkyard, Keal Carlisle, James Donaldson, Elliot Whithead, Tom Olbison all developing and progressing to play for Bulls super leage team post 2003 then.

Thats 18 super league players and a couple of ex and and there is probably more than that, that have been developed after 2003 by the Bulls, that record is as good as any club in Super League.

OK understood, thanks.

What was your take on the youth development under the previous regime? There IS, in fairness, a fair bit of anecdotal evidence in support of the club's current line? And that comment from the Community Development team I referred to was made in a context where there was no reason whatsoever for an untruth to be told (you'll have to trust me on that one).

Seemed to me that we started SL well in terms of youth development - Fielden, Deacon (OK, ex Oldham) and Pryce obviously standing out - then we seemed to falter quite badly. Or maybe, more to the point, we produced quite a few but few stayed especially in the later years. What do you attribute that to? (Serious question, as always).

And yes, its easy to blame all that's wrong on the previous regime - hell, we'd had a government been doing just that for the last 12 years - especially when they are not well-placed to defend themselves. And anyone who belittles or sneers at what Caisley did for the club over most of his tenure deserves the kind of response you just came up with. But equally, that regime DID ultimately bring the club to the brink of falling over financially as well as landing us with the court action which did untold damage - both of which were pretty fundamental disasters which the next regime had to fix.

Trying to sift the truth from the spin is always hard, and its probably a truism I'll borrow from politics that all Chairmens' careers end in failure. The more facts, or informed judgment, people can put in the public domain, the more chance there is of people reaching the right conclusion and seeing through any spin - from whatever camp it comes. Wouldn't you agree?

I made the point in another thread the development was there. It's main problem was in the fact we tried to develop the wrong lads or when the got to the level of where they needed to be tested at the highest possible level they weren't given that chance. I've said before that lads were ed of big style and rightly so one lad Paul Clarke is one of the best young full backs I've ever seen. If had been given a go we wouldn't have the fullback problems we have now.

That all makes a lot of sense and fits in tbh, when you look back. But (yes, call me "Mr But" if you want!) wasn't that a big failure on the part of the coaching and management set-up? The point maybe people are making, even if they are not quite getting the precise nature of the problem right?

Could not agree more.

Also, as McNamara was part of this last regime he would have been aware of the situation when he took the job in the first instance.

Depends on your criteria of what is successful. I'd say that Leeds in particular could probably double our figure and include more players that have made it to a higher level.

Only one of ours has made it to test level. Six of the rest are regular SL players. The rest have either disappeared from SL or are just coming through this year.

For the purposes of this thread I was referring to our systems up to this year so wasn't including the likes of Whitehead, Olbison and Donaldson who I hope are the start of something for us.

When you look at Leeds the following have become test players at one time or another in the past 7 or so years: Calderwood, Walker, McGuire, Burrow, Bailey, Diskin, Jones Buchanan, Hall, Smith and Sinfield. Add to that the SL regulars like Mathers, Watkins, Scruton, Burgess and Ablett and you can see that they did bring more "quality" players through compared with the Bulls in the same period.

I'd say by the number of players progressing to become super league standard first team regulars would be deemed the criteria for a succesful academy. Nothing really to do with test level or what they go on to achieve.

Talking about the period that you mention, players developed post 2003, Mark Calderwood, Chev Walker, Danny McGuire, Rob Burrow, Ryan Bailey, Matt Diskin, JJB & Kevin Sinfield were all developed and promoted to the 1st team by Leeds prior to the period that you mention, so I don't see how you can use them in your argument as you have claimed Bulls matched this level of junior development up until 2003, and it's quite evident we did. Just because we haven't managed to keep them all doesn't mean that Leeds are better at developing players than us.

Players developing post 2003, Leeds still do not have much on us,

You mention, Smith, Hall, Ablett, Burgess, Mathers and Watkins as notable examples, yet we have Burgess, Cook, James, Kopczak, Ferres, Halley who have all been developed and progressed to our first team since then.

So I'm really struggling to see how Leeds had had superior development of juniors post 2004 mate.

The fact is Bulls have always produced and still are producing juniors as good as Leeds Rhinos and anybody else in Super League for that matter.