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.

TBF I don't think the club has pushed the "Noble bad, McNamara good", "Caisley bad, Hood good" line at all. Indeed while we've had years of rumours about Harrisgate, youth player issues, money etc. etc., it is only recently, and only to a limited extent, that comments have been made by the Club - under great pressure to "be open with the fans" so that a little light has been shed on the current regimes views as to the past setup as compared to now.

As Adey said, and we all know, you absolutely never get to find out all sides of the whole story, so have to form views on snippets. It isn't surprising for any new regime to advance (and presumably genuinely believe) that they are improving on / clearing up after the previous incumbents. It's normal. I'd say there's been much less of that at Bradford than there could have.

I reckon it is totally wrong to accuse the present regime of "trying to shift the focus away from Mac's short comings on to Noble and Caisley". I don't see that is fair at all. Where have they been doing that? The fans have been on at the club for a long time to say more and inform better, and it seems to me that if you asked for it, it's bad form to slag off when you get it.

On youth development, whether the problem was deficiencies in the system, or whether it was Noble/the club wouldn't give deserving cases a chance to the extent that they were even lost to the game in some cases - I've only directly heard that from RER, though I don't doubt it. If the Bulls were wanting to sling mud why would they not use this?

If the club [i]did/i] make these criticisms re failure to keep such promising youths, would that be (a) "trying to shift the focus etc" or just (b) the oft requested "truth"? If RER is right, surely you couldn't get a more damning indictment of the old youth setup?

And if he is right, what better ammo for a shift of focus could Hood & Co., have? Yet they have kept those bullets locked in the armoury?

In terms of other issues, we all know that Harrisgate was an utter financial disaster for the club and it was indeed 100% the fault of the previous administration, so no focus shifting required there. We also (I presume) all believe that selling Fielden and Noble was not unconnected to the state of teh club's cashflow so ditto; yet I haven't heard the present administration making a big song and dance about it and if they did then it would not be "spin" but the plain truth.

Of the two lists above I'll stick my neck out and say the Leeds players are generally speaking better than the ones we've brought through. It's ok bringing through lots of players but they need to be of a good standard, otherwise what's the point? As RER has stated we perhaps missed a trick at times with our own youngsters and didn't produce the quality, even if the quantity was ok. After all quality wins titles and trophies not quantity as we all know.

I guess Leeds are the best example because they've brought through their kids over a long period and kept it going. While the numbers produced might be similar there's a definite difference in quality over the SL years. Leeds have produced more test players than us, and that is what we should be aiming to do - bring through as many test quality players as possible.

Bradford: Deacon, L,Pryce, Peacock, Fielden, Langley, Burgess.

Leeds: Walker, Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, Diskin, JJB, Bailey, Smith, Hall & Calderwood.