It's very disappointing if true and Connor's stories tend to be pretty accurate. Putting Sam into the equation it almost makes you wonder why we bother wasting money with youngsters.

It's also a pitty the Club do not tell the supporters first!!!

Helliwell, Wardle and now Burgess. I'm starting to get pretty f*cked off with the way our young players are getting poached by clubs with more money.

Yes, we've accepted a transfer fee this time. But we all know that's because, much like with Sam, we were going to lose George to Souths when his contract was up anyway, so the club have taken the money now instead of later.

Agree - all the more reason for folk to get involved with Bullbuilder.
This is a real way in which we can help the club attract and keep youngsters at the club.

Unfortunately there isn't a great deal you can do with rich owners are doubling the money of these young kids.

Frustrating though it is - we still need to keep investing in the youth.
Yes, 3 top youngsters have gone - who knows if they'll make it or not, but surely even the "rich clubs" cannot sustain throwing that sort of money at the youngsters - especially when many won't even make it.

We've still seen Whitehead, Donaldson, Addy and Southernwood (to name a few) all push the first teamers in recent years, so things aren't all bad!

Hellewell, wardle and george all have potential and its annoying but pretty enevitable that a successful youth production system will be cherry picked by rich clubs....there are other clubs who have longer experience of that than us.

But importantly we have retained some of the youth products that have already proven they can step up and begin developing as a super league player in Addy, Whitehead and Donaldson.

We are going to win some and lose some in this long term project of developing our own players, but as long as we produce more than we lose the club still benefit, both in terms of getting first team players through our own youth set up and getting revenue in for the ones that are taken. Its still a postive despite what it feels like when 1 good prospect goes, we can't keep em all when clubs with money want to step in, we just need to deal with it the best we can on a case by case basis.

It was on the cards wasn't it. Wonder who else we'll sponsor now?

It's the curse of FAs banner.

The key factor is the fee. Sounds like the deal was done pretty quick which going by previously long drawn out affairs means we got close to what we asked for a player we were told by Paul Medley was not ready for the first team.

If the fees for Hellewell, Burgess and Wardle = 100k Saints want for Pryce then I'd take that exchange.

Hellewell and Wardle were OOC, so we'd have got the standard RFL tarriff for x weeks times y amount (or whatever it is)? If so, maybe a bit over £10k for each. Suspect whatever we got for George will not have been hugely more than that given it seems best guess we got £100k for Sam, although you would hope rather more than might have been the case had Crowe not had a very strong commercial reason for wanting to grab him - so you never know?

The only "good" thing about this is that between the three kids we've lost they had 1(?) full appearance between them. Therefore all we've lost is potential.

OK, they may turn out to be brilliant, and in many ways I hope they do as it highlights our structure is doing what it should be and identifying and developing future stars.

On the other hand, I too am mightily annoyed, but, as has been stated we can't compete with the moneybags elsewhere.

Some kids have a bit more of a tendancy to stick to what they know and have pride in playing for their hometown, ie Whitehead being a Bradford lad, others follow brothers - ie the Burgess twins have followed Luke to Leeds, then Sam back to Bradford and then on to Souths. Others follow the money - and who can blame them?

Hopefully Bullbuilder can generate a large support base following on from the leaflet campaign in the season ticket distribution. If so, hopefully many of the academy players will benefit from this trust, and have a greater tie to the club and the passion to "pay back" those who have helped to invest in their future at the club.

Is fans we cant complain too much as the drop in attendance has had a negative effect on our financial position clearly. The fact is, at that age the contracts are short so you always risk losing them when renewal comes around. keeping the lads that have made the step up is key and we have done that. Crookes is a perfect example of a guy who looked great at junior and has struggled so we cant just pin our hopes on lads that the coaches dont think are ready.

Don't think it is length or size of contracts really, it's just that we have to work within a structure. You have a budget for existing players and a budget for signings. The commercial fact is that if you want someone better than what you've got from another club, then you have to pay them over the odds, else they won't (obviously) move. So as the buying club you work that into your pay structure.

Whereas as the selling club, you can't (again, obviously) work a big pay hike into your structure, this being obvious because - it being your existing structure - if you decide to pay significantly more - you just broke your structure!

I'm not saying you would never, ever make an exception but invariably you decide what contracts you are offering to who, for what length, and at what price, and then you have to stick to that, or else your numbers don't add up.

Also in George's case, additional factors apply. Even if there wasn't really much more money, I can see why some young players would think the other factors of a place somewhere within the NRL, a couple of years in sunny Aus, parties with bro Sam at Russell Crowe's and hob-nobbing with the Aus jet set and NRL stars might be viewed as having some small attraction over and above the issue of your basic wage.

On the question of losing some young players, I really don't see why anyone is even surprised at this. Surely, you know before you start that there will be attrition, and that if you turn up any really good or promising ones, whom other clubs view as better than anything they've got, then there always have bbeen and always will be approaches, and poaching. We do enough of it ourselves, ffs. I think the seeming view of some that if a handful of youngsters leave, there must be something wrong with the system, naive and, frankly silly.

I agree with the above post. The point RE contract length is that at the early stages of careers contracts are nearly always short due to the number of variables with players at this stage in their career. Whilst this protects the club from the huge number of players who dont make it, it leaves them vulnerable when a player is progressing well but not ready.

Why would the club accept the same amount of money for a lad that had 2 years left on his contract as 2 lesser known players who were OOC? I'm guessing but would have thought the speed and relatively smooth manner of the deal suggests the Bulls were happy with what was offered.

Indeed re the last point. But, even so, why would the fee for George be anything remotely resembling what we got for Sam (which you can reasonably deduce from the 2009 accounts) given one was a GB international and seen as potentially the best forward in the gfame, and the other was not judged ready for an appearance yet in the top flight?

I don't think we'll have got much more than £10k each for the other two, given they were OOC and all we were due will have been the "training" fee, so do you realistically think we received £70k - £80k for George, being nearly as much as we got for Sam?