Does anyone follow the 20's and 18's at great length ?
Just wondered why our u20's were doing so poorly, not too sure how the 18's are doing as i can't seem to find any results for the academy online but i do know the u20's got tonked at home by the rhinos today.
Every year i hear we have good young players coming through but the academy never seems to be that strong!!
As someone else mentioned in an earlier post with only 18 fit players other sides would look to their reserves to bring some players to step up but the fact they haven't says quite a lot.
I know burgess and bateman would be available if not playing first team but i would expect quite a few more and the 56-4 scoreline against leeds shows a massive difference in the next crop of players to come through

u18s season only started last weekend. they beat someone (hull?)

There must be 4 or 5 lads in the first team squad either suspended, injured or playing that are eligible for the U20's.

Bateman
Burgess
O'Brien
Donaldson
Jobe Murphy
McAvoy
Ball
Southernwood on loan

Then there's Addy and Olbison have just turned 21 so are just to old.

Quite a chunk of players taken from the U20's side. Still they should be better than what they are IMO.

seen a few games of u20's and they have been o.k. today they came up against a very good side from leeds and struggled with the pace and power right across the pitch.when we did make a clear break,from a loose pass i think, our left winger picked the ball up on our 20 and had about a 10m start on any leeds player but was chased down by by 4 or 5 leeds players on their 20. they passed the ball with speed and accuracy whilst we were ponderous and one out a lot of the time.seems to be the way that junior sides play the way of the first team,as you would expect,but i think we are behind the top sides on skill levels in all our sides at the moment.not sure if this is entirely down to coaching or calibre of player we are attracting just now but it seems to be across the board.it might also be a confidence issue.
hope we get the financing sorted so we can get back to been competative in all our sides.

Alex Ball is also 22.

This is what worries me, the way the academy plays compared to the other sides. You can see at Leeds the patterns are drilled in to the players from a very young age and that continues through-out their progression. I don't see enough of the academy games to state facts but i've seen a handful of bulls vs rhinos u20's games in the past few years and the rhinos have battered us every time. The one last year at stanningley was a cricket score and whilst the leeds team had a few players that had played first grade , smith, pitts, mcshane, so did the bulls side in addy, o'brian, bateman and burgess.
I think the whole academy at the bulls needs a over-haul once the clubs situation is sorted, it's not a funds based thing that's required, it's the general skill level and all teams holding the same patterns etc.
There seems to be a major lack of winning mentality in our academy system.

Is Rob Hawthorne out injured ?
I haven't seen his name for a few weeks.

Yes, ankle ligament damage, hopefully back in a couple of weeks.

Our U20s are shot for the reasons above, many of them are in the 1st team and others are on loan or just not good enough or not developed enough yet.

The U18s look promising so hopefully a few will graduate to the U20s and onwards.

These U20's looked promising at U18's anyway age groups are changing again next season U19's and U23's.

Out of interest did Chisholm score against your lot in the U20`s?
Thought he might have played in the first team on Monday against London but for some unknown reason we have kept the same 19 as Friday.