Yes ridiculous of both hull clubs throwing money at overseas players then merging their academies to save a few quid. For the popularity of the sport in hull schools it's a poor indictment on both clubs that so few hull players are produced. Reducingbthenopportunities for kids by having one academy team is not a great step forward!

I really can't see Hull keeping Seymour as there isn't really anywhere else he can play barring in the halves. Also there is no chance that Hull and Rovers will merge there academies together, that what just talk for a while. Pearson has already mentioned about not wanting to lose any of our 16's who are a brilliant squad. Our 16's and 15's have only lost one match each all season, and Pearson won't be willing to give any of them up.

Stuart Jones becomes the forth Castleford player to retire at the end of the season.

Don't see how Hull can even be close to the cap.

McKinnon, Seymour, O'Meley, Manu and Tickle are all big earners and are leaving.

Martin, Sharp, Ellis, O'Carroll, Moa, Burnett, Pearce are also on their way/ already gone.

So if we have signed Ellis, Arundel, Watts, Pitts, Chase,Holdsworth and Crookes. Plus 4 or 5 other British youngsters I would be surprised if we are at the cap. Dont forget half of Horne's salary is exempt which equals another player.

For all the popularity of RL in Hull, there's the mitigating popularity of deep fried potato cakes. And also even if we take overseas to mean just Eastern Australia that's ~12 million people vs maybe 300k (including nearby places outside the city boundaries).

Patties make good forwards!

No, they do not.

Did me no harm! Good source of carbohydrates for bulking up, lol.

Thought the ambulance chaser recently announced that the clubs were already designing a merged kit

Not surprised, not like your soccer owner is going to know much about RL development.

Still a stupid idea, if anything the RFL should be funding better so each club can run two academy teams each!

Fuck me JB aren't you going to put any blame on your chairman?

He knows enough to fund one of our young lads to spend time at a top training camp in Australia.

Yep both clubs are equally short sighted and stupid for cutting costs and opportunities by doing this. I see no benefits and plenty of problems.

@rlwithjd: #castigers are close to completing 2 new signings, 1 of which is an import according to Ian Millward. Hear him on @BBCLeeds sport bulletins.

All Bradfords decent players to widnes by the end of next week. because we will own Bradford by then