Ken Hirst made 142 appearances for Trinity, scoring 100 tries.
Played in ‘62 Wembley win and scored.
Played in ‘68 ‘water splash ‘ scoring ‘ the try followed by the great Don Fox missing the conversion.
Not sure but think he also played in one of our Championship Final wins.
Not bad eh?

U19 prop Harvey Hallas has also joined Cougars.

I guess this will be unpopular then but I actually prefer the on loan system to the A team.
As long as it's done fairly for club and player.

Imagine Hadley playing A team against effectively the 26th choice player at a club at the bottom of SL if not lower.
On loan I found a lot of form and really moved his career on.
The same applies to a young kid playing on loan at Fev. If he rips it up he'll soon be brought back.

Comparing to 60s A team when even the first team were semi pro. Great players but the businesd of rugby league has changes dramatically.

The question is, as things stand right now, would you prefer an A team, or Jacob Miller?

It's not a pop at you, everyone understands our fanancial position. It's more the clubs who scrap the academy's then vote to increase the salary cap.

I wasn’t suggesting it was.

I was just interested to know. We are working towards a reserve team. Interesting though that Hull FC have decided that dual reg is better for their development of young players

Given the lack of interest from most clubs having a reserves team us a pointless expense at present, there’s hardly any games and many of the scheduled ones get cancelled as it is. If used correctly dual reg can fill the void until the RFL see fit to make it compulsary, although if they did it would in the short term damage clubs like us who don’t spend the full cap as the first team pot would diminish further as MC says.

Atm that's easy Miller. I've heard you talk about this situation a few times on Yorkshire Radio, about eventually wanting a reserve team, but financial cosntraints don't make that possible. Saying that even if we had the extra money, the reserve team structure is such an unorganised one, I don't think it would be worth allocating the resoursces till all SL teams commit to it long term.

That's easy so I won't answer it but then you didn't expect I would.

Yep I get the idea and tbf the A team issue is less to do with club and more to do with the game as a whole.

This was why I picked on the RFL. Isn't it their job to run the game and by doing so keep players in the game and thus have a bigger player pool.

Surely it's up to them to incentify it. Help with costs, get sponsors, produce a workable and cheap completion. Imho they meet to become far more inventive as a governing body.

Doesn't even need to be a full blown league - could be a six team evil al league with just 8-12 fixtures a year. Just so where to nurse injured players back, keep fringe players busy and trial players at a decent level.

Even a joint A team might work - Cas/Wakey/Fev though I clearly see the trust issues involved.

Where their is a will there is a way. Shame the RFL doesn't operate as strongly as the NRL.

You should be in politics I know that. Hanley wasn't DR he was a loan signing as you say. Added to that he was on the extreme end. The only reason he ended up anywhere but Hull was an accounting error.

It may be years before another player that good becomes available. Also I seriously doubt Hanley would have put up with A team football for a season.

I get your point but that has to be the worst analogy.

Is Ellery still playing then?

Didn't Hull merge their academy with Rovers because of the cost, but then go out and sign Frank Pritchard?