I remember him playing for us and it was years back. This poster has no clue.

Tell you what, if HKR owes this to their new youth formula of letting other teams do all the developing first, then our decision to promote Fifita to our first team from Cronulla at aged 28 looks a masterstroke of planning on our part

Sometimes though, you do need to move away from so called brighter lights to get noticed. Several players carved out decent careers from the Leeds academy, that couldn't break into the Leeds first team on a regular basis. Just because they may not be your own, if your bringing in somebody young from elsewhere,and giving them a chance, and sticking by them, is that not investing in youth. I think the last 6/7 at Hull KR were Kelly and Campese.

Also, we have been guilty in the past ourselves in bringing in old, past it players from the NRL for one final payday. Recently Anthony Tupou, comes to mind.

At the end of the day, they've brought both youth and older heads, and it's worked. As for playing less games, the system is poor and this was always going to happen at some point.

Has it? For one season! They have bought in no more young players than anyone else and certainly not from the Academy they don't have, let's see three years down the line,

Let's be truthful, they failed to beat us twice and are only there by a mathematical anomaly and a canny coach, they have not been building for this, if you read the HKR fans forum nobody was seeing this coming just like we didn't in 2004.

As I said no axe to grind and I genuinely hope they do a Leicester but so far this is no more than we've managed to do a few times or would have done with a kind bounce or two.

Only Belly would try and make this out to be more than it is.

No, it's bloody not!

It is in a way, see Reece Lyne but it's nothing like bringing a Crowther or a Johnstone through from 16-year-olds.

Nice sidestep

That's just utilising someone else's investment in youth.

IF those young players have been "released" by other clubs then ANY club giving them a contract is allowing them to have a career in RL.
I agree that it's a long way from taking a youngster on at 16 and spending time and money to develop them but at least Smith has given some younger players a shot.
I know he's not "their" player but Abdul is quality. Litten and Lewis look pretty good too, although Lewis is still a youngster, he looks to be a player on the up.

All this is true but that’s not the point, they are hardly a beacon of youth even by RL standards. We currently have more young players directly from our Academy. Some will drop out this year but more will come into the first team to replace them.

Our youth development has yet to spark a real golden age but I feel we are getting there and eventually it will click. We are imho far more down the line in youth development than HKR.

Absolutely not in the context of what the poster put - HKR have NOT "invested in youth".

I know thats what I said



They have invested in youth, it’s just other people’s youth

Rovers are certainly using Hull FCs investment in youth to pad out their squad. I wonder how Hull FC might have performed had they kept hold of Litten, Crooks, Hadley and Abdull ?