Quote: DC W1 "I look to a scout to recruit players at a young age into a system that will develop them into stars of the future. If you are prepared to look back over the past 20 years how many internationals have we actually developed ? How many decent lads from Hull have been plying their trade elsewhere in SL away from Hull. (I accept that for a few years both clubs were out of the top flight) and just how many players have we attracted via scouts and not the Heatheringtons pillow talk to the club.
We have lorded players year in year out and yet we have recruited very few young stars and developed even fewer true stars.
As a city Hull has a great RL family whatever colour who seem to talk about the next big thing coming through. I am now talking back to the late 70s when we had the likes of Steve Dennison and co coming through, but I would say that the only truely world class players that has been developed through our junior system and into the first team are Lee Crooks and Garry Schofield. Lee was local and Garry was picked up through scouts.
It is hoped that Tom Briscoe will develop into a truely world class player and he was a scouting recruit from outside of Hull. I also hazard a guess that it was Rich Agar and not the chief scout that found him.
It is ok watching East Hull, West Hull, Dockers, Skirlaugh week in week out and thinking you are signing the best in the city, but Rugby Leagues boundries and truely class players can be found beyond the HU post code. I see very little evidence that anyone at the club over the past 30 years has seen that.'"
To be fair both Hull teams have financial struggled over this period so its hard to compete against the likes of Wigan / Leeds who where prepared to pay amazing amounts to tie up as many kids as possible (some kids given cash amounts of over £20k is not an exaggeration). Just looking back Hulls youth teams have been very strong and it must of been a rare occasion to not have one of these teams in the national finals in each age group.What has surprised me though is how it has seemed that these players have not received the international recognition which gives access to better coaches etc. The there is geography and the Image of Hull itself to most of the M62 corridor Hull has been an outpost with a bad reputation so when trying to sign a kid from Oldham or Warrington it becomes apparent that they are in a losing battle even now. Then there is the chances of actually winning things as they go through their career success breeds success and it shows players like LMS are happy to take a lower pay packet to sign for saints.
