The point I was trying to make was that the whole attitude at the club leans towards populating our 1st team with imports rather than putting the effort into our youth system.

I didn't intend it to become another Agar bashing thread, i think there's more to it than that, although he must take a fair amount of the responsibility for their development.

I just don't think that as a club youth development is taken that seriously, and the U20 players who are on full-time contracts are just there so that the club can satisfy the 'homegrown' franchise criteria.

Completely agree, but who's monitoring his progress on the YD front?

James Rule has CEO should be ramming the importance of YD down the throat of everyone in the organisation and making it a key 'mission' for the club.

It's fine setting up the Jets programme, giving lads full-time contracts and scouting lads from Scotland/Cumbria, but ultimately, success will be measured by their contribution to the 1st team, which is pretty much non-existant.

I think that Rovers hitting Super League has had a big impact short-term on Hulls youth development. In the past Hull signed pretty much all of the best local talent so some was bound to come through. However, Rovers had a big initial investment in the Academy and managed to snare what i believe was the lions share of the best local talent. That is now bearing fruit with the likes of Taylor hitting the first team. Previously he would be hitting Hulls first team now.
What i will say though is having seen your youngsters in action this year, you have some fantastic prospects at 16/17 years of age. It may take 2 or 3 years and a bit of patience but some of these will make very good Super League players.

Personally i think it is down to the mentality of the old BOD.

Kath basically had a policy that first team players (or high earners) should play as they are being paid for it and using youngsters means boosting there deals once theyve played a certain amount of games.

you mean like employing a cheap coach that you know isn't up to it so that you never have to pay much out in win bonuses?? never, surely not!!!

I agree Rule needs to take some responsibility, but maybe not for the same reasons that you believe. It's been mentioned recently on another thread how quick most fans are to exonerate him from blame, but IMO the correlation between his appointment and the downturn in the playing side of the club is not a coincidence.

Personally though I think Rule does know what needs to be done in terms of youth development, as is demonstrated by the infrastructures and scouting policies that you mentioned. Where I think he is guilty though, is in the sheer misjudgement of believing Agar is the man to oversee these infrastructures and policies on a day to day basis.

Rule's defenders will doubtless say that he was, previously, merely a mouthpiece for Kath, however I've never been convinced by that argument. Whether Agar is still here next season will go a long way to seeing who's right about that one.