I totally understand everyone's reaction to these proposals and mine were pretty much along the same lines until I stopped and asked myself "How many super league standard players have "either" club produced over the last 10 years from local talent ?" None? 1 or 2 ?
Then I read that the number of youngsters playing the game has dropped by half over the last 5 years?

I do believe this is the way forward to have the best youngsters in the town playing together has to the best for them and Hull and Rovers.

As regards who's gong sign which player once they are ready. I am pretty sure that will be agreed by Hull and Rovers well before that point is reached. Also I would think the player and his agent will have a big say in his choice of club.

We have to move the times and think what is best for the players and the club.

Yes some players will miss out and not get in the team simply because they are not good enough. But having said that how many players are late developers or are good prospects at a young age and then don't get any better. It is not an exact science. There are no guarantees .

I for one am behind anything that helps to improve the game.

Talking of which I hope to hell we improve today on Wednesdays performance. I believe there will have to be a realisation by some players that they are playing for their futures.

Come ye ull!!

Im sorry to disagree, but I just can't see how spending less money on the young rugby players in and around this city can be good for the game.

Im sure its been mentioned already but surely the problem is simply coaching? Neither club needs to merge anything - they need to spend more on coaching then produce quality local talent. All thats now gonna happen is were gonna produce the same average quality players but then were gonna have to devided them between two clubs!!! Problem is Pearsons skint and Grudge is loving the fact that he can get to use FC academy setup at Brantingham on the cheap. Pearson really is a clueless dick who needs to sell up

Kids are going to miss out just because they have to drop the squad size by half. A kid could miss out just because he has a slightly better player in front of him in the same position. But both could half SL quality yet one may miss out.
AP is turning this club into a joke, he has no idea what he's doing.

First thing he needs to be doing is looking for a top class coach and if one is available then he should be sacking LR off!

Don't agree.

If there are half the players, then we need to make sure the best of them come to us, and not Rovers. I don't care what happens to them. We are bigger than them, and have a better youth setup; why wouldn't you want to play for the best youth team? Hopefully theirs will go to the dogs because they can't get any decent kids.

That's their problem. Not ours. We shouldn't be helping them. They're nothing to do with us. If they can't run a p***-up in a brewery, good - it means they'll go down the pan and leave us alone to be a decent team. Or, they'll get their act together and sort themselves out, in which case they'll deserve the success they create.

Hope I've made my view clear!

In a perfect world I'd have us 1st in SL with Rovers in top 4 somewhere, packed out grounds for derby games with brilliant rugby from both sides. But like you say, let their problems be their problems and not ours.

It's not spending less as such, but spending it in the right area, money spent on each player will be more than it is now, currently both teams are spending money on players that have little chance of making it as SL players.

I can see plus and minus points to this and will wait on ore details before deciding if its a good idea or not. I suppose the true reflection will be if we produce more SL players than we currently are.

First thing I would do is appoint a new director who is neutral and one with a track record to oversea it all.

Hard to argue with the facts. Only 140 playing RL at u14s in the city, between us and Rovers we pick 50. That's a lot of rubbish being taken in and having money spent on them.

Maybe they'd be better to pool resources at foundation level to work on increasing that pool rather than relying on our amateur clubs?

I mentioned over on the VT my experience of the Leeds Rhinos Foundation and their work at grassroots at improving local coaching and participation numbers. It all filters upwards to the Rhinos academy. They have fifteen full time foundation staff, and one of their current initiatives is to set up U7's sides at each junior club.

It seems to me that both clubs have identified a problem, but rather than looking to fix/improve the issue, they've come up with this reactive badly thought-out solution.

completely agree. Just gone for the cheaper and easier option.

I don't know if I'm missing something here, but as I understood it, the RFL fund academies in order to avoid this sort of thing. The clubs are just responsible for providing coaches. Surely there are enough full time players at both clubs who are thinking of moving into coaching once their playing career is over and u16's/u19's is surely a better place to cut your teeth in the coaching world ie Burrows and Ablett at Leeds.

It has been mentioned that there are only 140 lads playing RL at under 14's level in Hull, which is a shocking statistic and needs addressing, however the world does not end in Hull. There are plenty of teams playing in West Yorkshire but the Hull clubs are not interested. My son plays in the Yorkshire Junior u13's league and we have scouts from Leeds, Wakefield, Bradford, Wigan and Warrington at almost every game, but we have yet to see anyone from Hull or Rovers make the journey into Castleford. Agar may get a lot of criticism on this forum but at least he opened his eyes and brought lads from West Yorkshire over to Hull.