Quote: R.B.A "Rogues is right. However, do we think that a shared academy can ever produce enough players to allow 2 Super League clubs to flourish?
In effect, it has to produce twice as many players as the other academies do just to match them.'"
My feeling is that Hull and Rovers, for most of their modern histories, have been net importers high-end of RL talent, even setting aside overseas players. And I'm not sure it is all that much down to just investment. I suspect that local fan interest is high, even by heartlands standards, allowing us to support two clubs but the number of outstanding athletes with the inclination and potential to play SL to a good standard is more in line with what you'd expect given our relatively modest catchment population - Hull and the whole of East Yorkshire is about 600,000 people, which is a good bit less than Leeds by itself and West Yorkshire is 2.2 million. Nigh on four times as many people providing talent to supply only twice as many current SL teams.
Perhaps to compensate for that the net is being spread wider sooner - Oakes, Dagger, Bienek, the Badham twins and so on. If we can draw on a big enough pool of raw(-ish) talent, then we've a chance. It comes with logistical challenges, but if we rely only on lads from West Hull and Skirlaugh, then it'll always be a bit of a struggle.