You're probably right, but i'd also add that probably only 3/4 of the Wigan lot will make it too.

I reckon they will be more, but they have a bigger catchment as the recruit from everywhere in the north of England plus Wales.

They seem to be better prepared, although they have no need to rush players like us as they are very successful and can ease them in.

Care to name all the England internationals the current system has produced in the last 15 years? Pretty sure you can count them on one hand.

Is that the best you can do?

Of course it would be a success to produce England internationals but surely it's preferable for them to be exclusively a product of the Hull FC club? Our team at the weekend had a large number of academy products....did that fill you with pride or were you sat lamenting the fact they won't play for England this year? Do you rate an academy's success on the amount of international caps it produces?

Saints won the Grand Final last year, remind me how many England players they had playing in the Four Nations....

But there have been some. You asked if he would admit he was wrong if the new system produced England internationals. Well the old system has produced them too. How many (let's say in 10 years) would you be happy with?

And for the record:

Horne
King
Yeaman
Briscoe
J. Hodgson

Also a few guys have played for the Knights, and Jon Wlkin came through Rovers.

We don't know if the current system will produce internationals, as the lads in the current system are still in the 19's/just starting to break into the first team. Pearson has only been investing for the past 3/4years, before that the setup was a joke which I'd hardly class as a current system.

The bit you mention on catchment area is exactly why the merger should happen at Foundation level, rather than an academy. Which club is going to go out and engage with the amateur clubs in these towns in North/East Yorks and Lincolnshire? That would require additional £ being pumped into the Foundation, and I guarantee it'd be FC doing the brunt of the work if it were to happen.

The reason they're doing this (according to them) is that the player pool is too shallow to sustain two academies, so I don't think they have any desire to engage at grassroots level outside of Hull. They'll sit back and let the top amateur clubs do the work for them.


On another note, has there been any mention of where these top class coaches are going to come from. Obviously they'll have to be pretty good as to deliver a higher standard of coaching than the academy is currently getting.

Thoroughly agree with this, top post.

At the end of the day, the same amount of players will be produced at half the cost, both clubs have chairman's who have put millions into their clubs for no return, so you can't blame then for cost cutting when it won't effect the outcome, the option could be to spend less on the salary cap and we all know the downside to that and I'm sure people would be up in arms in we didn't sign players like Sneyd and Pritchard.

It's fine doing petitions and moaning about it, but unless we have someone to who has a few spare millions to buy the club and prepared to lose most of it, then Pearson is still here and making the tough decisions, costs have to be cut somewhere and this makes the most senses as it run correctly it should have no impact on the future of the club.

I don't think anyone blames either club for trying to cut costs, it's that they disagree this is the way to do it. As has been mentioned plenty of times, they could merge the foundation, share training facilities & backroom teams.

What they've done is seem a problem, which is a shallowing player pool, and instead of trying to fix that issue, they're taking a short cut. There is no guarantee this will produce a higher calibre of player (for Hull FC) than the current system is. Where will the better coaching come from?

Pearson has been hoodwinked by the bloke who's club barely has it's own academy.

This is another thing, why do people think Rovers academy is so bad?

Rovers academy is good have good coaches and have some good players coming through, maybe not quite at our level but isn't far off.

Iv'e spoke to a lot of people the last two weeks in who are involved in youth rugby and some feel that their isn't the numbers playing rugby league to support two competitive academy teams long term, I was talking to a parent whose son plays under 9's, there are currently 9 teams, in comparison under 9's football their are over 50 teams.

As i've said I am on the fence, but feel the outcry is really over the top and I will see how it goes over the next year or so before signing a petition or attending a meeting.

There isn't the numbers, nobody is doubting that Dave. They doubt that an academy merger is the solution to this player pool drying up. I think the solution should be a combined effort at Foundation level to attempt to increase participation numbers, expand the sports footprint outside of Hull. Exactly what Leeds are doing. Another problem is that costs need to be cut, well the solution would be to combine facilities and overheads in other areas wouldn't it.

This solution is half-baked, short-termism and does nothing to address the wider problem of grassroots participation.

That seems to be the idea that this merger is based around, but I don't personally understand what evidence there is to be so confident in it happening like that. It would work like that if the talent pool evenly spread across the different rugby league positions. For some reason, both the Hull and Rovers academies tend to produce certain positions well and not others. Hookers & props are strong areas, back row and centre regular but not top class, halfbacks, fullbacks and wingers are rarities but occasional.

If this pattern continues there's every chance that we might see slightly less players coming through than we do now, because we're halving our options in the positions we do well and not necessarily doing anything markedly different that would appear to address the areas in which we lack. I also think that the tendency to lack in certain positions will probably be a sore point for the proposed draft system. If both clubs need a half and one good prospect is coming through, I'd expect them to fight tooth and nail for them and test the partnership's breaking point.

Of course the other issue is that the merged academy will have to be twice as productive as any other in the country just to keep pace. It may work, I'm just not seeing reasons to be confident that it will other than blind faith.

And for the record, I'd choose a fully-functioning and independent academy over 1 player like Pritchard every time.

Depends how much it would save? You still have things like transport, kits, match-day staff etc, plus you have to pay 10-15 players for each club that are never going to make it. The currently academy also gives some false hope to certain players, for example I know of a kid at Rovers (He is never going to make it IMO) he is a bright lad and offered a very good apprenticeship, but has chosen to sign for Rovers next year and now may waste the next 3 years with them whilst he could have been building a career elsewhere.

Leeds have more money than us, greater catchment and already have a successful first team, so it's hard to compare ourselves with them, when they have so many advantages.

I'm not saying the merging is a perfect idea, but just looking at it from the clubs perspective and I can see were they are coming from.