So in that scenario, the under 19's (playing in blue and yellow) will be a team mixed with players signed on to the books of Rovers and Hull FC - and could be team mates one week, opponents the next?

Current players are ring fenced for the next four years. plenty of time to iron out any issues in the system. I'm all for it if it brings more players through to 1st team for both clubs and I'd have no qualms watching them play.

Easy for you to say Easty, you're Grudgell's [iedited[/i.

Not allowing that term thank you.

Chris28

Looking at? You was saying?

Oh how could I possibly mistake him with his other highly successful name sake?

You sound like you've been having a tough time? What does Setaimata say again? #BlameMcGuire #Karma

Problem is, they'll only be 17 starting spots for both clubs, even harder for young kids to make it

Yes, same as representative rugby.

After how your mob reacted after the Sneyd/McGuire incident....Yes, please forgive me.

After been knocked out of the cup, beaten by SLs bottom club, facing the prospect of playing in the middle 8s, your owner is blaming the players in public and to top it off you've formed a merger with your fiercest rivals...Who are you trying to kid, it doesn't get much tougher!

what part of that post was intelligent or contributed to the debate?

wonder how you'll react when the Whinos/Bradford academy is announced...?

Said a spokesman for Hull KR!

You said that personally I was having tough time, while in fact rugby aside things are very good, rugby and Hull are only a small part of my life.

You still offer nothing to this site and are complete waste of space.

I've pinched this post off the kr board from Roopy ,

A few years ago the Newcastle Knights had a local billionaire running the team and he made the decision to set up the best possible junior development.
He put Wayne Bennett on to the task, and Wayne hired ex Australian coach Graham Murray to design the programme.
What they did was decide to put all the money into identifying talent at the earliest possible age and train about 10 kids across the age groups at the sort of level you would expect young Olympic hopefuls to train. They set up what is called the High Performance Unit with a skills coach (former firstgrade halfback Troy Pezet) and a Phd qualified trainer (Englishman Colin Sanctuary). The first guy to "graduate" from the high performance unit is Sione Mataútia who last year became the youngest ever player for Australia. The next two to come through will be halves pairing Jack Cogger and Brock Lamb. Those two have represented NSW and Australia in every team since they were 14 and were the halves for Australian Schoolboys earlier this year, where Lamb was MOTM in 2 games, playing against boys up to 2 years older than himself. Lamb is the most skilful 17 year old player I've ever seen. He has kicking and playmaking skills that any firstgrade half would envy.

The point is, smaller numbers of elite juniors getting a lot of time and money spent on them seems to be working for the Knights. I suppose time will tell if these guys go on with it, but I can name you 10 Knights juniors who have skills like 10 year NRL veterans, because they got firstgrade level coaching and training from age 13 or 14.

if this enterprise was to turn out like the newcastle one then I can see the benefits but I'm running low on optimism with regards to Hull FC , don't get me wrong my loyalty will never waver and the club will always be able to rely on my support both financially and vocally iakow

Three distinct differences between this situation and our own.

1) This looks like a Newcastle only initiative. Newcastle haven't merged their academy with an inferior academy, and will have access to all of the players that 'graduate' from it. We won't.

2) We don't have a billionaire running FC. We have a chairman that's cutting costs, distracted by a job in another sport and who doesn't understand Rugby League.

3) Our first team don't even have access to first grade level coaching.

But, other than those points it's the same thing right?