Who picks the team would be interesting have heard rovers get the pick of any youngsters one year us the next don't see how it would work. One year could be poor the other good also if your black and white and so is your family would you really want to play for rovers if you fall in that year or will kids hold back a year to join the team they want. Is this just testing the water to merge the two first teams seems the most likely outcome to me.

I imagine there would have to be some sort of draft - but if you want to be a professional rugby player, it shouldn't matter whether it is hull or rovers, you should just want to play,

If not, you need to question whether they really want it

Fair point but imagine dreaming of running out at the KC and waking up at craven park would you really want that for your son.

Nothing stopping him from joining Hull once the initial contract is up

key point that we must remember ( same applies with scot taylor situation ).

If a Player does Not want to sign for a Club then the likes of hudgell cannot force the player to sign.
Am sure the vast majority of up and coming acadeamy players would choose fc over rovers.
i.e. better prospects, pay etc !!

I'd imagine both teams would recruit their own youngsters, they're then put into the joint academy and receive the best training & preparation we can both afford. They then come out the other end at 18 and join their clubs (more than likely) A team.

I hope a lot of emphasis is put on educating these lads and preparing them for a life without rugby, as not all will make it.

YOU ARE RIGHT - I coached a great team in a great year and so far only 3 kids have played from that whole year have played for FC or Rovers - Chris Heil / Dave Peterson /Jordan Cox - the rest ???

I find this more interesting than worrying. AP knows what he's doing and will ensure our talent is looked after.

Again in the paper Gentle talks about our promising u16's and u15's so not overly worried as yet

Will be interesting to see how this will work,

My guess is either a draft system or just allowing both clubs to offer professional contracts and giving the youngsters a choice. Can't see how a system of one year on and one year off working at all. I guess we hold the power in the agreement so can see Adam using this to our advantage, just look at the SMC agreement ruthless and a smart cookie.

FC will have the pick of the bunch, ambitious players will want to play for the top club in the City and now we have pushed Agar aside we have a great opportunity to pull away from our neighbours

KR will pick up the 2nd rate players however, with the improved facilities and coaching staff will benefit from trying to run the academy on a shoestring or drop it completely (not sure how the licence works with this?)

Hull will benefit by improving the facilities expertise the kids will have to develop and hopefully avoid our Super League friends from raping the area of promising talent again.

Our 18/19/20 year olds were the best players in Hull, if not Yorkshire at Under 16's level and were promising players, now some people criticise them so don't get too carried away. As soon as the players hit 16+ we done seem to progress as much as other SL teams. Don't know if it's down to coaching, drink culture or what. Probably lack of investment at youth levels. AP has invested on youth and hopefully we will see the youngsters maintain and improve like Wigan, Warrington, Leeds etc because the talent is here in Hull.

I consider one of the factors to be lack of actual game time/experience, once they hit 17s the academy players in Hull can no longer play for their amateur club yet when you travel around Yorkshire all the other clubs allow their young 17s to play for their amateur clubs right up to the Christmas so they actually get 6 months extra game time. A bulk of the academy lads from Hull at 18s have played approx 12 games in a year I actually know a couple who have only managed 6 games in a year., kids are not going to progress with that amount of game time.

What concerns me is all the talk of a SL-wide reduction of the number of academies. I just fail to see how this will do anything other than reduce the already struggling talent pool with less teams for young players to play in, or am I missing something? A colossally bad move for English RL if it really does go ahead IMO.

Very concerning. Are Wigan and Saints being told to merge their academies?