dont see anything wrong that he said,

I hope you are right. The only odd thing of note is that after all the years of poor scouting one of the first things AP did was bring the retired chief scout back to the club.

I haven't heard exactly what he said, so maybe it was fine. That's why I asked the poster if that's what he actually said, as the poster said that he said the next players to come through would be from the 16s. If that's how he really did word it then he's essentially said that none of the 18s or 20s will, which is kind of a knock to them IMO.

Like I say, maybe he didn't quite say it like that so I won't condemn him for it until I know for sure, I'm just saying that it's rarely a good motivational tool for the head of a business to say that his staff are sh*t, whether directly or indirectly.

Make your own mind up mate link below - basically I heard his point as being that we were having to plug gaps with signings around the 20-22 age due to not having enough home grown quality at that age. He wasn't keen on joining forces with KR unless we could ring fence our talented 16s. Even then he didn't sound overly keen - seems like it's an RFL idea. I suspect his counterpart across the river is more accommodating to the whole wheeze.

rlhttps://audioboo.fm/boos/869281-hull-fc-owner-adam-pearson-talking-at-length-to-humbersidesportrl

When we were involved it was rarely the chief scout who came to local games tbh, it was a young kid who they sent and tbh he did not have much of a clue, we were once in a cup game and he was asked to name a MOM he picked one of his academy players who only played 20 minutes all game and was far from the best, even more embarrassing he said it was between him and his other academy player who was also no where mom, the crowd just stood silent with their mouths open. KR were by far the best scouts in this city at that age group they would turn up to lots of different games whereas you were lucky to see any-one from FC, maybe twice a season at best even though topped our league all season. Also worth noting is FC academy players were not allowed to play at club level at 17s although all other Yorkshire SL clubs allowed their academy players to play up to the Xmas so went approx 6 months before a game, FC 18s went over 12 months without a game!

Makes me wonder if something has happened in the last week or 2 to change his stance. Not so long back he was seemingly advocating it and hudge said last week an announcement was imminent.

Hope it doesn't happen personally

Cheers, I've listened to it all now. He doesn't actually include our 20s with what he's saying, but I do think he was being a bit harsh to our 18s, he basically wrote them off. I appreciate that he was bigging up our 16s, and he may even be right about the fact that we need to plug the gap between them and the 20s, but to announce on local radio that an entire age group are not good enough to make it and by extension basically just filling a requirement for us as a club to put out a team at that age group can't be good for them to hear. They must now wonder what the point in being with us is if they are only biding time until being released.

I must admit I can't understand what he's getting at, especially when you consider James Cunningham is from that age group.

Wondered that too. Hudge's usual snide comments about the Watts transfer characterise how he goes about his business whilst AP is trying to put the relationship at a more mature level. So many issues in this, from funding to draft system. Would much prefer we operated our own tbh.

He might have meant in this kind of volume. We've got Bowden, Kent, Green, Nicklas, Crooks and to some extent Lyne through the 20's this year. Maybe he feels there's only one or two in the 18's? And the next crop of half a dozen is in the 16's.

I think the best of our u18's have already moved up to the 20's so maybe it's the ones left there that they don't rate

I think it's probably as easthullfcfan has just said, and that he just doesn't see many. There'll always be some exceptions. I still just don't get why he'd go on record with it, though, what positive can come out of it? We may well need some players from them to play a few games in the next couple of seasons if injuries bite again, it would be better to be picking from a group of driven players who believe their performances can make a difference for them.

A kick up the ?

More like a kick in the teeth, IMO. He was actively talking about recruiting players of that age, what does that tell the ones we have?

Like I say, I'm not saying he's wrong in what he's saying, I'm just questioning the wisdom in saying it publicly.

Thats were I lost his meaning, signing players to cover the missing u18's would be pointless as not many are ready for sl at that age.

Now if he's talking about players to act as first team cover then 19-23 would be the age group.