And now the RFL are trying to push through a £20-£30 'membership fee' that every player, coaches and even volunteers have to pay directly to them on top of the subs to their community club

Wow......Staggering arrogance and misreading of the situation, they talk about a Westminster Bubble !!

Quote: supersport "dont think watts played for cas academy, he was a featherstone lions junior and came to kr at 16, stand to be corrected'" Was at Cas from 15 to 17. https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/8536725/ ... all-corsa/ Wasnt easy to find.

Quote: supersport "dont think watts played for cas academy, he was a featherstone lions junior and came to kr at 16, stand to be corrected'" Was at Cas from 15 to 17. https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/8536725/ ... all-corsa/ Wasnt easy to find.

It’s the same in football, only on a much bigger scale.
The obvious point to make about all this is that, even if everyone of the players came through to the highest level. Professional RL is not a big enough sport to give them all a career. So it makes sense to limit the number you take on and ergo, the number of academies you have.

With all due respect, you don't appear to know what you are talking about.

There are people on these boards who will know the figures better than me but I do know that participation us up in our region. Up by 40% rings a bell. Certainly I've never known a time when we have only had 4 under 14s sides.

When players join Academies they either stay in full time education to work towards a qualification that allows them to go to university or they undertake an apprenticeship. They don't just train a few times a week and spend the rest of their time on their X box.

Wow that comment is exactly right on the money, Hull is not a hot bed for rugby, both K.R and F.C.
In the last 10 years the teams have produced 10 players that have made it in the game

[list

That in stone is fine , however he did come to Rovers as a fresh faces teen who NEVER played a game for Cas academy.


Watts learnt his trade at Rovers so he really is a Rovers home grown as was Tom Briscoe with ylou

Ben Crooks, born in Pontefract yet FC academy trained

We could go round all day on this subject

Watts had made his first team debut for Cas before he joined Rovers. He was only 17 though and then played a year in our Academy in 2008.

TLDR summary) to be changed. The RFL, I would guess, will now be pretty passive in letting the Sport Resolutions appeals play out, making changes likely, imo. It won’t necessarily be to Rovers’ benefit, but between them the most disappointed clubs have a lot to go at.

I was going to call Rimmer’s arguments specious but I just checked the definition and I don’t think they are even superficially plausible. The 3-year process reflects understandable delays relating to the pandemic rather than the panel having read the submissions cover to cover (Castleford’s was apparently 2000 pages... wtf? No wonder the panel was unsympathetic to them). The ‘haven’t beaten Australia in a series in ages’ argument (Brian Carney has at least beaten them in a game, which itself now feels a bit like being reminded that Aberdeen once upon a time beat Real Madrid in a major European football final), and we have to do things differently is nonsense. We don’t beat Australia for the very broadly the same reasons English football managers haven’t won the English league for nearly 30 years - the last two that did were both called Howard, for goodness sake and only Tottenham caretaker Ryan Mason finished in the top half of the PL this year - it is numbers and culture.

Side note: going back a bit further, Englishman Bob Paisley must be among the most underrated managers in sports history.
Side note to side note: I recommend the Bob Emergency sports documentary by Jon Bois.

Back on the academy decision. This isn’t, and in fairness was never intended to be, about reform. It is exactly the same system, but with slightly fewer/different participants. The leap from this to materially improving our chances against Australia, even as one small piece of the jigsaw, is ludicrous. Rimmer can’t say it, but if it is about saving money (which is in very short supply) or increasing participation in the Southeast and Northeast that at least makes some sort of sense.

What has been interesting has been the suggestions about real reform that have emerged through the furore. Terry O’Connor fell into the Jamie Peacock trap of extrapolating from his personal experience, but I agree with him about scholarships so I’ll forgive that - and I know it resonates with normal people.

For me, the whole system is way too SL club-centric with a strange sense of ownership and competition. I mean, the proposal of a draft for graduates of the COHA - that didn’t seem weird to people? Or some of the reaction when somebody like George Lawler chooses to seek professional opportunities elsewhere, or the hype around Harry Tyson-Wilson, Reece Dean, Callum Lancaster, Jack Logan et al. before they’d really reached adulthood (for balance, I recall seeing Steven Holker compared to one of Rovers’ all-time greats after a couple of games off the bench and Rovers were bigging up the youngsters in their system in the HDM ahead of this decision), or the quietness about the progress of Jez Litten and Joe Cator that I’m now anticipating in light of the panel’s scoring methods?

Wouldn't surprise me if 2 appealing clubs were successful. To all intents and purposes preserving the status quo which is so productive.

Me either.

To be fair, I don’t think this was really about changing the status quo beyond giving London and Newcastle a bit more resource, which isn’t a terrible idea in theory. I think Rimmer was just flailing about for something to say and ‘change can be good... let’s beat Australia!’ was was came out. This is why torture shouldn’t be used in interrogation - people will say anything to make it stop.

The tensions around the governance structure of the sport remain problematic and that isn’t solely the RFL’s fault, imo. For somebody like Rimmer, or Elstone in his SL role, the pay is decent enough but you’re expected to do a lot with very little power and a gaggle of club owners squabbling in the background.

Common sense prevails. Great news for rugby league, particularly grass roots, in this city.

The almost universal support from Hull FC fans for Rovers cause has been heartening. You aren't a bad lot really.

Don't get me wrong, I think the news makes all the sense in the world, but wasn't the underlining decision based on "trawling for fish", when, inevitably, in some areas, stocks would simply dry up?