Wigan have just beaten Hull academy 82-0. Why is it that the Hull side are so uncompetitive at the moment? (Honest question - not here to provoke!)

How long have you got?

... best ask on the hkr forum as well as it's a joint academy, and is due to be disbanded at the end of the season.

they (KR) paraded something like 43 players before games recently, the article I read (think it was in the HDM) "bigged up" Hudgell's belief in youth, made me chuckle.

I see we (and Rovers) are being allowed only 15 scholarship players for both the under-15 and under-16 level teams. Every other club is allowed 20.
A RFL punishment for disbanding COHA, perhaps?

It does appear that way, and perhaps for Hudgell and Pearson saying, and in not a very veiled way, the RFL are "not fit for purpose", if anyone sees a 70's blazer in the charity shop, I may get a place on the RFL board. Torronto is great, m'kay...

They only have 1 team each so it's a squad of 30 to work with over 8 games I believe.

If they have more all it does is affect the grassroots club's.

They still get to have other players in development squads plus they monitor in other ways

Hutchie is right that having more scholarship players does increase the risk of affecting community clubs (missing training, matches postponed, injuries etc).

There is probably an argument for a readjustment to what we do with 14/15 and 16 year olds but that's for another time.

Under the current system it is ridiculous that Hull and Rovers are put at a disadvantage. To compete with Wigan, Saints etc we need to start producing more players than them but they are expecting us to do that with less kids in our system. It isn't going to happen.

It will also result in some lopsided scorelines potentially. Scholarship match day squads are usually 20 players. Hull or Rovers could have 3/4 injuries at under 16s level and therefore have to field 9 under 15s players at places like Wigan who could potentially field 20 under 16 lads. Massacre.
If we had 20 players at each age then we would only need to put 3/4 young lads on the bench in that scenario.

Needs looking at.

I don't think people realise how big Wigan Borough is - a population of 324,650 in 2018.

Please forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand the point you are making.

They should be allowed more scholarship players than Hull and Rovers?
They should produce more players than Hull and Rovers?

i think he's just pointing out that sometimes people percieve wigan as a small town and wonder how they knock out all the young players, and he's saying wigan has more population to draw on than some people think. nothing more than that

Correct.

Hull and East Riding have a combined population in excess of 800,000...

… nearer 600k, over an area of 930 square miles, wigan borough is 77 square miles.

add another 50 sq miles on. Hull is half the size of Wigan.

As many of us say, stats count for little.