You only have to look at our own youth leagues to see that the team's with the most players involved with pro clubs are the one's who regularly top the league so why not let the pro clubs get involved earlier. There are kids playing now and in the past that have chosen other sports over ours that could of gone on to play our game at a very high standard, if it means pro clubs get involved earlier so be it if it means the kids stay involved with rugby league. The bottom line is we need help encouraging players to choose our sport, after all look at how young the Australian pro clubs get involved with youth development and its working over there so why not here?

There wasn't even a service area this year so how are the kids who turn out week in week out getting encouraged? Less scolarships available means unless they are committed players there's a chance many will walk away. It's not the likes of skirlaugh that have to worry, they can attract kids with their success, it's the less high profile junior teams that will struggle. No players, no teams at certain age groups, sad in a city which claims to be a hot bed of rugby. I'd like to see more scouts from both teams watching all clubs on a regular basis, players can be very talented and not get picked up because they don't play for one of the higher profile amateur clubs.

I know it's a forbidden link but a reflection of what Pearson is driving for....rlSynergyrl, but as rover49 said, we know how it will end.

If link removed go to the unmentionable site and search "Hull 2013: Anything is Possible with Twice the Passion"

The problem i see at the minute is a lot of talented players who play for so called smaller teams in our youth leagues are being poached by club coaches from so called bigger clubs attending school matches and there isn't much the league authorities are doing about it. I know that these smaller teams don't have the turnover of players that the top clubs have, how many kids these days play for the same team they started with at under 8's again i think the local youth league has a lot to answer too they allow certain clubs to break rules and these have implications on the number of kids playing our sport.
I believe the kids who play rugby now are pamperd, when i played youth rugby i would be training twice a week for my club ( the "Hull Boys Club ) then train for my representative team (Hull Schools,Humberside,Yorkshire) then train with my school team on a dinner time, at weekend we would play on a saturday and a sunday, i played against some players who are legends of our game now so maybe we need change around with the way we are developing the kids.

Thats spot on. Poaching players goes on as young as under 8's. The two pro clubs exaserbate this by picking the majority of their scholarship squads from the so called bigger sides which encourages players and parents to move clubs.

I htink a few people have missed RBA's original point. Nobody is talking about having joint scholarships or anything like that. What is being suggested are joint initiatives whereby Hull/Rovers get together and put together a joint strategy to get into local primary schools to encourage participation in general. Also a joint community team could could go into local club sides and offer a training session from a Rovers/Hull community coach and make sure that ALL clubs benefit from it.

The only way to increase success is to get more kids playing the game at a young age and to keep them playing. Sport England believe to become an elite athlete in any sport you need 10,000 hours of particpation. In most cases lads picking up the game at 14/15 years old is too late.

This is the area the clubs need to be investing momey into the 6-10 age bracket and a joined up proper targetted approach is the best way to achieve that. The pro clubs need to educate junior coaches and geuninely engage with the community game instead of just viewing it as a franchise "Tick Box" excercise.

100% correct.