I agree, I'd love to be pumping out young players on a conveyor belt like Wigan, Leeds and Saints, but we'd have to have had this improved academy in place for about 6 years already if we wanted to be seeing results now, which since that was about our 3rd season in Super League after a long absence from the top flight, would be an unrealistic expectation, I think.

So, in a nutshell, Rovers fans are happy with this signing. Hull fans aren't. Does anyone even care?

Hull fans like me come on here to discuss rugby and so far it's a good debate, isn't that what this forum is about, I'm sure there is a private Rovers forum if you don't want fans of other teams to put their opinions on here.

Makes you wonder why FC went and signed Liam Colburn when you had a queue of young talent just itching to get on the pitch.

Spot on,says it all.

I was really disappointed with that signing, but maybe I have have higher standards than Rovers fans who seem happy to have signed a 35 year old who hasn't played for 8 months.

Again why are you using Hull as a bench mark and even bringing Hull into the discussion?

Dave K you are usually a fair poster but you do seem to be preaching a bit tonight every team has injuries ours seem to have all happened to our props so this loan signing was needed as a short term fix but you saying we should have players ready to step up is like me saying why haven't you produced a set of home grown backs like leeds I also think we need to revert to at least an under 21 set up to replace the 19s

I can't imagine anyone wanting to use Hull FC as a benchmark.
How is the young must be from Hull local lad half back school coming along?

The way the prop situation is Dave anybody is better than nobody

Yet, in either post you seem to mention hull or compare yourself to us.

Again you mention Hull in a totally irrelevant way, and to answer your question it seems to be going OK, we have 3 very good young halfbacks coming through.

We had no academy props who were promoted to our first team squad this year.

Esslemont is a second rower and IMO is not yet good enough for regular first team action. I saw Steven Holker make his debut at Leeds and he made more of an impression on me in 21 minutes with his energy and running than Sonny Esslemont has in 6 times as much first team action.

Personally I am happy with the signing of Tony Puletua, although a bit miffed that he can't turn out for us against Salford in future. He will add weight and bulk in the middle as well as a bit of aggression. In a perfect world, we would have Allgood, Tilse and Walker fit to play against Hull this weekend. Sadly, not to be, but we won't be overrun with Puletua there.

When you are out of options, you take the best alternative and TP is it.