probably because thats all you want to see, lest you need to accept the criticism as valid.

Of course you don't. Thats what all one-eyed club-before-game parochialists think.

Why would it bother me if having overseas players makes us better than Castleford?

It probably wouldnt because as you admit you are a one-eyed club-before-game parochialist. Though even knowing that, it may bother you that the reliance on overseas players means that our players, here, arent fulfilling their potential, that the national side is harmed by it, and that the relative quality of the league here is damaged by it with the net result that the game in this country is stagnant and left behind, though probably not. After all if HKR can buy better overseas players than Castleford can bring through who cares?

Hi Smokey.



Did you enjoy my amateur mathematical modelling on the previous page? I believe this argument is flawed. Also SL is a competition, not a feeder system for the national team. IMO.
But nonetheless, we have a club-trained rule that incentivises development of players. Economic imperitives are mounting too. We're now producing players. What I admit we continue to do is make up numbers with NRL 'cast-offs', rather than SL 'cast-offs'. Look at who is left ooc on Frosties ins/outs page on the VT and this ceases to be amazing. To save you 10 seconds, it's Jordan Tansey and Karl Pryce.




S'up to Richard Wright innit? Competing organisations respond to incentives, not appeals to their better nature. Cas get the requisite admiration and pity.
The incentives for Hull KR are changing. Slowly, but we didn't create the system, we just play it.

Hello.

The two go hand in hand. Being a quality feeder system for the national side is a positive but unavoidable by-product of a league which is functioning properly.
But that argument is simply circular and self-fulfilling. Whilst it may be 'obvious' that HKR choose NRL cast-offs rather than Karl Pryce and Jordan Tansey it is a failling of HKR that you need to be looking at either already proven SL players or NRL reserve graders. Where are the players HKR have found and contributed to the league? You need these players and they arent available because you havent created them as long as you dont create them they wont be there and you will continue to need ready-made overseas players.


HKR have a responsibilty to the wider game and longer term to be contributing more players to the player pool.

firstly why is it our responsibility to sign players like pryce whos failed at every club or tansey who has caused trouble at every club just because there english we had 9 english players against cas

It isnt, you dont have to sign Pryce or Tansey. I havent said you did.

Having 9 English players in a match day squad isnt an achievement to be proud of. It highlights a negative.

yes because were the only club to have overseas players arent we what about hull the only club not to give a debut to a player last season surely thats worse at least we brought a few through last year and if you think having teams full of english players will improve our game you are deluded

no, you arent the only club to have overseas players. I havent said you are.

And what about Hull? Do they have 11 next year aswell?

And if you cant see that relying on English players is the only way the game in this country will improve and relying on 2nd rate imports simply makes our game 2nd rate you're an fool. We are in danger of losing touch because of that kind of thinking.

like i said surely its better bringing players through like we did last season rather than hull who brought nobody through

Hull didnt need to bring as many players through last year because they had already brought them through. They already had fewer overseas players than you, and they will continue to do so next year. The fact HKR need 11 overseas players is a failure of HKR regardless of whatever anybody else is doing.

That is true. But there are mitigating circumstances - our first generation of players [iare[/i now coming through. A mature SL club should have ~20 club-trained players playing first grade to be pulling their wait. Since returning to SL we can legitimately claim Welham, Watts, Taylor, Cox, Latus, Mariano. Sheriff and Beaumont too, at a push. It's a start, and considering our standing start in 2007, not too bad a one. It needs to get better for our own sakes and the appointment of a coach with a reputation for developing players is recognition of that.




Yep - but it's a secondary responsibilty. First we have to take care of ourselves. Without any suggestion of bitterness, it has to be recognised that the game fulfill's it's responsibitilies to clubs that fall behind in a manner that varies between perfunctory and ruthless dismissal.
We've gone through a rapid top-down development to get established in SL and it has relied heavily on buying in talent, much of it from Australia. That well is running dry though and I had thought we'd see that this season. But then there were yet more dispensations and the domestic market can't compensate.
Taylor and Watts are good enough that we could have got by without O'Hara or Paea. We'll be better with them though, and that's a big thing to ignore. Lee Smith as fullback/utility threequarter, would have been worth a punt too, though I don't know how realistic that rumour was. 11 is a lot.

We really need to rewind to June 2007 and the summit held in Perpignan where all SL CEOs (yes, including Neil Hudgell) signed up to an agreement to adopt the spirit of reducing quotas and to stop looking for loopholes. This was where the reduction in numbers of overseas players from 10 as I think it was then to 5 was enacted. The key reason for this, as reported here, was to give more opportunities to British players and therefore increase the number and quality of British players in SL. The principle was signed up to by all clubs as reported in The Independent:
"Super League clubs have agreed to wean themselves off their dependence on overseas signings. Several sides regularly field up to 12 overseas players, taking advantage of the Kolpak ruling, grandparentage and European passports but now the Rugby Football League are to act to close the loopholes.

From next year, at least five members of a first-team squad of 25 must contain players who have either graduated from a club's academy system or are aged under 21. This will increase by one player each year until 2011, when a squad must have at least eight homegrown players. During the same period, the number of overseas players must be reduced from 10 to five.

Nigel Wood, the RFL's chief operating officer, said: "This new rule fulfils a long-standing objective to encourage clubs to develop young talented players. By giving them greater opportunity at the top level, it is likely to improve standards not only on a national level but also internationally. Over time, the number of home-born players in a squad will increase whilst the number of players who are not academy, Super League or National League club-trained will be reduced."

The 12 club chief executives passed the proposal at their two-day summit in Perpignan."

Of course, what has actually happened is that some clubs have sought to go in the opposite direction and to seek further dispensations over and above those already in place in 2007. There have been no consequences for seeking to avoid the Perpignan agreement. Other clubs, seeing this seeking of advantage, have therefore also, at least in part, similarly abandoned the agreement, hence Hull FC having 7 or maybe 8 overseas players next year. This means that short term survivalist coaches like Agar will select players like Phelps rather than give Jack Briscoe an opportunity, which is exactly the opposite effect that the removal of P&R was set out to have. Rovers with 11 overseas players is just silly when the agreement 4 years ago was to go from 10 to 5.

Whilst club CEOs actively seek in action to do the exact opposite to what they signed up for in 2007, quotas are in fact pointless, and the RFL seem unwilling and unable to do anything about it. In reality the teams most disadvantaged are those investing heavily in their own academies only for other teams to steam in and pick up more Aussie journeymen through passports/2008 amended rules etc. As an FC fan I'm happy to say that I think Moa, O'Meley, Seymour, Heremaia and Manu should be our 5 overseas players and that McKinnon and Martin are probably blocking the emergence, or at least the test of capability, of academy players. If all clubs just had to pick their 5 best overseas players and get rid of the rest (impractical, I know) I think there would be a greater number of British players getting opportunities to step up and prove their worth at SL level. This would be a good thing.

There arent mitigating circumstances. There are reasons, such as HKR focussing on the first team at the expense of youth development whilst in the lower leagues and at the very least their early years of SL. This is doesnt mitigate it. The standing start you talk of was a standing start created by HKR. And you cant legitimately claim to have brought through players who barely made an impact on first team. Mariano played about 4 games for HKR, maybe if he had got more game time you wouldnt need the likes of O'hara and Paea. Cox, Sheriff and Beaumont havent yet made 10 appearances between them, You can't legitimately claim to have brought them through because they havent come through yet. Beaumont is a 23 year old with only 2 first grade appearances, had he been given more of an opportunity then maybe you wouldnt need to be playing the likes of Clinton, O'hara, Lovegrove etc.


The domestic market cant compensate because the people responsible for refreshing the domestic market (the clubs) arent doing so. You will always be better in the short term relying on ready made players, but its only in the short-term and it is counter-productive in the long term.

The overseas well will never run dry, because there wont ever be a situation where 23/24 year old NRL players are worse than 18/19 year old british academy players. The SC and foreign exchange changes will only mean that the quality of player HKR bring in next year to replace the older overseas players they have this year will be of a poorer quality.

Clubs have to deal with the realities that face them in 2011 rather than the aspirations of 2007.



Investing heavily in youth in what were the National Leagues would have been of no benefit to Hull KR. In 2007 I don't expect it will have been a priority. From then on it was, but it took time for the investment to start paying dividends - which it now is despite your attempts to diminish Mariano et al. If Wakefield get the credit for him btw, we, by the same logic, must get Josh Hodgson, so swings and roundabouts.
FWIW, if this really were the reason for England struggling against Australia, at least we've got a sicknote - its not like SL was churning out worldbeaters in our absence. But its not the reason is it? Not really.




So there's a disjunction between producing more/better players and the incentives that face clubs. It isn't just short-term, either. Cas can produce promising players, but without a competitive team they'll always move on. Rovers are berated for behaving... logically.
The well will run dry (or drier) in the sense that 2 more NRL teams will soak up 50 more players and contracts there will be better, even for fringe players.
Here, a few more kids will get a shot. Older players will get an extra year. The quality of the comp will drop slightly. The consequences of the quota (intended and otherwise) will come to pass by other means. I very much hope that Rovers go on behaving logically, accounting for prevailing circumstance.