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.

except had you done so you would be further along now. You chose not to, you chose other priorities, you can't expect to avoid criticism for not doing something on the basis you simply chose not to do it. It hasnt yet, if it had done so you wouldnt need 11 overseas players. You cant expect credit for something that hasnt happened. Its like you expect credit now because at sometime in the future some players may come through HKR's youth system into the first team. You want credit for giving a shot to Mariano despite not giving him a shot, you want credit for bringing through a 23 year old forward with only 2 appearances, you want credit for having brought through 2 players who have less than 10 appearances between them. Kallum Watkins has 36 appearances at Leeds at the age of 19, Beaumont(23), Taylor(20), Cox(19) and Sherriff(19) dont have that between them. These players havent been brought through, if they had they would have more appearances and you wouldnt need so many overseas players.
Its a part of the short-term thinking that has left us so far behind. A big part of it.

No they are being berated for creating a self-fulfilling logic to try and justify their failure at youth level. The incentives are there and they are obvious, they are simply longer term.
But these fringe players will still be a higher quality than 23 year old props with 2 games of first grade experience. And we will still be able to pay them more as an average SL player than they will get as a reserve grade NRL player. Im sure if you look back to the beginning of this season, and the season before that, and the season before that then when these criticisms were made of HKR, the same arguments in their defence were made just using different players who were 'being brought through' and were going 'to be given a shot this year' and how when the likes of Vella and Newton left they would be replaced by young british players, and we were going to see Spaven, I'anson, Mariano, and Esders come through and it just didnt happen.

Convenient when Rovers have been beneficiaries of the dispensation culture that has ridden roughshod over the stated and agreed intentions of all SL clubs to close loopholes. If we learn nothing from the successful actions to avoid compliance with the agreement, it makes the chances of ever achieving those stated common goals a reality nil. You've been adopting this laissez faire attitude for years, telling us "this too will pass" and it will all come right in the end if we just wait. The reality is that we'll still be having this conversation in another 5 years time as you well know, as long as clubs are actively pursuing 11 overseas players in their squad. As said, I'd be happy for our overseas contingent to be Manu, O'Meley, Moa, Seymour and Heremaia.
I do find your passive acceptance of Rovers dispensation seeking at every turn a bit odd. Like the statement that Rovers only have Jordan Tansey and Karl Pryce available to them so McDonnell is the sensible option. Your CEO stated a year ago that recruitment for 2012 was underway, so you've had a year to do what you've been talking about, ie seeking British replacements for the likes of Fisher and Vella. It's a bit silly to be saying now, at the point when 95% of recruitment is done, that Rovers have no alternative but to go overseas. Unfortunately I can't see any end to having overseas player numbers in double digit quantities unless there is a gentleman's agreement observed by all. This just won't happen.

How many youngsters have Hull FC given debuts to this year. You can stand here and talk about Rovers and loopholes till your blue in the face but lets not forget which professional club in this city is currently making bigger strides with youth development.

With the exception of Mariano (whom I would have preferred to keep) I don't think any of those are regular SL players anywhere. So why should Rovers retain players that no other SL club deem good enough to play? If they were good enough they would have been snapped up elsewhere. Even regular cannon fodder like Leeds haven't signed them.

Maybe they would have been had they been given a shot at SL. It seems odd for you to think the responsibility for giving a shot to Rovers youth players lies with other clubs.

Who is to say Beaumont, Cox, Taylor or Sheriff will become SL regulars? Nobody knows until they are given the chance.

Smokey, as usual, your arguments have no element of quality control in them. A year ago you were telling us that replacing I'Anson with Blake Green was a "like for like swap". Green was POTY, whilst I'anson is looking forward to a career with Swinton. ATEOTD, Rovers have to give their customers what they want as a priority. That means putting a competitive team out on the park. Player development will be done for Rovers benefit, the national team is not our responsibility. If it were we wouldn't have that clown as coach.

What a poor effort. I've said many times, and started critical threads on this very fact. FC's youth development and failure to give a player a debut in 2011 is a disgrace, pure and simple, and mainly due to Agar's short term preservationist strategy. Unacceptable. Despite this, we've 7 or 8 overseas players on our books, not 11, and I think we should really limit this to 5. Martin is a poor signing (again which I've commented on critically) and I'd very much hope he doesn't keep a player like Turner or Whiting out of the team. Rovers are improving their academy, for sure, but will still probably have a starting 17 with a majority of non-British players in 2012, that's going into your 6th season. The difference between us, as ever, is that I feel comfortable criticising FC in areas of weakness and what are, IMO, policies and practices that are not to be glossed over. Rovers fans by and large feel unable to critique the fact that 6 years on 11 overseas players is probably a few too many, given that Hudgell signed up for 5 in 2007.

I never said they will. But your logic is sound, players will not become regular SL players without playing SL regularly although I would imagine that that's patently obvious to most people. Thanks for that anyway