why does it matter if he is away or not in order that the club can announce whether he will still be at the club?
or are you being mischievous here mr frosties?

ps has he gone anywhere nice?

Except his squad number obviously



RE - JAL - I am not being mischievous, personally, I havent heard anything regarding Smiths future since said that he is out of favor. I am just going by the rumours going round. I have a feeling that he will be still at Leeds next season.

Now that SBW is not coming are there any rumours of other players who may be on Gary H's radar screen?

Academy news, Loose Forward Jack Carvill has left Leeds Rhinos and joined Huddersfield Giants on a one year deal

Any more news about when the 25 man squad will be announced?

What a waste. Could have been a huge star for us.

I alluded to this throughout the season, as I exxpected he might not stay unless he got a sniff.

One year deal doesnt really point to superstar.

I think we have two or three players coming through in the next one or two years who have the potential to be truly, top class in Hood, Singleton and Ward.

I think we have four or five players coming through in the next one or two years who have the potential to be Leeds Rhinos first team players.

that doesnt even address the 2nd tier players looking to make the step up like Watkins, Hardaker and Pitts

thats a pretty good return imo.

I don't see why you'd want to get out of the deals with Webb and Leuluai if you wanted to go with youth. They are here for one year, and its up to the coach to work out how to rotate/best use younger players. I don't have a problem with that.

He's got a one year full time contract, despite not hvaing a sniff of first team yet. This oppossed to a part time academy contract.

It points very much to a club making a gamble they think is worth doing.

It's quite easy to talk about players you know of, and you are not wrong on that. But Carvill was younger than Singleton and Hood, he was more to the Ward young superstar bracket.

Which ever way you look at it, and it may not work out for the lad himself now, this lad could easily have been a future superstar for this club.

I know nothing of this player or any of the others below regular 1st grade but I do know Leeds (and all other clubs) have a pretty good idea where the players will end up.

They'll make the odd mistake along the way (Leeds passing on Jason Robinson, Wigan trying to pass on Sam Tomkins) and it's always tempting to see the even younger kid as 'superstar' material by virtue of the fact he's outstanding in his peer group as the previous wonder kid no longer appears quite so hot at open age.

Leeds have a decent enough record getting more right than they get wrong in this regard.

Can't be bothered arguing the toss but I will just say one name - Greg McNally. he did well at the Giants!

Agreed. There aren't too many who ahve been let go that we regret recently (including Broughton

)

I don't get the relevance of this tvoc in this case. Leeds haven't released the player, far from it. He has =#FF4000chosen to take up a full time contract elsewhere and take his chance.




Again, don't under the relevance to this case. I already said he may not make it now going to the Giants. I was purely referring to how good he was, and what he =#FF0000could have achieved at Leeds.

It's the same story for me that is happening too often over last couple of years. =#FF4000Potential future stars are leaving this club because of the part time contracts and system for first team introduction.

Was he not free to do so?

As long as Leeds, Huddersfield and the player have been respectful and open regarding the offers being fielded I don't see the issue.

If Huddersfield made a more attractive offer and Leeds have not sought to match or better it then it appears (as often happens) the player has opted to move on - I trust it was amicable unless someone wants to suggest otherwise.

I think what people are saying is that teh Leeds club has done very well in regard of producing good players from the juniors, and getting them to international standard. there is a pretty recognised path there. Academy -> Loan -> First Team Fringe -> First Team regular.

You can say a player has potential, but the likelyhood is that if he had enough ability, then either Leeds would have retained him / given him a contract & tied him down, or that he would move onto another club and achieve his potential there. Sucessful as we have been in the past, I don't think we are the only club who can develop a young player. If it is true potential, then it should shine whereever he goes.

As there have been very few in recent years who have been on our books, but had top level success elsewhere, then I think we can accept the risk of losing out in this case

That's a complete myth though isn't it? When did that path happen?

How many of the regular players who came through the academy in the last 10 years have been out on loan?

Mathers, Ablett.......??? Now we have BJB to add to the list as he is now a regular, a guy who went on loan because the salary cap dictated this because of his age and the restricitons to the academy.

But, irrelevant anyway. There is no getting away from the actual, that Leeds have done more than very well with regards Juniors.

There is also no getting away from the actual, that had Leeds follwed the same path over the last couple of years with regards Juniors to the one for which they now have such a good reputation, then there would be plenty more massive potential stars banging on the door.


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But he could just as easily not. One year smacks of ‘having a look’ more than a scramble for a player with the obvious talent needed to make it. Carvill may make it, he may not. But a year’s contract wouldn’t fill me with confidence that the Giants were expecting their gamble to pay off.

Maybe leeds have chosen other players to take their gamble with?

From Leeds own Academy ranks (from memory) there has been Bailey, McShane, Scruton and Burgess and then there was the likes of Feather (not sure if he was in our Academy before joining Wakefield and then loaned back to them) and Hardaker (Academy age) loaned back to Featherstone, Ambler (Academy age) loaned out for SL experience.

Of course there are also those who quite rightly make the transition direct to Leeds' 1st grade but the general progression path outlined is there and fairly well trodden.

Id also add McShane to the list as he is going to be a regular next season.

Next though. I was talking about the system we have previously employed.

This going out on loan thing is just a myth. The ones that have truely made it didn't go out on loan. Not that there is a problem in a system that sends them on loan, especially if going to a super league side.

Hardaker can hardly be classed as someone through the system and going out on loan. We signed him as big money signing, with the agreement of dual reg already in place.

Thanks tvoc for the Bailey and Scruton info. Didn't remember that. But ther is still a list of very few names.

I wasn't saying it was a hard and fast rule, which all players had to go down, just that there is a pattern of a path to the first team.

my main point is that if the player is good enough he will succeed, regardless of whether its at leeds or not

I can see where Gotcha feels Leeds are risking losing some up and coming talent by not offering full-time contracts but unless or until it comes back to bite them on the rear I'm not sure it's a view that is going to gain much traction around here. Obviously I speak from a little experience in this regard.

The primary job of the Academy is to prepare SL capable players to top up the 1st grade squad between numbers 23 and 28 - then it's up to themselves and their coaches to see them fulfil their potential and wherever that takes them. In some cases they'll do that direct, in others they'll carry on gaining open age experience out on loan or through these new fangled dual deals at the Championship level.

Many will neccessarily fall by the wayside and occassionally one may even come back and embarrass the club a little. Such is sport and life.

It's not like Leeds have been shy about giving full time deals to Academy prospects when they think they are merited - clearly in this case for whatever reason they didn't think Carvill was at that standard.

Isn't this similar to what happened with Keal Carlisle when the Giants signed him?

That doesn't make it a myth. We have a few players who have gone from the loan system to the first team, but you should also consider that part of the point of it is to send them out to the grown up league and see how they fare. I would imagine they are watched quite closely while they're there. If some of them are subsequently deemed not good enough and cut loose, then surely finding that out in another environment is better than doing it in our own first team, so you could account that a success of the system. Generally if our loaned out players do very well then they end up back in the first team squad.

McShane did play a decent number of league games (over half) this year, which makes him a first team player in my book.

We had a lot of pplayers introduced straight to the first team around 2000 and 2001, but that wasn't really choice, we just had a very thin squad. It paid dividends in the end, but the powers that be might have preferred to loan out McGuire, Mathers, Burrow, Diskin etc had they had the opportunity.

With the salary cap being what it is, it's handy to be able to delay decisions on promoting these lads by a year to see how they develop shortly. The path is clearly there, so not a myth. WOuld you say unicorns were a myth because you'd only seen 5 of them?

And lets face it - most of those released or loaned haven't been snapped up by clubs at the top of the food chain. Presumably their views have reflected our own.