What does buying proven quality have to do with it? Those players were not developed by Leeds.

Don't dissagree with that at all. The issue though is had others been given an opportunity who knows what they might have brought to the table.

And on that basis, the new structure of the academy, for me will push clubs to give players a shot (not necessarily a continuous run) earlier than they are currently. Which was a formula Leeds did so successfully previously.

For me personally, I would have added an extra stipulation to the new academy structure and included rules for the first team squads, where by you had to inlcude at least 2 of your under 19's squad in your 20 man squad each week, and one of those two should be in the final 17.

Maybe we'll never know how many might have gone on to greater success with the club if they had been given the opportunity to play alongside this once great team that is in steady decline.

As many others have stated the rotation in the forwards should have been done so much better this season at least, instead of flogging the generally crumbling old guard to excess. The likes of Roche, Stewart, Hood, Smith and Singleton (and Chisholm plus Olds outside of the forwards) might now be already proving their worth at first team SL level........Instead we continue to see the same old faces, that are sometimes not interested enough to raise their game in the season's 'lesser' fixtures (all apart from the play offs ??) commensurate with an alternative acadamey youth that would have been out to make their mark.

Competition is good for all.

Even forgetting the prefix 'acadamey', youth - in the shape of Ambler and Amor - I would suggest alone would have been better investing in rather than the older, but no better, Moore and Griffin respectively.

Buying proven quality has everything to do with maintaining a successful team. There's this convenient myth that Leeds's success has all been down to this core of Leeds juniors when that's only part of the story, and maybe our decline is more to do with us not recruiting players developed elsewhere than with our own development structure, which has still spun out potentially international standard players in Ward, Hall, Watkins and (partial responsibility) Hardaker in the last few years.

Weller's officially gone. Good news overall I think, the role he has played this season could easily have been filled by a junior needing a break like Gotcha says.

Yep can agree with that....either way (lack of promoting youth or signing quality additions from outside the Leeds set up) there can be little doubt that there will some barren years ahead. IF the SL continues in its present structure of course.
Maybe GH knows or least suspects there will be an implosion of quite a few more clubs yet, whereby talent will become more readily available at discounted rates in the much slimmer near future competition.

Hopefully.....but on present form Leeds will probably offer Kylie another year or sign up another ageing Moore, Griffin or Kirke

Kirkes off to wakey by all accounts

So we won't be signing a FB, which I think is good news. Hopefully a top centre is on the shopping list although there's not many of those available off contract.

When GH mentioned about signings having to be good enough for the 17 I think he was referring to overseas players and not recruitment overall.

If we lose Hauraki (gone already) and Kirke, then we will need to add some depth in the second row. Haven't we just lost a number of kids who are forwards (Roch, Smith, any others?) that would have padded out the squad a bit? I'm also a bit concerned that in Delaney, JJB and Clarkson we actually have 3 identical players who are overall pretty easy to defend against...

There must be some more coming in...

I think Stevie Ward should be moulded into a backrower, he seems more of a back rower than a HB IMO and Achurch maybe Kirke's replacement.

I also think Aaron Brown looks a better prospect than Clarkson at this point.

I know the discussion has moved on but I'd still like to answer this as I (like others) also think it's relevant to the current situation and the worrying slippage in recruitment quality.

SL:
Senior - 23 (1999)
Ellis - 23 (2005)
Peacock - 28 (2006)

I can't think of another quality addition to the Leeds squad from within SL since Peacock's capture seven years ago. He's played a huge role over that time and I would question how many of the recent titles would have been won without him?

we both know the answer to your last point...

Is it unrealistic in the current economic climate to expect signings that involve significant transfer fees, or should we be looking to make signings at this point exactly because of the economic climate and other clubs need for financial security. The best time to buy, in terms of value for money, is usually when others don't have much cash...

In the current economic climate I'd have thought it may be essential to invest in some quality to give the Leeds season ticket holders renewed hope for next season.

This promise of 'jam tomorrow' is going to be looking pretty sick if Leeds start 2013 with the same battered bodies as they ended 2012.

Valid points. But the NRL is awash with money, the top SL clubs are probably on a par with ourselves and the clubs in direst need of cash have little in the way of quality players. And even if the esteemed Mr Hetherington is motivated to do so, the chances of signing an equivalent of a Senior, an Ali, a JP are very, very slim at present.

I don't like the direction superleague is going and contracts in general. Salary cap restricts the sucessful clubs with regards to salarys to give lower clubs a better chance. Clubs with rich benifators such as Wire can splash the cash on transfer fees to get hold of the better players from other clubs, Hull are now falling into this area. An example of this is Rangi Chase, he would be at Hull now if not for VISA problems and still has 3 years left on his Cas contract. Clarke at Cas also asked away while under contract, I would no be suprised to see him at Warrington in the near future. Heard yesterday that Scott Taylor is on the verge of a transfer to Wigan and they will pay a fee of £200k. Cant believe Wigan would be that silly so I doubt its true but he is still under contact at HullKR for another year and they are in the mire finacially as we all know. Clubs like Cas and Wakey will continue to live of the scraps of the top teams with the top teams unloading squad players. I dont know whats going on at Leeds but we have some great kids and our backline looking good. What we need is some quality in the pack and players like Scott Taylor should be a priority signing and used in deal that we can move squad player across in part exchange, eg Hurakhi. Unless we have paid massive contracts to our Kids which I doubt we have we must be a country mile under the salary cap.

An overseas centre or a Ryan Atkins should be a priority signing along with Scott Taylor. I would also move Danny Mags to stand off and bring in a quality Scrum half who can dictate play along the lines of Dureau and move Sinfield to hooker and use Burrow as an interchange sub. Get rid of Lunt who is average and send out Hood and McShane for another loan spell to include a call back when required clause.

Our coaching staff are blinkered in team selection and its a joke that we are flogging players like peacock every week. Griffin needs to start and get more gametime and if they feel moore is good enough then lets see more rotation. Stevie Ward straight to loose and keep him there to develope in his natural position. Future captain nailed on and Sinfields sucessor for the next 15 years !! Simples

Most of your suggestions make sense. I agree aboout a quaity centre which according to Peter Smith is a priority and loads of names have beeen sugggested but we still probably wont know untill end of season. Atkins is staying at Warrington. As well as NRL centres Moon at Salford and Lulia from the Bulls have been mentioned.

I don't think there has been anything mentioned regarding lula and moon other than just plucking the names out of the air TBH.

Excellent post; great ideas.......the 'call back when required' clause should actually be used too.



It really does baffle me that we can [uall[/u see the pack needs refreshing, in particular, but yet we learn this season that a good number of young promising forwards are still being allowed to leave (Ambler, Roche, Stewart, Amor - biggest puzzle - and now D.Smith). Let's hope we can hang onto Singleton.

Be interesting to see what happens with this- another statement to appease fans possibly? Obviously this "big name" rumour started with Andy Wilson a few weeks back but we are in a position to do that right now salary cap wise I would have thought. (Although I accept I don't know what wages are being paid etc).

Ins and outs looks something like this for the last 12-18 months:

OUT: Senior, Ali, Buderus, Webb, Hauraki, Cross and Burgess.
IN: Achurch, Griffin, Moore.
Improved (I would guess) contracts: Clarkson, Hardaker, Hall, Ward and Keinhorst.
Reduced contracts for JP and Kylie to guarantee their futures.

So, unlike other years, I would imagine we're a fair way under the cap. Like I say, be interesting to see if GH decides to try and go up against the current trend and bring a big name over with the money left over but I can't see that as his way of doing things TBH.

One thing is for certain, there are some big decisions to be made this winter with regards to the current squad and how it will look going forward. GH seems to have realised there's suddenly a need to replace the real quality we've let go in the last year or so.

If only Leeds were still a big club like Wigan.

They lose Leuluai and Finch so go out and pay money to bring in Smith (Salford) and Green (Hull KR). Whether you rate them as quality replacements or not they are genuine 1st grade SL experienced players at a good age - not projects.

They're significant downgrades.

The equivalent of Leeds replacing Watkins and Hall with Gibson and Broughton

Wlst i'm in no doubts about our need for fresh faces with quality there's no way either of the aforementioned are worth transfer fees whether genuine SL players or not btw hows the "Gelling" project going over at the pie-dome?

And Lee Smith and Jay Pitts.

Wigan have spent fees on Smith, Green and now allegedly Scott Taylor. Whilst I would like to see Leeds spend a bit of money I would want us to still be sensible and have just the 1 player of real top quality bought in (hopefully a forward). Not 2-3 good but not great players. Not asking for a quarter of a new team to be bought, just the 1 would do me atm.

As far as Kirke rumoured to be leaving, that doesn't make sense to me. Moore should be let go before him as Kirke is still regularly making the 17 and Moore can't even force his way in the 19 right now. Whilst Kirke will earn more than Moore, it won't be so much more and with us clearly being well under the cap it will hardly need to be for freeing up extra cap space. Those not deemed good enough to make the usual 17 should be the ones leaving first, so that should mean the likes of Moore, Clarkson and even McShane, if McDermott continues not to be a fan of his, should be be top of the list following in the likes of Pitts, Smith and Ambler. Rather than players still in his plans most weeks.