If the Club had been run with anywhere near the efficiency of the Academy, this situation would never have gone down. John Bastian, Robin Sharpe, Matt Diskin, Chev Walker, Lee Beatie all did a remarkable job, I know first hand having two of my sons in the team last season and one this. John had a superb way about him and the squad responded, and on their day last season were a match for anyone, and had a few disgraceful refereeing performances not gone on against so called top clubs they would have finished second.
These lads will now go onto other clubs, but they will at least go with a level of professionalism, fitness, skill, and charachter they all learned at the Bulls. I know my oldest son was at Castleford and Featherstone, and last season at the Bulls, and he loved every single second of it, from the banter, the coaching the leadership, the facilities, and from John Bastian himself. A huge massive thankyou to all the above named blokes, fantastic to a man.
The people who have contributed to this decline hang your heads in shame.

This is what hurts the most out of all of this. All of that hard work and effort, and now its other clubs who will see all of the benefit.

Ten years from now we'll see the England squad and count the ex-Bulls in it. Just like we do now, ten years on from doing anything.

Too right, some fantastic young talent

Agreed this is absolutely shocking. We have a fantastic Academy system, let's hope this can be salvaged in this horrible mess. These young men don't deserve to have their dreams taken away, us old gits get used to disappointment but kids don't deserve this

I think the majority of the Bulls lads will get signed at other clubs, still a bitter pill to swallow

Trouble is it costs about a quarter of a million quid a year to run a decent academy set up, thats why many clubs have ditched theres. I can't see how it can be maintained in its current guise given the financial restraints you'll have.

Quite a few of them already have from what I'm told. Even if the academy was salavaged, a lot of the better talent has already moved on (and you can't blame them for doing so).

Been here before in 2014/15 when we lost the previous raft of promising youngsters.

I'd hope that any new club would set up a new academy. Other clubs in the Championship and even League 1 have done it - London and Newcastle for instance.

Agreed. It's gut wrenching with all that hard work. Sad thing is, i think a lot of these would have made a successful RL career with us as we're one of the best clubs at developing young talent. Very few other clubs are as good.

Wigan & Saints although both tend to focus in their area. Leeds but in fairness they've struggled to bring anyone of note in the least few years. Castleford are quite decent but that's about it. Maybe Warrington.

We had some of the best juniors i think we've ever had and to see that taken away again, it will take a lot of effort to get ourselves up off the floor and start again.

But hey, according to some individuals, we've got away scott free.

The RFL, which really should be the body making moves to see the academy stays in place, is the body which is going to kill it.

With an unsustainable place in the championship, just so it doesn't mess their fixture list, we'll start on -12, be hammered most weeks and lose fans rapidly and there will simply be no money for the academy. For god's sake, the rent on Odsal costs half of what we'll get in competition money.

The academy, which by RFL rating was one of the top 8 in the country, and arguably top4, is evaporating. And as it's the tip of the pyramid, the scouting structure underneath for the Bradford service area (10 junior clubs?) will also unravel.
The performance data that Bastian, Dunning & Beattie have on rugby kids aged 13-16 will have value. Who controls that?

ATM the Bulls academy is worthless , if it as good as has been suggested most if not all players and coaches will move on elsewhere

No point growing something of you cannot protect it from the crows , let it go

And be left with ... what?

On a wider issue, one absolute disgrace is the complicity of the clubs and the RFL in not making academy and reserve sides compulsory.

Of course, that's because the clubs with backers don't need them, they just poach players prepared by others, but just losing thereserve competition instantly halved the number of full time jobs available for top level players, and not having your own academy setup is so barking I don't need to even comment. But I will. If it costs £250K to run one, then it should be compulsory that the FIRST 250K of a club's expenditure is ringfenced to pay for its academy. If that means 2 or 3 less expensive first-teamers then so be it.

Let's look at the latest SL club , Leigh , genuinely which pick of players could Leigh have had to get in the last 20 years ? , given with Wigan,Saints and Warrington on our doorstep ? , even if we had uncovered a late starter , we'd get what in return ?

The 1 st ring fenced expenditure of a club should be its non playing wages and functioning costs including playing bills and VAT , last comes playing wages , be they 1 st team or academy

Sorry but that's the way it is

If every club shared that view then the sport in this country would die. I know that's an extreme example and unlikely, but still true.

What [ishould[/i be happening is the RFL should be generating more publicity for rugby league, increasing public awareness and thereby increasing government funding in return. This would then be distributed to all clubs for the sole purpose of running academy setups.

I think you're missing my point. If you have 24 Academy sides then you have 24 sets of academy rugby league players. If no team runs an academy side, how many young players do you have in the game then?

PS of course I wasn't suggesting not paying tax etc., as you surely know; I was saying that you pay for your academy at the expense of your first team costs.

24 academy sides takes probably 40% of the juniors you have playing the sport , quite simply decimating the amateur teams at that age group , all that would achieve is having teams filled with players who are just cannon fodder for the elite few

RL needs about 10 SL academies to bring through the best , if your aren't there , there is no point , you will not retain any talent you produce

What RL needs is more kids playing the game fullstop. It needs the pathway to exist from junior rugby right up through open age amateur to full professional.

Take out the pathway from Bradford that the club did very well to embed in the past 2 years and you have a much poorer game. Inferior setups at nearby clubs don't make the same effort and they're unlikely to bother with Bradford. The game is poorer as a result.

Talking to one of the academy lads earlier today. Said he's now without a club and at the moment hasn't got other options. Apparently they have some kind of meeting later today about it, but I asked him what his plans were if there was no Bradford academy and no offers from elsewhere. His answer was to go back to playing football. That's just the one I spoke to, but if that's the solution to promising young lads who aren't picked up because of a lack of academies in the area, that's players lost to the game surely?

Of course it is.

He'd better find a soccer club soon or he'll be getting smashed playing for the Northern Bull Liquidisers at Hull KR in 4 weeks

E-mail just received from Bullbuilder: Quote ="Paul Butterworth"I have just attended at meeting with the Bulls Academy and Scholarship Players & Parents, Paul Medley from the RFL spoke. As we know the RFL are speaking with potential buyers of the Bulls one of the main criteria that will be considered as part of any proposal will be maintaining the Academy Structure. You will also be aware of BullBuilder and the Foundations fund raising efforts to support players and staff. After the meeting tonight Academy and Scholarship Players & Parents held a collection to help and raised £280.87 for our cause. With this and https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/welfarefund to date £1227 has been raised. THANK YOU Paul'"

E-mail just received from Bullbuilder: Quote ="Paul Butterworth"I have just attended at meeting with the Bulls Academy and Scholarship Players & Parents, Paul Medley from the RFL spoke. As we know the RFL are speaking with potential buyers of the Bulls one of the main criteria that will be considered as part of any proposal will be maintaining the Academy Structure. You will also be aware of BullBuilder and the Foundations fund raising efforts to support players and staff. After the meeting tonight Academy and Scholarship Players & Parents held a collection to help and raised £280.87 for our cause. With this and https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/welfarefund to date £1227 has been raised. THANK YOU Paul'"

So any future Bulls owner has to commit to funding an Academy?

Yet Koucash can close Salford's Academy and nothing gets said by the RFL

Priceless

I see your point but i see it as a massive plus that email. That really has given me a lift with more mood raging from depressed to rage recently. Insisting on an academy being funded so sort out civ out the pretenders in this bidding process

How can academy lads be told contracts terminated and free agents and first team but u16 kids are staying? I don't get it