Yes, we should all thank the kind thoughtful souls at Leigh and Salford for not running an academy, not paying out money to young players with potential, not giving them top quality coaching in top quality facilities. It really is an altruistic act to help the amateur game and the fact it saves them money they can pay out to antipodeans and players other clubs have invested in is purely a coincidence.

So is the joint Hull academy continuing or reverting to just FC ?

Here he goes, lose the argument, play dumb...

I genuinely don't know , so is it continuing or not ? , and as a joint venture or just FC ?

either way, they arent running their own.

It is widely suggested that outside the top 4/5 academies there isn't the numbers of quality junior players to genuinely produce SL players , so you end up with clubs ' padding out ' their squads just to put a team on the pitch with players nowhere near good enough

Much as we have seen the RFL reduce the number of teams in SL partly to increase the intensity , too many academies results in a drop in standards

It is a chicken and egg situation , unable to recruit enough quality juniors ( plenty of arguments as to why that is the case ) to produce SL players results in clubs getting poor results when audited , not surprising if then clubs dont see it as a worthwhile investment

Or of course clubs could put time and effort into increasing participation and quality in the amateur game in their area. Then there'd be enough players of the requisite standard.

But I suppose that would require long term planning and investment.

HKR ?

Everybody already knew they werent running one of their OWN months ago , nothing to do with being relegated

But you know ALL this

Goodness knows why you need to go of on these point scoring exercises ? , you must be really bored

Maybe those clubs do put time and effort in , and I'me sure most if not all could and should do more

But even if they do that , lets say in Leigh's position , and we still see the best signing up at Wigan,Saints and Wire , leaving us trying to make silk purses out of sows ears and constantly being criticised for not producing numbers , do we carry on ?

And this can impact on local amateurs , sometimes stripping teams with low numbers already of their best talent can result in teams folding

Ultimately we need more kids playing , that is an issue , personally as I've suggested before the area between Coventry down to Skolars is where we should be seeing investment helping junior clubs set up and grow , a second ' heartland ' in the making IMO

Its not a chicken and egg situation, its an excuse for failure situation. If a club is 'padding out' their squad its because they have already failed. Failed to increase participation, failed to scout, failed to attract youngsters, failed to improve the ones they have, failed to invest in quality coaching and facilities.

Your argument is based upon the premise that if we reduce the amount of players receiving the quality coaching, in quality facilities, then we will increase the amount of quality players coming through. Its a nonsensical argument and one nobody with half a brain would make. One even you wouldnt make if you werent trying to deflect the blame for your club ignoring youth development and long term planning in favour of spending money on the first team squad and relying on the efforts of others

Just as i predicted. Lose the argument, play dumb.

You be better.

Yes, its definitely down to someone else, somewhere else, because nothing more could possibly be expected of Leigh.

I haven't lost anything , I asked a simple question , but it seems you either are too thick to answer it , which personally I don't believe , or you don't want to answer it because it disproves what you originally stated

But seriously who cares , not me , or anybody else it would seem ?

So knock yourself out

No it doesnt, you know it doesnt, everyone can read that it doesnt. Nobody is interested in you pretending you think it does while I prove it doesnt and you try and distract from your nonsense.

It's because it's not Leeds , and if you're not Leeds , then you're just not good enough , and nobody try's harder than Leeds , nobody works harder than Leeds , in fact nobody Is even good enough to play Leeds

Leeds,Leeds,Leeds,Leeds

Have you been drinking ?

Ok.

They don't. No club, even Leeds who do a lot more than most, do anything like enough to increase participation and to increase quality in the amateur game.


Are you serious? Of course you p|ssing carry on. You make your club more attractive to those youngsters by whatever method you can or you improve the quality of your academy coaching or you increase participation so that there are enough quality players available for you as well.


Which is why participation and quality in the amateur game needs increasing and clubs stop being lazy and relying on kids from the same old favoured amateur clubs.


I agree. But that isn't in most of the existing clubs remit. Most of the heartland clubs struggle to find quality players (and to find fans) so they should concentrate on growing the game in the heartland. Most clubs are in a terrible state and need to grow themselves. Expansion can be done by the RFL. Trying to shift player production and pathways to somewhere else is merely an abdication of responsibility from the heartland clubs.

So how exactly do you make your club more attractive ? Easy to say , incredibly difficult to achieve

How do you prove the quality of your Scholarship/academy in the face of other clubs with much higher profiles ?

Again , easy to say , very difficult to achieve

I did mean the RFL , not the clubs

Sorry to interrupt the squabble....

As a Salford fan I'm really disappointed that we've lost our u19s team. I can see the reasons - our primary aim right now has to be getting more people through the turnstiles. Lots of reasons they ain't coming but having a good academy team is not going to get them in now. Having a successful first team will help. Won't cure all but will help more than a u19s team. Koukash may be a rich man but he cannot afford everything. He's chosen to focus his cash on the first team. Short-termism? Definitely. Understandable? In my view yes. The RFL cut Salford's funding after a review downgraded them. Can understand why they'd do that - why waste money on something not delivering - but also wonder whether they could be more creative and rather than cut funding use it to send in people to get the right systems in place?

All the other activity with youth is continuing - still an u16s team, increasing from one college team to two, considering running a reserve team and, if they do, they will invite some of the u19s back. looking at a shared academy with other clubs in the area (believe that when I see it but might work). Most important thing for me is they will continue the work with schools and local amateur clubs. This has been a massively overlooked and under-resourced area in Salford for pretty much ever. The relationship between the old regime and the amateur clubs was poor. Salford now run training sessions for amateur coaches including free level 1 and 2 courses plus loads of development sessions with them, do sky try initiatives, embed the pathway, players at kids sessions, junior tournaments, etc. There are more junior teams in Salford now than there has been for a long time, maybe ever. Most of that is down to the amateur clubs but the links to Salford are definitely helping.

Having an ex-local junior player and coach of open age team as Head Coach and Adrian Morley, another local product from amateur club not the pro-set up, (hopefully still) involved also helps build the community feel.

At the minute, realistically, an under 19s team will have a few Salford/Manchester lads in but will mostly be Wigan, Warrington and Leigh lads. I think the last genuinely Salford born and bred player we produced of any quality was Nathan McAvoy. And we lost him to that hotbed of Academy products, Bradford! We've had a few since but most of our successes in recent years - Evalds, Ratchford, Sneyd, Turner, Fages - and the ones on the fringes of our current team aren't from Salford. There's a few in the lower leagues. Of course I would rather have an u19s team with players from wherever than no team but if we are prioritising spending then so be it

The problem is the pathway from u16s to the first team. That's going to be our problem until the u19s structure is replaced but the work with the most likely chance of success is what's being done with the amateur teams and that's a good few years from bearing any fruit yet

But it is a similar situation in the amateur game , the established clubs attract the best kids , and those that aren't get influenced to move to the more established clubs by the Pro clubs

Genuine question !

How does/did the Hull F.C/K.R joint Academy operate ? By that I mean, shared costs, shared pool of young amateurs, who gets to sign the best, do they gravitate to the most lucrative/successful Club ???

I genuinely don't get how it works as I have very little knowledge of modern Academies but, from the outside looking in it looks like an NFL draft system would be the only fair way to run a combined Academy.

I ask this as today it has been mooted that Salford & Leigh could possibly enter into this type of arrangement.

Genuinely, I welcome any input from those in the know.

Then perhaps super league isn't for these clubs who can't establish themselves

I wondered the same myself Ste, I think they will have a draft system. Not sure what I think of a shared academy. Koukash talked about asking Oldham, Rochdale and Manchester (Rangers amateur club presumably??) too.

If we get it right, and it's big enough (ie doesn't limit potential players from joining because we only want 25 altogether and the areas could produce 10 each or whatever) then it could work. But I can't see how a draft could work if you have some pro and some semi-pro clubs. I guess for the players' sakes the full time clubs would have to take all the ones they think they want on FT contracts and the semi-pro would choose from the rest? Fans from all clubs would soon get fed up if another club ended up with more players that make it

Anyway I suspect it will never happen!

At the minute players are ring fenced by each club in the end I believe it will be a draft system