Quote ="Willzay"Must be hard to be a Hull Fc fan these past 24 hours. Losing last night and today Pearson announcing today practically the first step for the two Hull clubs to merge.'" Here's the moron giving SLTV an interview about the merger (from outside his new home, Elland Road!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x_LTRy0l40 Get out of our club.

Quote ="Willzay"Must be hard to be a Hull Fc fan these past 24 hours. Losing last night and today Pearson announcing today practically the first step for the two Hull clubs to merge.'" Here's the moron giving SLTV an interview about the merger (from outside his new home, Elland Road!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x_LTRy0l40 Get out of our club.

Suddenly Marwan doesn't look so bad.

I think if we lose again on Sunday it'll all kick off at the KC, haven't seen this much anger aimed at the club since the Paul Cooke debacle in 2007.

Penny pinching that will benefit nobody in the long run.

If this is a good idea do it throughout super league with Wigan/saints, wire/widnes, leeds/bradford, wakey/cas, salford/hudds joint academy's and play a 6 team mini league.

However it is just to save a few quid, probably to sign another overseas player. Luckily for England Hull don't produce any international players so they won't be missed

Adam Pearson seems to think the rfl want to go to an 8 team league

What a f**king stupid idea.

Not for the eight teams.

It still is because people will get bored very quickly with playing the same teams a minimum of 4 and possibly 8 times a season depending on the playoff system used.

How do you use your academy to fill in for injuries during the season?
Most academy's get there juniors playing the same way as the first team so they slot straight in? How's this going to work?

won't work and I'd be disgusted to be associated with Hull FC ?

How will the salary cap work?

if a player gets called up to the FC first team for a few games mid-season will He still be eligible to play for the academy and/or be eligible to get called up for KR should they need cover later in the year?

You're making the assumption that Pearson, Hudgell or the RFL have actually thought this through.

Should be done all over. No need for clubs to be running the academies (other the RFL being demonstrably terrible at it) run them all independently with more funding funnel them through the lower leagues and draft them to SL

When i first read the headline this is exactly what I thought was going to happen, share facilities and certain backroom staff, when I delved further I couldn't beleive what the proposal was.
It's a disgusting poke in the eye to both sets of fans, especially Hull FC after Pearson's much vaunted decrees of leaving no stone unturned, top 4 and trophies yadda yadda.


I've being lambasted on our forum in the very recent past for saying I wanted Pearson to leave & sell up as he hasn't got a clue how to run a business IMO, certainly not a rugby league one and I think the guy is bi-polar, his decision making is awful, as well as being full of excrement he fails to acknowledge his own mistakes, this action just seems to justify my stance.

Interesting comment from Pearson at the start of that interview:

"The RFL are looking for the development of a number of super-academies."

Are they really, or is he throwing that in to justify what he knows is a very unpopular plan?

Can't remember the last time Rovers drafted a player into the 1st team that wasn't an academy player who was already part of the 1st team setup. These players I'm guessing would already be associated to a club at the draft level whilst still playing U19's. This means that the Hull development side will potentially have a squad of 26 players. 13 will be on Hull FC's books & 13 would be Hull KR's. They'd then have the pick of those 13 players.

No player will be on either teams books until the draft, listen to the interviews from yesterday again.

So does that mean if a player is ready or good enough to play at 17-18, he won't be able to because he hasn't been drafted? If thats the case then whats to stop him moving away from the academy to get a 1st team opportunity elsewhere?

At the moment we don't know. The details are pretty sketchy.

What if and its a big if they get it right and it works just think (the RFL did not come up with it) and all the teams that can do it do it,it might be a step in the right direction

I think this is the way to go, if there are 25 players in each super league acadmey that is 300 in the under 19's each year 290 of which are probably never going to get a first team game, add to that the 300 or so at under 17,s the loss of that many players to local amature sides is devaststing. Four or five regional accadamies for the best 100/150 youngsters in the country with high quality coaching & support is what the game needs. Hull may be hot bed of the game but the local sides are all struggling for various reasons to field teams, one of which is loosing some of their best lads to the pro clubs just to make up numbers so thier top couple of players have a side to play in. Most of the kids would be better served staying with thier amature club & enjoying the game instead of being missled into thinking they are going to get a pro contract (about 40 kids get that from all 12 clubs each year) I just hope both clubs work hard to make it a sucsess.

Nope. Not at all. Restricting the amount of young players who get access to higher quality coaching and development isn't the way to produce top quality players. It's putting all your eggs in one basket.

There should be more young players exposed to academies not less.

Leeds themselves have used at least 3 u19's this season (Handley, Golding & Lilley) who aren't in the first team squad and who they weren't expecting to use. So I'm sure the number across SL is in excess of 10.

The amateur sides are utterly irrelevant. They have 2 jobs as amateur clubs:
1. Provide players up the hierarchy
2. Provide a place for people to enjoy playing RL.

The fact that amateur clubs might lose players to academies is not something that should ever be considered in terms of a player development structure as that is 50% of their role.

That many lads are put through academies and then not taken is of course disappointing for that individual. And clubs should do everything to make that process as easy and sympathetic as possible. But that's how the system will always work.
By halving the amount of youngsters taken on by academies in Hull you have halved the amount of youngsters who will get disappointing news. But you've also halved your development opportunities.

It's battery of the highest order.

The bigger the pot of milk, the more cream at the top. This is stupidity and is just about saving money that no doubt both our clubs will waste on some reserve grade nrl player.

We have struggled to bring decent quality kids through as is, now we will have half the number to pick from. Not much or BoD have got wrong since taking hull KR into SL but this one I think is a really poor decision.

100% wrong it is quality not quantity there are not 50 players a year anywhere good enough in the country let alone Hull & it is vital for the game that the amature club's thrive as that is where 99.9% of pro players come from it is the amature club's that introduce kids to the game. If one in a hundred make the grade (whatever the number is) then the more hundreds of kids playing the more chance of finding the odd star. That is the importance of the amature game. At the moment the numbers playing I am lead to belive are droping & striping them of 16 & 17 year olds who will never make the grade is doing a lot of harm to the very heart of the game.

It's not about 50 players a year being good enough. It's about finding the 5 or so who are good enough to play SL. This move has made that harder. Because now the Hull clubs only get 25 players to look at instead of 50.

Again, how does reducing the number of youngsters receiving academy coaching help player development?
Once again, the amateur clubs are irrelevant by this stage. They've done their job. It's the point at which the amateur clubs pass players up the hierarchy. Why are we worried about the amateur club at this point?
They've lost what 5/6/7 players to an academy. So what. They'd be moving up to open age anyway within a year. And the club has another batch of u16's who haven't been taken away by academies yet.

It's nonsense to say player development at academy level should change to accommodate amateur clubs. Plus the problem isn't even a realistic concern. It's how amateur clubs are setup and how they should be. To provide players at the relevant age.

Worth noting that Hulls u19s have just beat Leeds 72-20 away, a team containing players that should be playing in the first team.

It's completely hypocritical Hull (Pearson) bemoaning the lack of talent coming through, when they had a coach in Peter Gentle that had faith in young players like Crooks, Lineham and Shaul and looked to be building something for the future, aswell as already achieving top 6 finish and cup final, which seems a million miles away now.

Pearson then blindly appointed Radford who forced out Crooks and Lineham and seems to be doing with Shaul, aswell as ignoring obvious talent currently in the u19s squad.

The money saved from this initiative will be thrown at a marquee player.