bull, none, of Lovegrove, Green or Fisher would get near the England squad.

Ben Fisher is barely playing the same game as Roby, never mind challenging him for an England place.

Blake Green is no where near the quality of Tomkins, Mcguire, Pryce, Eastmond, Myler, or Brown.

and are you really saying Lovegrove would be challenging Peacock, Graham, Morley, Lynch, Carvell, Westwood, Crabtree?

none would be anywhere near.

Bloody hell Green played the most games he has every played in a season last year, 18, he was then immediately replaced by a younger, less experienced player yet he is England quality


Westerman is a good player, with the potential to be a very very good player. And very very good players are always at a premium.

they could put out a competitive team not including 10 overseas players, in fact, every other team bar crusaders will put out a competitive team not including 10 overseas players.

Hull KR could put out a competitive team not including 10 overseas players. But that isnt what you want is it? what you want is Hull KR to seek advantage by putting out more overseas players than anyone else.

wouldn't mind but looking at some of the dross other clubs have signed from overseas it's not like HKR aren't at least signing some decent players to make them more competitive and raise the intensity of SL by contributing a decent team.
Webster - International, GF winner
Clinton - International, GFinalist
Vella - SOO, International, Gfinalist
Dobson - Australian schoolboy, AG medal winner
Mason - SOO, International, GF winner
Newton - GF winner
Galea - Australian schoolboys, GF winner

compared to the 6 drongos Quins have I don't think you can knock us for the quality of overseas players we have signed!

Just looked at the SL stats and they reckon Lovegrove misses 11.5% of his tackles?



Well over three missed tackles a game, that is pretty dreadful for a prop.

No they're not as good as any of the players you mention, but they'd have had a good shout of the train-on squad with their performances this year. Very much doubt they'd have made the final cut, but would be held in much higher regard if they were English.



So you think they [iare[/i better than the average English player? If not it wouldn't be an advantage.

you have no idea how good Green may be. Just because he hasn't held down a starting spot in NRL yet doesn't mean he won't set SL on fire. He obviously has enough talent to A) get picked for the prestigious Australian schoolboys team and B) get picked up by NRL clubs throughout his short career. He comes with a similiar pedigree to Dobson and that hasn't turned out bad has it? I can bet you if Dobson was English he would be over here right now!

I don't want us to be "competitive" (which I doubt we would be anyway otherwise you wouldn't see such a significant win-loss ratio for lower teams), I want us to win it. Call me selfish but I don;t care how many overseas players it takes to do that, ask any Wigan fans if they are gutted that last year they could only win the GF due to having 9 overseas players in the squad!

no they wouldnt, they wouldnt get close. Id go as far as to say if they were released by Hull Kingston Australia they wouldnt get a gig at any other club in SL.

No, i dont, i do however think that your club believes that employing NRL rejects instead of young british players with potential will lead them to short-term success. As I said you cant legislate for poor decision making.

it also doesnt mean he wont die on his ar5e and be packed off.

If you are taking a risk it should be with young british players, not players not good enough for SL

other than being older, with less experience yes.

Wigan didnt have 9 overseas players in their squad last year. And the admittedly selfish view of a one-eyed short-termist HullKA fan isnt a clever way to run a successful sport.

and we only have the judgement of our coach and his ability to spot talent to go on at this time.

They are the same age and played in the same Australian schoolboys team!

unless I'm mistaken,
Phelps (Aus)
Roberts (Aus)
Carmont (NZ)
Richards (Aus)
Leuleuai (NZ)
Riddell (Aus)
Hansen (NZ)
Bailey (Aus)
Paleeasina (NZ)

I'm sure no Wigan fans class there GF title as legitamate and are totally embarrased being crowned SL champions after "bending" the overseas quota rules to put together a winning team!

We're employing 'NRL rejects' in the place of senior British players, not young ones. Of necessity we have to include more young British players in our squad than other clubs because we don't have any club-trained players in their mid-late 20s or early 30s. The squeeze is in the middle of our squad.

Short-term success is a good thing. My assumption is that you think that signing Australians damages us in the long-term. It doesn't. The age of your signings here is the crucial thing, not their nationality. I think we look well positioned to adapt to the rules as the fed-qualified antipodeans leave the game.

If Smokey had his way SL would be weakend and diluted to the point where games regularly blew out by 50+ points, intensity was virtually non existant past 3 or 4 teams and England would continue to suffer from a lack of exposure for the top players to strong teams every week. But it would be good for RL!

and my final say for the evening!

Smokey thinks the reason England are pants is due to too many overseas players in SL and not enough English players playing first grade. Consider this:

Kiwis in the NRL = approx 100
Englishmen in SL = approx 260

How come the Kiwis are World Champions and we aren't?

Because unlike the Poms they were good enough to get to the final

And relying on the coaches ability to spot talent down under isnt a healthy way to determine success in our league.

Yes and you signed Dobson two years ago and when you signed him he had more first grade experience.


Hansen isnt an overseas player, he is a product of the British RL system.

why?

that isnt the case at all, the average age of Hull KA squad isnt particularly low, never mind lower than other clubs.

you dont have more young british players in your squad than Leeds, Saints, Hudds, Wigan, or Wire. In fact only one of your first team squad is under 20 years old.

it is, it is just not as good as long term stability, sustainability, improvement, and success. If your chasing of short-term success is to the detriment of your long term success then it is a bad thing

the age of them is irrellevent, its simply a number. Hull KR will be no better placed signing Blake Green because he is 24 than if he was 28.

really? seems strange then doesnt it that HullKA are a mid-table side with the most overseas players. So other clubs, in similar positions to Hull KA have fewer overseas players and SL isnt weakend or diluted because this is the case.

Huddersfield, Warrington, St Helens, Leeds, Castleford, Wigan, Bradford, Quins, Hull FC, will all go into next season with fewer than 10 overseas players. Thats 10 over the 12 comparable clubs who will be going into next season with fewer than 10, most fewer than 8. Hull KA dropping 2 players this year, 2 next, and 1 the next wouldnt impact on the quality of the league whatsoever.

and one third of players in the NRL youth systems are New Zealanders, showing their commitment to youth development.

Also yeah, if we sent over our best 100 players to Australia and brought them through over there we probably could make a good fist of it.

It would however leave our domestic competition in a similar position to the New Zealand domestic comp.

Probably unlikely Smokey.

Now that is a good question.
The club needed to get up to SL speed rapidly in 2007. The 2006 NL squad provided a base - 16 of them played SL in 2007 iirc (excluding Welham and I'anson). 7 of them from overseas, admitedly, but it was a squad put together to do a job and it did it. Only Fisher remains from the overseas contingent. Cockayne, Murrell and Netherton are the other survivors. The overhaul saw us sign a lot of players. It was short-termism, but we had a pressing short-term goal. We needed SL experience and as favourites to go down weren't spoilt for choice. We signed Brits like Ward, Chester, Cooke and Hardman on loan, but overseas players of varying quality were crucial - Vella, O'Neill, Gene, Dyer, Bauer, Gannon, Lennon, Lovegrove, Tandy. A motley bunch, but they were willing and, as it turned out, able to do what we needed. As an aside, only 3 were new to British RL. 2008 was building for the future we had another clear out and bought in half a new team more or less. It was a mix of Brits and antipodeans (Briscoe, Fox, Walker; Webster, Galea, Newton, Crossman, Fitzhenry. Dobson replaced Webster Mk1 midway through the season). This turned out to be a piece of accidental genius. Newton and Galea, along with Vella were all superb signings and ultimately qualified for fed-trained status. After that splurge, recruitment for 2009 and 2010 was predictably low key with only Clinton arriving from overseas. Now the quota is starting to impact the market, driving up the value of experienced fed-trained players as they become a scarcer commodity. But lucky old Hull KR have a couple of quota spots spare, so have access to a buyers' market.
'Luck' would have been the short answer.





You're missing my point. Green is quota anyway, so could be replaced with a quota player. The ticking time bomb is supposedly Galea and Vella who will retire and not free up quota spots and our under-equipped production system will see us sink. But we need(ed) experienced players like them in the short-medium term and even if we could have found British ones they would have retired and failed to yield a quota spot. Choosing these Australians has not damaged our long term prospects one jot. Indeed it has most probably enhanced them*, making us more attractive to players both young and experienced. We've been lucky. Sorry**.

[size=50
* Because they were good, not because they are Australian.
**Not really.[/size

sorry maybe the question wasnt clear. Why are you signing overseas players to replace senior british players and not young british players.

Is it really acceptable to try and seek advantage by employing more overseas players than everyone else to the detriment of young british players.

so where you have been lucky is that players like Dobson and Lovegrove who should have been quota players wont be, and when players like Vella and Galea retire they can be replaced by overseas players because the players who should be counted on the quota, arent. And it is conceivable, maybe even probable that it could be a good 10 years until Dobson and Lovegrove retire that Hull KA start playing with the quota rules as they should be, and they dont reach the quota levels the RFL expected of them last year @7 overseas players until 2020. That Hull KA are 'lucky' in the fact they can be up to 11 years behind their overseas targets.

well thats something to be proud of i suppose

you are almost there Bill, you just need to take one more step,

Come on, you can do it

if there arent enough players because we dont give them the opportunity, and if we can create enough players by working with the lower leagues and young players to give them the opportunity,

and if we get rid of the average overseas players and give them the opportunity what will there be?

Rhys Lovegrove and Ben Fisher are Scottish. So that would be 8 non British players in Rovers' squad next season.
Potentially only one more than Leeds (at the moment) God knows what old age pensioner of an Aussie the former champions are going to sign next. It really is pathetic.

Rhys Lovegrove the Sydney born and raised former st george player and Ben Fisher the Sydney born and raised former North Sydney player
or in reality 4 more than the former 3 time successive champions