Grandad Cross...

Yep, in a like-for-like replacement for the departed talented young Mr Greg Eastwood, Leeds Rhinos have secured the services of old timer - Mr Cross.

Cracking piece of business there....surely Leeds, you must have a youth development squad capable of producing a forward of some class??? And before you attack me, I don't hate Leeds and I sure as hell don't want to hear (or see) a list of names that Leeds have produced in the past - so please don't waste everyone's time with it!

Surely though, can't we start to promote young English lads to these teams instead of signing 30+ yr olds from Australia????

So to sum up, you wanted to take a dig at Leeds but without any Leeds fans arguing a case back. Excellent post.

I think those criticizing this signing will be eating their words as I've seen a lot of Leeds games this year and an aggressive and commanding prop is just what they need. Cross was on the fringes of the Australia squad two years ago and he has just had a good season, which he would only have to reproduce to be an excellent signing, albeit on a short term basis. When you look at it from the point of view that hopefully we will no longer have to see as much of the pestering turd Ryan Bailey it will be as much a good signing for the whole of rugby league as it will be for Leeds.

We have signed plenty of players 30+ that have gone on to be cracking signings. David Furner, Gary Connolly, Marcus Bai - all were excellent acquisitions.

In an ideal world, Leeds would have kept hold of Eastwood. That he was homesick is hardly a fault of Leeds is it?

As for the youth system, sometimes the players just aren't there. It will be a while before we get another crop of youngsters like the one we have just had. Not because Leeds are neglecting their youth system, but because the talent isn't in the system at the present time. There is no such thing as a "production line" of talent.

Cross fits the bill of what we need. A hard hitting metre maker with big game experience. If you want to slag off a club for bringing in foreign talent, you've picked the wrong one.

Leeds have three young British props (Ambler, Amor and Burgess) who are not ready to take over from the front-row thirtysomethings (Peacock, Leuleui, Cross), but who will be spelled and developed over the next couple of years (at least in the cases of Ambler and Amor. Burgess has had opportunities but hasn't improved enough to be a first-teamer, imo, another reason to look abroad in the short-term). Seems a fairly sensible use of resources to me.

A good player. He should do well for Leeds.

My only concern would be that Cross, Leuluai and Peacock are all over 30. But if they can be kept fit then Leeds will have a good front row.

Please...it is not a dig at Leeds...It highlights a bigger problem in that Australian and proven (old) players are the first option for teams. I only named Leeds because they are the latest and as such first club name I could think of! This is also why I didn't want a long list of players that have been produced in the past...as again, it wasn't solely a dig at the Rhinos.

I find it hard to believe (although as I don't live in Leeds, nor have I seen their academy teams I'll have to believe you) that there aren't atleast 1 or 2 large English 19/20 yr olds coming through that are capable of holding onto a ball and running hard at a defence?! Someone needs to obviously have a word in the ear of the talent spotters/community coaches.

Oh and bigMAL...I fully agree with your last sentence...would love to see the back of Ryan Bailey...the guy is just a thug. Full Stop.

It's not quite as simple as that though is it? There's the mental aspects of the game for a starters. It is not in a player's, Leeds' or England's best interests to throw a player into first team rugby when he clearly isn't ready.

At the end of the day, the primary interest of Brian McClennan is Leeds Rhinos and he will build a team that he believes is best for Leeds Rhinos. If that means bringing in talent from overseas, then that's what he will do. Leeds Rhinos are no different from any other employer from any other industry in that sense.

i dont disagree with your principle, but i think it is targeted a little incorrectly in this case. Leeds are bringing through young forwards in Ambler, Amor, Burgess, Pitts and Clarkson. Cross is simply to cover for Eastwoods departure giving time for those guys to develop. We are going in to next season with 6 overseas players next year, which isnt too far away from where we want to be.

I simply do not believe you.

When clubs like Wakefield and Salford are flooding their squads with ageing aussies I cannot understand why Leeds signing a state of origin/NRL premier winner irritates you so much. As someone else stated, ideally Leeds would have loved to have kept Eastwood but they can't.

Are you not bothered that Wigan have signed THREE australians, when one could argue they don't even need them, instead of blooding their academy players?

Mark_W....did you read my comment? I said that I'm not aiming this solely at Leeds Rhinos....it is only because when I hit the internet this morning and saw they'd signed Cross that I felt it worth commenting about....hence me saying I only named Leeds because they're the latest team to do it.

I fully agree with your point about Salford et al.... signing many more old Aussies...its that "quick fix" mentality isn't it?!

We don't see the Aussies signing British players to cover gaps in their development...mainly because they have larger squads and numbers of players in their local areas to call upon and develop. But, and on an aside point, many clubs in SL claim to have large supporter numbers and be "rugby league towns/cities"...but don't have players pushing through in order to stop the continuous reliance on Aussie imports.

I was under the impression that promotion and relegation were the main cause of this...as teams panic brought in order to maintain their SL status. Now this changed (ever so slightly) and teams are finally giving youth and English players a chance...which is why the England 4Nations squad looks so different to previous ones...

Still I guess we're not all going to agree....my personal preference for an ideal "target" in the coming couple of years would be to have as many Aussies in SL as there are Brits in the NRL. Then, maybe we'll have a depth of player pool that will allow us to actually and regularly challenges the Aussies in competitions. At present, we only beat them on occasion or get close on the score board when they aren't fully focused or playing their hardest.

I take it that is an admission that developing youth takes time and it would be both detrimental to the development of young players and the performance of the club to throw them in a regular SL place too early. Further, if even Leeds have to make this kind of signing, it's not surprising that other less well established clubs might have to adopt a more extreme approach until they are in a position to make signings of this calibre.

For what it's worth, he is probably the kind of player needed to bolster a pack that this year has been nowhere near the force of previous seasons.

Are you really that thick?

there are two main reasons for this IMO.

firstly the effort put in by some clubs to youth development is pretty poop. Australian Clubs dont have props in reserve ready to step up, like here they move around and 'fill in the gaps'. Now whereas when Newcastle need a couple of Props they can look to a team in the NRL who are 'prop heavy' and pick up a prop to replace Cross. In England there are so few clubs producing most of the quality youngsters that when Leeds dont immediately have a prop to step up, there isnt the pool that they can keep dipping into. There are some good british players out there to sign but Leeds are already bringing through 3 or 4 of them.

secondly, the reserve levels and lower leagues that we have, arent good enough to prepare enough of our players well enough. A club needs to make a concious decision to develop a young player, they need to take an experienced player and replace him with a young player just to expose him to a decent level of competition. If clubs dont make this concious decision then the player stagnates and generally never fulfils their potential.

An example i would use to highlight this is Kallum Watkins. Physically this guy has all the attributes he needs to reach the very very top. Skill-wise he has fantastic handling skills and i truly believe he has the potential to be a world class centre, up there with anyone. However right now, he still has deficiencies in his game in positioning, defence, and knowing when to put his winger away. In Australia he would be playing in a good quality competition where these deficiencies would be highlighted, but he wouldnt lose his place in the side and be given a chance to rectify them.

i dont think it is any coincidence that at youth level we can compete equally with the aussies and have done for a long while. It is at first grade level we struggle and it seems to be that time-frame where we introduce youngsters into first-grade where we seem to fall down.



its nto much better is it?

i dont think that is necessarily what is needed. I think if we look at having a maximum of 5 overseas players in total in each side and 1 each side in the championships and we look and work on that period between youth and firstgrade and try and bridge that gap through better links with the championships, making it a proving ground, then the game as a whole will increase.

Another thing we need to as a game is focus on bringing in youngsters, and making them the best they can be, rather than looking to Australia.

In Aus the best athletes choose RL, here we dont have that, so we need to choose the best athletes. Look to wrestlers, sprinters, basketball players, union players etc, at 14/15/16 and bring them into the game, train them and i think we will be fine.

Excuse me?

Youth development isnt the only option for bringing in British players. There are other ways of bringing in british players, Ways which leeds have and are using hence there being only 6 overseas players at Leeds next season.



The calibre is less the issue than the numbers. Whilst it is my opinion a player like Cross is a better bet than a player like Lovegrove if Morgan wants to bring in a Lovegrove rather than a Cross then thats his decision. The issue is bringing in a lovegrove, fisher et al aswell as Newton, Galea etc. Bringing in your 8th, 9th 10th overseas player crosses the threshold from adding overseas players to the league to taking opportunities from british players because there are British players who can do a similar job if there was the opportunity. I would like Leeds to cut down by one or two and i think over the next two or three years we will see this, but adding one or two from the top 3 or 4 clubs isnt going to increase the pool enough, we need to be adding the 5 or 6 from the other 6 or 7 clubs.

It isnt only a numbers game, it is also changing the mind shift to make it imperative that you bring through the best young players you can. Whether that be from picking up the best 15/16 year old athletes into academies or the best 19/20 year olds from the fringes or the lower leagues.

Thats true, you have brought in a few Wakey players in your time

I think Ben Cross is a good signing. He will add a lot of substance to Leeds front row.

You just couldn`t make it up could you?

At 31 he hasn't made a hundred first grade appearances yet, which could be a worry, but he did make 23 of 24 appearances last season.

A hard hitting no nonsense prop, He'll do very well in super league.

this is true, as wakefield have brought in many Leeds players also. I have no problem with players moving clubs, they just need to be replaced with British.

Yes, well it would be wouldn't it?



Comparing Cross to Lovegrove in any sense is totally irrelevant. The question is, is Cross better than the props that the Leeds production line is churning out? If not you probably ought to asking questions about that rather than taking the moral highground over Rovers' squad.

Unluckily for you, you've been done up like a kipper by your own club, who quite understandably, take a more pragmatic approach to recruitment and player development than the one you would like to impose on other clubs.

Clearly, to anyone with half a brain.

comparing Cross to Lovegrove is relevant when you go on to make the point you do. If you are comparing Leeds to rovers, then comparing Cross to Lovegrove is clearly relevant.

The Question isnt whether Leeds production line is churning out props the quality of Ben Ross, however desperate you are to make it so. The true question is how many, and of what quality Props Leeds are 'churning out'. Considering that there are at least 7 Leeds produced props playing in SL first teams right now, including at least 4 full English/British internationals + the England Captain I dont think we have too much to worry about in that department. In fact had all the other clubs done the same then we would have a surplus of quality Props and Leeds would have had no need to go abroad to fill this gap.

I would be happy for all the other clubs to take a similar approach. Were Hull Kingston Australia going into next season with only 6 overseas players, and 15 developed players in their 25 man squad there would be no complaint from me!

But in your desperate attempt to defend your club you are sticking to your nonsense straw man argument that I am arguing for 0 overseas players rather than just fewer, and certainly fewer than 10 in a side in the supposed heartlands of the game

Is he the guy that Tallis battered?

nm, it was Ben Ross