Barnacle Bill wrote:
But that is the point of the reducing quota and increasing home grown requirement and the consequence of franchise applications being awarded on a range of criteria.
It is ludicrous to criticise one club for taking one strategy (while conforming to all the RFL requirements) and praise another for taking a different strategy (while conforming to all the RFL requirements).
No it isnt. We should be praising teams for making that investment in the long term stability of the sport, We should be praising them when the give a shot to youngsters, we should be praising them for putting the structures in place to give the best chance to the youngsters of their area, and we should criticise them when they dont, we should criticise them when they hide behind overseas players, exemptions and dispensations to cover up for the fact they havent invested in youth.
Hull KR could have taken a different approach (promoting youngsters not ready or not good enough) which would have been cheaper. That would have made the financial side of the next bid stronger at the same time weakening the on field contribution, it's all swings and roundabouts. And the point you are completley missing here is that with a range of different criteria highlighting the importance of different areas of the business it is not surprising at all that at different times different clubs will have different priorities.
They will have different priorities, they always will. But after 100 years to not have a decent youth policy already in place is embarrassing. We should make youth development a higher priority, force it to be a higher priority for all clubs
The real test of whether Hull KR have got the balance right will be if the get awarded another franchise.
thats fairly unambitious, at some point as a sport we are going to need to move on from our ambition being just to survive to improving and growing
