Paul T - HKR wrote:We will have to beg to disagree about it being short sighted. Whilst I agree with you about using the NL to bring players on, there is a bigger picture to consider.
If anything it is something the club needed to do, bearing in mind the level of investment in the youth program. Okay, recruitment has been quite exceptional these past few years with players like Welham, Watts, Taylor, Cox and Latus coming thro the ranks, and a good splattering of above average juniors at the moment, which suggests a healthy progression.
The club could sit back on its laurels and develop the present crop, put the better ones out to gain NL experience, and see if junior recruitment attracts a similar level of player. But the problem Rovers have had in the SL era is being able to attract juniors to the club. It’s taken since 2007/8 to get to the present stage. Its all well and good saying use the NL to develop players, you have to attract them to the club first.
Winning, achievement and progression are the main selling points. Rovers can now say they are a play-off club at all levels, which for a junior (and his parents) looking for a SL club is a big marker, coupled with a demonstrable pathway of progression to first grade.
But taking everything into account the only other team using the same 'pond' of players have not been putting juniors players into the first team anyway (Something which is probably down to the previous coach more that anything and which many of their fans have complained about) so us getting more local faces into and playing at a SL level would have done as much as being a playoff place at all levels would PLUS we would be less reliant of outside the club for players.
