I think he is from Hull - the Mafia-sounding name is Portugese rather than Italian; his father was from there (or possibly one of its former colonies? - it was in one of the match programs).

Cheers Mild!

Another kid in SL to add to the Hull born list.

I'll take this (perhaps naively) as a genuine post and add that, over the next two or three years, as the 18's at KR come through, we should see a lot more influence from Hull born players across SL.

Frankie Mariano, Ben Hardcastle, Scott Spaven...and the best of the bunch by far Dominic Dee, will all be playing their trade away from Craven Park next year because they are caught in a 'catch 22' situation.

None are deemed quite good enough to warrant a place in the club's 25 man squad, whilst at the same time, all are too old to play in the under 20's next year.

Once upon a time, these sort of players would have formed the backbone of the club's 'A' team and could have developed at their own pace but, with the advent of the under 20's, clubs are now forced to make a decision much earlier on a players future.

Consequently, there is a steady drip feed of good young players into the Championship and the quality of that competition has improved markedly as a result in recent seasons.

Rovers' priority now are younger, higher quality youngsters (the one's who have been developed since the club have been in Super League) like Scott Taylor, Louis Sherriff, Jordan Cox and Dave Peterson who have all been given first team contracts at 17/18 and have a genuine chance of making the grade, unlike the players they have recently released.

For what it's worth, the jury is out on Mariano for me. Physically, he is equipped to play Super League, but I suspect he will ultimately find his level as a good Championship player!

I find that quite surprising considering his performances this year. When he has come on the pitch he has troubled defences and not missed a tackle out of the 30 he has attempted. For a player that has had limited chances at this level the speed of the game is much different and I feel he adapted very well yet showed that raw edge that needed rounding off by a coach and team that has the time to do so.

As a club that want to start winning things rather than being just happy sat mid table I would suggest this is more HKR's reason for not spending more time on Frankie and as said we have other players coming through in his position that are possibly by his age going to be fully fledged Super League players.

Oh and Frankie is from East Hull, Longhill to be exact and was on a very poor contract at Rovers even though he was full time and could have earnt at least tripple as a joiner. I dont know if he was offered a contract by Rovers first that he felt was not adequate considering he is a new father but I'd guess this deal will suit both Frankie and Rovers in the long term as if he does make it and Rovers come knocking he I would imagine find it hard to turn down coming back "home".

It will be interesting to see how KR use the U18s they have signed this year. As previously said, most of the last batch of good 20s have been allowed to go to the Championship or local amateurs, even though some of them had been through the scholarships and acadamy since 12 years old, pre and post Super League era. One coach's donkey is another's racehorse.

I hope it's not just to make sure they maintain the 8 minimum home grown player requirement for a franchise each year?

Other than Kris Welham, do KR have any one else who has come through all the systems and is a regular 1st teamer?

for me its irrelevant who actually makes it to the first team. Its more a want of trying. Out of a bunch of maybe 15 you may get 1 or 2 that look capable. But never stop trying to progress kids. The future will always be better with the camps all SL teams have and are progressing with. And like hull did and to a bigger extent Man U at some time maybe teams will hit 3/4 in 1 season who go on to be world beaters.

I think you can only really judge on what has come through from the time since we have been in this division because if you had seen certain youngsters from our pre-SL years they have a much different frame than they do since being trained by full time staff and better players to learn from.

Saying this I do think after 4 years we are due a couple of home grown stars although do not forget people like Scott Murrell, Jason Netherton, Liam Watts, Ben Fisher, Ben Cockayne and as you mentioned Kris Welham probably would not have made it as far as they have with out Rovers and their continued development of these players.

Scott Taylor is going to be a good player with a promising future. Doubtful he'll make it Internationally although you never know.

There are actually some very promising players coming through the 18's at the moment and their training is being stepped up year on year. If anything over the next 3 years I can see HKR having a really strong home grown core of players that are only going to get better and better as the years progress. It may not look it at the moment but people like Vella, Newton, Galea, Webster and Mason probably wont be here playing after the next 3 years and I dont think we will replace all of them with Aussies due to having such talent coming through.

What you must realise is that the released batch of under 20's you mention (and even Kris Welham) are actually remnants of Hull KR, the National League club.

Basically, none of them were the very best youngsters who were desired by Super League clubs, nor have they benefitted from top-class coaching all the way through.

However, the current batch of under 18's at the club (including the likes of Cox, Sherriff and Peterson who have been promoted to the first team squad) are a different beast.

These are the sort of youth represntative players who Rovers had to fight off stiff competition to get in the first place...they have all enjoyed Super League-quality coaching from day one, and have had to fight very hard just to make the 'cut.

Understandably, it's taken four years, but Rovers should now enjoy the sort of production line of quality youngsters that many other clubs have!

Top Post. 100% Correct.