Why is it that both Hull and rovers seem to have poor quality squads for a supposed full salary cap spend compared to saints, leeds, wigan and wire? Is it that hard to convince players to come to East Yorkshire?

Well as much as I have a soft spot for Hull, and I am rather excited at the prospect of an afternoon and evening out and about tomorrow with a nice little rugby filling you couldn't persuade me to move back, and I'm more than finished (and never really started) as far as rugby's concerned.

3 main reasons for me:

a) Saints, Leeds and Wigan's teams are built with a strong foundation of youth players who are probably paid less than they could get elsewhere.
b) As you mention, Hull is in the middle of no where and is a bit of a elegant place (in places, like everywhere) but has a terrible reputation. The fact is it is in the middle of no where doesn't help, e.g. Salford is horrible in parts but Manchester is close by.
c) Saints, Leeds, Wigan and Wire have been succesful over the last few years and it probably takes less money to convince someone when they're going to a team that is winning things or atleast seriously challenging, we had that in 2007 maybe even 2008 but 4 very average league finishes won't help.

Investment in youth doesn't count on the cap and can provide good value quality players that are then settled at the club, or can be replaced by one of the next batch if necessary.

The cap has an element of stretch in it, I think it is fair to say.

And success breeds success.

Rovers have had to invest heavily just to catch up with the mid-ranking SL teams. Hull stagnated at the end of the Hetherington-Rule era.

very generous, I'd say 2 average years and
2 way below average.

Yes it was generous to be fair. Though if you're going to say years I'd say 3 average years with us getting to Wembley in '08.

By default tho

You can see some of the squad numbers of their training kits on the HDM pics. Some obvious, some interesting.
2-Hall
4-Webster
7-Dobson
16-Lovegrove
17-Taylor
18-Horne
22-Wheeldon
23-Netherton

A definate sign of our squad depth if established players Wheeldon and Netherton are dropping down to 22 and 23. It looks like they will have it all on to force their way into the side next season which can only be a good thing for the team as a whole.

Think Scott M has 19 and one of the new boys 13 this year...thought Taylor would be given a first 13 shirt..an international on our hands if ever there was one..