This isn't quite as fancy as I'd planned, was going to do a scatter chart with bubbles and quadrants, but I need to pack for my holiday so
Let me explain. We have heard a lot about Rovers academy/pipeline for over a decade - from Hudgell saying all the good Hull lads would want to sign for Rovers c. 2007, to the current comments that Rovers academy will dominate on all fronts through the fairytales of Kristian Bell and co in between.
How might we evidence this dominance in producing and retaining the best Hull talent? Well, I've taken both current squads and isolated the homegrown players ie those produced by both Hull teams, and looked at how many games this group have played for either side. One would imagine that with the hypothesis of Rovers dominance that the majority of players would have been produced by Rovers, and that their sincere and genuine commitment to retention and development would show that these players have played a large amount of games for Rovers. Imagine then my surprise at the following results.
In total across both current squads 1713 games have been played by Hull homegrown players for Hull clubs. 88% of these were the product of Hull FC. That's a big proportion. Only 7% were games by Rovers homegrown players for Rovers. Just saying
