Quote ="Fully"KR fans keep stating that they have only been in SL so many seasons and so it takes time to build up their youth system but Cas pre-relegation never really invested significantly in their youth system. We got promoted a year after Hull KR and have since brought through several players of SL quality. That was only after investing a lot of money and resources into our youth system. So how is it a club like Cas, with limited money and cannot afford to spend full SC, are able to overtake Hull KR in aspects such as this?'"
Forget your relegation(s) - it's irrelevant to Hull KR
In short - we just didn't have enough money or time for youth – [iseriously[/i
We more or less didn't have a youth setup prior to SL (certainly not of quality anyway)
Finances - Nearly going out of business - we just didn't have the cash available to invest for a long period
Competition - With Hull been what/where they were, we really couldn't compete. Whatever potential kids were about - they'd ultimately end up @ FC if they were of quality.
Time - When we got back on track and had the board/owner we have now (Hudgell and former CEO Lakin), we had one goal and one shot - promotion to Super League. All resources went on team and ground improvements in order to get promotion to SL. If we didn't get promoted 06 - I certainly don't think we'd be in SL now. We needed that 1st season prior to the licenses in order to a) prove that two Hull teams wasn't a bad thing/workable b) We could compete c) time to improve the stadium further. Without that period of 'grace' I doubt we'd have received as much support for a license (promoted or not the following season)
With the uncertainty of relegation from SL (first season) and ultimately then the licenses onwards, I’d hazard a guess that youth development probably didn't really get going until after this period. Plus no doubt, a lot of the best young'uns out there will still be coming through from the time of FC's dominance. In theory we should be seeing 'our' products come through from this/next season onwards. If not, we have no excuse - other than we need to try harder.
Up to this point we’ve picked up other clubs’ castoffs (if you like) and being heavily reliant on overseas players. But you must understand from getting promotion we really have been fighting to catch up on just about all fronts and in comparison to other ‘seasoned’ SL sides – some of who have had the luxury of having Sky monies and SL spin offs for the years we’ve been surviving on gates ranging from 1900-2500 > We haven’t done too bad.
Please bear with us.