Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 12:54 pm  

if its true that city play their reserve games at the kc,smc haven't a leg to stand on.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:13 pm  

Several championship sides have been running u23 reserve sides for a couple of years. They would relish the chance to play super league reserve teams

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 1:52 pm  

Cant see the point of limiting it to under 23 unless there is an agreement that you can play 2 or 3 overage players if necessary.
Why not just go back to the A team structure.
I said months ago Hull and HKR should have applied to put a joint team in Championship one playing home games at HKR.That would be better than dual reg and solve a lot of the problems of young players taking the next step to first team football.Probably more economic too than running two under 23 teams.
For me that would have been more acceptable than merging the academy.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 3:48 pm  

This is exactly what is needed and hats off to the clubs who are banding together to make this happen that's why the Aussys produce a chain of good young players the Toyota Cup / Holden cup Queensland cup are all very good grades and Prepare players for NRL they are played before the main games in most cases and even televised maybe we could start by having a double header with the clubs involved.

This has gone someway to restoring some faith in our board who I thought had lost the plot Merging the academy but if the saving from that go into this U23 comp ill be very happy because I know this is needed disparately by good young players who are been lost to the game

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 4:25 pm  

Are we likely to have 17 fit players every week for this team without playing a big chunk of the U19's?

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 4:56 pm  

Sounds positive, good on the club for taking a lead on this.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:08 pm  

Jake the Peg wrote:

Are we likely to have 17 fit players every week for this team without playing a big chunk of the U19's?

That's a very good point. If we have a first team squad of 30 full-timers some fringe players in the 30 will be called into the first team to cover injuries. Maybe we can borrow "our own" players from the U19 but that will leave them short as well.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 6:55 pm  

Jake the Peg wrote:

Are we likely to have 17 fit players every week for this team without playing a big chunk of the U19's?

The u23 teams will include at least 4 'overage' player spots. So we can play the likes of BTW, Turgut , Abdull and a couple of players not in the first team squad. The rest will be made up of the majority of what are our current (older) 19s, the likes of Lancaster, HTW and Dean who, despite being able to do another year in the 19s are too good for that comp.
This will leave the new 17 & 18 year olds in the new 'merged' academy, the likes of Jez Litten etc.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:25 pm  

..... this adds up to as many, if not more, players than we've currently got at this level, and higher earners, I would have thought.

Re: The Return of the A team?? : Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:43 pm  

I wonder who the other clubs would be to participate? Lancs clubs, Bradford, maybe Cas? Really interesting development. It's been suggested that AP has taken the cash for the more junior academy merger to reinvest in this potentially more practical reserve grade competition. No idea whether it's true or not.

One thing I've said for a long time is that there aren't enough occasions for fans to interact with the club now, in days gone by the Alliance games were a good way to maintain fans' regular engagement. Not sure whether this would help bridge that gap in an era of fewer games but it will be interesting to see how it progresses (if it does).