The Academies

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The Academies

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sat Feb 04, 2017 1:06 am

I'm not 100% sure but can we sign players from Glasgow's academy? And who gets the players from the borders/caledonia ones? Seems a bit random.

For example, Josh Henderson for the under20s was excellent and apparently been going well for Hawks. Glasgow have Russell for another year (at least) and apparently Hastings for next year so he's third choice at best. If he continues to go well can we pick him up and give him time with us with the view to becoming the 10 that revitalises Edinburgh.

Same with Graham who's with the borders academy, like Hogg he's from Hawick and plays with the same electricity. Let's get him from the under20s and Hawick and have an electric back three with Hoyland, Graham and Kinghorn. There's no point in signing Scholes/Helu/Northam/Allen if we have kids in the academy who can potentially be far better players.

It's time to revitalise a team going nowhere with fearless young talent, I think this year is pretty much a write off so let's prepare for next year and let's prepare for next year with the best young talent we can get.
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Re: The Academies

Postby GaryIPA on Sat Feb 04, 2017 10:24 am

I think they would go where they're told
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Re: The Academies

Postby dolf_lundgren on Sat Feb 04, 2017 11:29 am

With Hastings and what looks like a new Saffer of a simialr age coming there is little logic in Henderson going to Glasgow. Depending on how much Baggot is rated and whether Tovey is here next year he may well be in the ideal spot.

A lot also depends on the view of Kinghorn. I would have liked to have seen him given time last nght, he could not have been worse than Tovey who looked like he didnt want to be there.
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Re: The Academies

Postby royc on Sat Feb 04, 2017 12:37 pm

The academies are aligned with the Pro teams, Edinburgh and Borders with ER, West and Caledonia with GW. (Think 'Edinburgh Reivers' and 'Glasgow Caledonian' for the history and maths). There are next to no 'transfers' from one to t'other. (The only exception AFAIK is Hunter-Hill, a North Berwick/Stu-Melville boy who is in the Glasgow academy, probably because he is doing his degree in Glasgow).

This is probably a sound arrangement. The boys play in district academy teams and develop a district ethos. The ones in the east are under the eye of the ER coaches, as those in the west are under that of GW coaches, they monitor who might step up to a pro contract. This is the same system as Ireland and Wales (and NZ etc), where the academies are fiercely regional, this gives the pro teams roots in the community and prevents them all squabbling about which young aspirant goes where (and with what inducements!).

It would be very sensible for ER to promote a good crop of academy players for next season, get a bit of home-grown talent with their feet on the ladder. In an ideal world, the squad could have as many as a dozen younger players as 3rd or 4th picks, one per position. Taking 'young' arbitrarily as 22 or under, ER currently have six - Kinghorn (20), Dean (22), Cosgrove (22), Carmichael (21), Bradbury (21) and Ritchie (20), all
promising lads. Does this mean promote another six?

No it doesn't, because promotion from the academies is not automatic, it is primarily the boys who are standouts in the U20s, plus any very promising outsiders, plus vacancies being available. This season, there were just four - Malcolm and Cummings at GW (maybe Nick Grigg too, or was he the previous season?), Cosgrove and Carmichael at ER. A few of the academy boys will get a berth in a Championship club, one or two might get a contract in the AP, most will play for Premier clubs in the domestic league, only a limited number will get a pro contract with ER or GW.

There are a dozen ER academy/ex-academy backs alone who might be in the reckoning, but I doubt if more than two or three would be deemed good enough for a pro contract.
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Re: The Academies

Postby hp18 on Sat Feb 04, 2017 12:45 pm

dolf_lundgren wrote:With Hastings and what looks like a new Saffer of a simialr age coming there is little logic in Henderson going to Glasgow. Depending on how much Baggot is rated and whether Tovey is here next year he may well be in the ideal spot.

A lot also depends on the view of Kinghorn. I would have liked to have seen him given time last nght, he could not have been worse than Tovey who looked like he didnt want to be there.

Hastings is still just a rumour tbf. More than enough room for Henderson through here ;)
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Re: The Academies

Postby gowrie on Sat Feb 04, 2017 5:41 pm

There shouldn't be any real impediment to signing across academies. All contracts are done through the SRU, so if one team has a need of a player, then they should be able to make an offer. Obviously though you'd have a first dibs system to prevent bidding wars.
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Re: The Academies

Postby royc on Sun Feb 05, 2017 3:51 pm

gowrie wrote:There shouldn't be any real impediment to signing across academies. All contracts are done through the SRU, so if one team has a need of a player, then they should be able to make an offer. Obviously though you'd have a first dibs system to prevent bidding wars.


That sounds sensible enough and contractually yes, the SRU could probably shunt most players east or west if there is a vacancy. In reality, there are two practical hurdles.

One is that there are only a handful of boys adjudged ready to step up each season and they are largely already earmarked for their own Pro team. There is not a surplus of talented guys crying out for a starting berth for the pro teams to compete over.

Another is that the boys are already contracted members of their pro club's academy. I would think the Glasgow ones are all Gregor's men, closely under his supervision and dying to play for the Warriors' Army above all, don't know how enthusiastic they would be about being shunted around. And Embra should be the same, putting down local roots and being the team the school players in Lothians and Borders really want to play for, rather than selection and deployment being a central SRU thing.

Sure, if you get a situation where one club has two standout players in the same position, would make sense to transfer one to the other Pro team. Though of course the coach might say, well I'll give young Blair a contract this term, young Cusiter needs to go off to LS for a season and he'll get his turn next year - as the HC's are not going to enthusiastically give away their promising young players!

I think the 'first dibs' rule applies and that means there won't be many east-west switches.
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Re: The Academies

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sun Feb 05, 2017 6:34 pm

royc wrote:
Another is that the boys are already contracted members of their pro club's academy. I would think the Glasgow ones are all Gregor's men, closely under his supervision and dying to play for the Warriors' Army above all, don't know how enthusiastic they would be about being shunted around. And Embra should be the same, putting down local roots and being the team the school players in Lothians and Borders really want to play for, rather than selection and deployment being a central SRU thing.



I think most players would bite your hand off for a pro deal at Edinburgh from Caledonia/Glasgow/Borders academy. Toonie is going to Scotland in a few months, there's no telling if Rennie rates you as highly (we need to sort our coaching out too of course). The dream is to play pro rugby and if Edinburgh are giving you that chance whereas Glasgow aren't it's something to think about.

I also don't think guys that are 18/19/20 will have grown up massive fans of either Edinburgh or Glasgow, they grow up dreaming of Scotland. Glasgow is a much better place to play right now but young guys are going to pick the team that gives them the best chance of realising their Scotland goals. For a kid who is 3rd/4th in the pecking order with world class players ahead of them they have something to consider.
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Re: The Academies

Postby New Gunner on Mon Feb 06, 2017 9:48 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:
royc wrote:
Another is that the boys are already contracted members of their pro club's academy. I would think the Glasgow ones are all Gregor's men, closely under his supervision and dying to play for the Warriors' Army above all, don't know how enthusiastic they would be about being shunted around. And Embra should be the same, putting down local roots and being the team the school players in Lothians and Borders really want to play for, rather than selection and deployment being a central SRU thing.



I'm sure if an academy kid saw his way blocked at Glasgow, the SRU would facilitate a switch if that's what they wanted.

I'm sure this is probably an old 'Huttonesque' sore to reopen, but how was it that a Hawick boy like Hogg ended up at Glasgow - please tell me Bradley didn't pass him up (like he did Maitland)?

On a related note, it's always been a little odd that Howe of Fife products like the Hornes and Fusaro were aligned to Glasgow due to the region thing, yet there are plenty of Fifers making the trip over the bridge to watch Embra on a Friday night.
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Re: The Academies

Postby Sonicboom on Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:51 pm

I'm fairly sure Fusaro was originally aligned to Edinburgh, or at least played a game or two for us, but we went (correctly in my view) with Roddy Grant instead so he ended up at Glasgow.
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Re: The Academies

Postby germain on Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:34 pm

When Kennedy was loaned to Glasgow, made a great impression and got capped, I'm pretty sure that Townsend wanted to sign him. And I think that the chief of Edinburgh's academy blocked the move to sign him at Edinburgh.
Honestly, it would have been better for him (to sign at Glasgow).
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Re: The Academies

Postby royc on Tue Feb 07, 2017 1:09 pm

New Gunner wrote:


On a related note, it's always been a little odd that Howe of Fife products like the Hornes and Fusaro were aligned to Glasgow due to the region thing, yet there are plenty of Fifers making the trip over the bridge to watch Embra on a Friday night.


The reason the Caledonia boys go to Warriors is to give the two Pro teams a broadly equal pool of potential recruits - and the recruits a broadly equal chance of getting a Pro place.

This because Edinburgh/Borders have traditionally been the main rugby areas and provided the majority of school, age-grade and international players. This may change in time, due to current SRU and club efforts, but it hasn't yet. As things stand, the academy split works fairly evenly from the Pro teams' perspective, here are a few indicators:

Stage 1/2 academy players (male)
Edinburgh/Borders 24
West/Caledonia 25

Stage 3 academy players (incl those on loan to LS)
Edinburgh/Borders 16
West/Caledonia 11

Schools Conference/Borders Conference -
Edinburgh 18 schools, Borders 8 total 26
West 12 schools, Caledonia 8 total 20

U20 team v Ireland
Edinburgh/Borders players 12
West/Caledonia players 9
Anglos 2

Premier League clubs (promotion route for many young players)-
Edinburgh/Borders 7
West/Caledonia 3

If academy players from north of the Forth went to ER, ER would have an even larger academy but GW a pretty meagre one.

The current arrangement seems sensible enough, to me anyway.
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Re: The Academies

Postby kenedy on Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:55 am

As GaryIPA said they would go where they're told....
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