We lack joined-up thinking about our homegrown talent
SMITH WANTS SPORT-WIDE RETHINK ON DEVELOPMENT
Tony Smith shared his frustration after Hull FC’S reserve grade game against Huddersfield Giants was called off during the international weekend at the end of last month.
Smith was preparing to field a strong side with many of his fringe and younger players needing the game time to get some form and confidence back and try and force their way into first-team selection.
Instead, the game was postponed at the request of Huddersfield with no reason given.
Hull next face Newcastle Thunder on Sunday, meaning some of Hull’s young talent and out-of-form players will have gone a month without playing.
“It was very frustrating, “Smith told the Mail. “I don’t know all the circumstances but it was disappointing. It was disappointing for all of those players who need and who want to play.
“It’s tough for them. It’s tough sitting out and not having an avenue to show the coach that ‘I’m ready to go and I’ve improved.’ Some of those players need to get into form.
“It’s not great when someone is out of form and not being selected, to sit out for weeks and not play, all they get to do instead is train and that can become frustrating. They ask me what they can do and I say to them to train hard, show the right attitude and be ready when it’s their turn again.
“If you’re able to get a game and put some of those practices into a competition game and something more significant than training against your own mates, it makes it a lot more worthwhile and more effective.
“It is frustrating but that’s what we’ve got. We haven’t really got a genuine reserve grade competition. It’s pretty much as you see. If you’ve got enough players to fulfil a fixture, you fulfil it, if you don’t, you don’t. It’s not ideal but that’s the situation that we find ourselves in.”
Smith has felt that frustration for years. Coaching the British game for over two decades, Smith has been a big advocate for youth development.
Hull have seen that already in Davy Litten, who took his chance and who has played six Super League games this year and not looked back. But whilst Litten has shone, it’s been harder for others like Jack Brown to force their way in.
“I’m all for having a reserve grade if we’re going to finance it properly and put the right infrastructures in,”
Smith continued. “It needs to be well thought out and that’s never really happened since 20-odd years ago when I first arrived and we had an A-team and even then it wasn’t completely ideal.
“Players were playing on a Wednesday night when you had them in a full-time squad. The ideal scenario would be to have your reserve grade play on the same day as your first grade and that way all the players are on the same programme and can stick to a similar sort of training pattern. It does cause disruption to development when the games are played on different days and weeks etc. The size of squads and how small our squads are also make it difficult to have a genuine reserve-grade competition.”
Smith has again called for the sport to be more joined up in how it wants to develop and produce talent from a young age but also into players’ early 20s, with Smith believing a lot of talent is lost due to a lack in most cases of patience and perseverance.
“This is about having a joined-up strategy in the whole league - how do we develop young people for our game and create more superstars?” Smith added. “That all needs to be thought out. Reserve grade ties into that. The strategy keeps changing every two, three or four years. Academies change every few years.
“We’re not sure what we want as a sport. We develop players late. We mature late. We often make decisions on young people at 18 or 19. If they don’t make it by then, then they’re gone. We don’t resource it enough.
“Some of young people start to bloom and blossom at 22 or 23 but we don’t resource that at all.
“I’ve got no problem with overseas or marquee signings and owners who can afford to spend their money in that respect, we need some of those players, but there needs to be a certain allocation of money on homegrown. We’ve got to make sure we keep producing homegrown talent, every club has a responsibility to produce more players.
“I just don’t think we’re all joined up, even the latest criteria, the biggest flaw and hole in it is that we don’t take into account producing young players in our area. We should be assessed on that. It’s the biggest hole I can see.”