Can see your POV obvioulsy, and yes its all about balance.



But its surely a lot lot cheaper to bring your own youngsters through to the first team than to go buy in from outside? After all, our overseas quota is full and who realistically might we have brought in this year? A winger and a centre would be top of the list I guess...what British players of suitable quality/cost combination realistically might have been available? And would it have been worth it to compromise the future, since I don't think there was any "cheaper" option, just to stay at Woodhouse Grove - and those Bulls guys we saw seemed to think that was a defo no-no, for whatever reason.



Maybe we could have signed a couple more journeymen - but that is what the club has been accused of too much over recent years, and the reason we had to sign them was stated by Macca and Medders at the forum before last as being precisely because we did not then have the youth development pipeline.



As you say, its all down to balance. When we were sat in 4th this discussion was not taking place. Now we are languishing back in 8th it inevitably is. We seem to have had bad luck yet again with injuries - how much of our salary cap was sat in the stand until recently, again? - but there does seem to be something else too, as last year. Everything I hear suggests to me that without the investment in the future made this year the future would have been very significantly compromised. But only the history books will be able to say whether the club got the balance right, or whether they did not?

In my opinion the new training facilities will be hugely beneficial to the Bulls in the long term. The club tried buying a successful team on dodgy foundations, that's why we are where we are now. The club are in the process of trying to build success that is sustainable and created from ground up, and unfortunately that takes time which is something that a few supporters seem unwilling to tolorate.



Since the start of BullBuilder I have been in the priviledged position of being able to speak to various personel at the club, and they are just as passionate about rebuilding a successful team as any fan, it's just that they have to deal with the realities of making it happen. I have also visited the new training facility and whilst it may have once been a classroom block it has been gutted to its shell and inside it's basically brand new, and the Bulls have got the facilities they wanted that are the best in the league (which incidentally has been confirmed by a few players from other clubs).



The club need our support now more than ever. I would urge anyone who cares about building success at the club to contribute to the youth development in some way, be that by buying raffle tickets, joining the lottery or by joining BullBuilder (where your contribution will be spent by fans, not the club). They are the future of our club.



Just remember: in a few years this will all have been worth it. Just keep supporting our team.

I would just add that someone who whined about the actual building being "10 years old not new" really would be nit-picking at Olympic level. I mean, give me a break; is that meant to actually be some sort of a [icriticism[/i of the building or its acquisition, ffs? Is it meant to imply (""icon_wink.gif that it [iisn't[/i a state of the art facility, simply because it was previously a classroom block? Words fail me. I really do have trouble understanding where some people are coming from, sometimes.

And with exquisite timing, here is Connor Murphy reporting Medders in the T&A saying...well you've already read it on here:

The commitment to youth is great and attracting quality young players is what we need to do. The question is, after attracting them can we develope a good mix of players to feed into the first team and are we prepared to give them their chances. In the last ten years we have struggled to do this, aside from Leon all we seem to bring on is Props, second rowers and centre/fullbacks. It's the creative players and speedsters we fail to nurture. If the new facilities and set-up addresses this then great but at the moment it's more of the same as far as I can see. Crossley, Burgess, Burgess, Whitehead, Olbison, Donaldson, Addy and Wardle. Southernwood had to be imported and we are relying on too many players out of position.

I think the latter part of this thread is very helpful and informative and involves a debate we're now familiar with, which to simplify it a little is - invest now for future success, with the risk of falling attendances and corporate sponsorship (a risk to the club) or invest everything in success now with the risk of long term unsustainabilty and possible insolvency and no guarantee of success (a risk to the club).



I admit that I am ambivalent on the training facilities against spending the full cap argument - there are arguments on both sides in terms of which is most likely to breed success and which is most attractive to juniors. However, I imagine Macca has been very influential in pushing new facilities as he has enormous confidence in 'technical' fixes including the much vaunted in game monitoring of players (Andy Lynch mustn't have a heart beat!). His belief in technical approaches also came out very strongly in his pitch to the RFL for the England post. It seems to me that this is his selling point - 'I've done the research and if we can get this or that it'll make all the difference'. I tend to have more faith in old fashioned team building, motivation and leadership skills, and I'm hoping that whoever the new guy is he can combine supporting youth with turning out a motivated, well balanced first team that shares the workload and gets people back through the turnstiles.



We might be able to wait for youth and we probably have little choice, but once people get out of the habit of turning up it requires a huge amount of effort to get them back.

At the moment only Whitehead & Donaldson look anything special to me, (not having seen the Burgii in action yet). And one of those was taken from Cumbria.

TBF only Whitehead and Donaldson have seen extended 1st team rugby.



On the training facilities side of things it would be nice to see some more publicity about it. I'm not sure if the club were holding back until works were completed but if this were publicised a bit more it may help give a bit of context and put some minds at rest. If it really is the best in SL then lets bang on about it a bit more.



As has been said above the key is getting the balance right between long and short term investment. I happen to think that this year we have got the balance a bit better with investment in the likes of Orford, L'Strange and Kearney. Unfortunately injuries have made a mess of things.



I remember Leeds put up with some awful hammerings when they were building for the future. Their fans questioned it all the time in the period up to 2004 and then look what happened. The investment bore fruit. I'm hoping for a similar experience at Bradford.

Official opening reasonably imminent, as I understand it. Bullbuilder members may be in for a Brucie Bonus... The gist we got from Ryan and Medders was that they wanted to get the bulk of the work on their "best-kept secret" facility substantially complete first - pretty understandable?



From the piece attributed to Medders on the Bulls site:



"The investment made by the club in the superb facilities at Tong School- now widely acknowledged as the best in the game - will enable us to move in a progressive way with regards to improving the skill of the young players and [iwhen we officially launch the facility, then the general public will see for themselves just what a tremendous job the Bradford Bulls Board of Directors have done in investing in the future off the field.[/i "