Hull FC’s football manager, Motu Tony, has put faith in the club’s young stars to play a pivotal role in the club’s recruitment process moving forward.
Now in their fourth cycle of recruitment under Lee Radford, their vision of having developing players take senior spots in their squad is beginning to take place.
The likes of Jansin Turgut, Jez Litten and Masi Matongo are among the emerging talent within the club’s ranks, while Nick Rawsthorne was one of four signings in the off-season.
Tony revealed how the club had targeted to have players coming through the ranks at this point, and now hopes they establish themselves as leading stars in black and white moving forward.
“At this stage, in the fourth year, we were hoping to give our players an opportunity to push through, and that’s happening at the moment,” he told TotalRL.
“Our senior players are performing well too. I don’t think you’re ever satisfied in professional sports, but we’re content with where we are and we just need these things with continue to unfold.
“We’ve got to a stage now where we need our younger players to be able to step up and fill the void if our seniors aren’t available for whatever reason. Naturally in sport people move on or stop playing, hopefully some of our younger players can step in and take that position.
“I’m confident that we have the coaches and the support staff to get the best out of our young players. It’s important for them to know that if you want to be in the starting 17 the opportunities are there and the opportunity is there for our young players.”
Tony, who made over 100 appearances during five seasons with the club, shared some insight into how the club’s recruitment decisions work.
“It’s a shared decision-making process. We take into account the chairman’s view, we speak with Lee, his coaches and also the view of our head of performance Paul Hatton. It’s important everyone has their input.
“We discuss who we want, then it’s my job to go out and get the players we identify. We’ve done well. If you can sign more players that come off and settle into the area, you’re doing well and fortunately we’ve been able to do that over the last four seasons.”
