{"id":318783,"date":"2025-12-16T09:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/318783\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T09:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:40:08","slug":"hull-fc-air-desired-academy-habits-as-areas-of-focus-outlined-and-player-pond-increases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/318783\/","title":{"rendered":"Hull FC air desired academy habits as areas of focus outlined and ‘player pond’ increases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hull FC are looking to bring through more club procuded players.\"HullHull FC Academy player Charlie Thomas.(Image: Hull FC)<\/p>\n

Francis Cummins is backing Hull FC’s latest crop of academy players to kick on and become future first-team stars. The Black and Whites’ under-18s began pre-season training akin to their senior counterparts last month, with Cummins getting to grips with a new group alongside his support staff, one of whom includes club legend Danny Houghton.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the new playing group contains the likes of Caleb Paleaaesina, a highly rated back rower or centre and son of former Hull player Feka Paleaaesina, not to mention half-back Kingsley Sharpe, whom the club acquired on a lengthy deal after graduating from the scholarship system.<\/p>\n

And Cummins, into his third season at Hull, is encouraged by what he’s seen so far \u2013 albeit well aware of the nurturing and development still to go.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Hull Live, Cummins said: “Every year is different, but it (pre-season) has been good so far. We’ve got a big influx of first years and they are finding their feet at the moment, while the second years are becoming more leaders.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got some good players. We’re going to be a young team next year but there is some talent in there. I think a few of them can really push on and we can get some good potential first-teamers out of this group.<\/p>\n

“That’s my job: to produce first-team players and give them experience. We’re trying our best to do that.”<\/p>\n

As for pre-season itself, Hull’s academy have trained on the field and in the gym and worked on various concepts of fitness from Pilates to wrestling. But above all else is a desire to embed the qualities that will set their players up for what’s to come.<\/p>\n

“We layer it up,” Cummins said. “It’s basic, very basic; we don’t go over complicated. We’ve got a 16-week pre-season, and we build it up as we go along.<\/p>\n

“What we do before Christmas<\/a> is to try to get all those fundamentals in and that will continue throughout the year. We’re basic with repetition. We want to create habits that will give the players a good start in their careers.<\/p>\n

“We’re not looking at team things at the moment. We’re looking at effort-based things around the ruck defence and little bits of edge play. We’re nowhere near where we need to be but that’s fine at the moment. We’re just looking at how hard they can work in the systems we’re giving them and how they can talk under pressure. It’s as simple as that.”<\/p>\n

Outlining the desired characteristics and areas of focus this pre-season, Cummins continued: “We look for talent; that’s the obvious one, but their attitude to play the game is big. I think attitude is the one, and temperament is another.<\/p>\n

“Modern-day players can worry about things; social media is one, and there are a lot of other pressures, but when you think of the players that have stepped up over the last few years, and the Kemp twins (Callum and Lloyd) are a really good example \u2013 they just don’t get flustered.<\/p>\n

“They might make errors and that’s part of it, but they don’t get flustered. Ben Johnson is another one. That’s what we’re looking for.<\/p>\n

“Players get exposed to all sorts of things now, and for the academy players, the games are a lot quicker than what they are used to and they will be expected to deliver in their job and deliver in what they’re good at.<\/p>\n

“But there are no two players that are the same; some players remind you of other players, but there is no blueprint or factory that produces certain players with certain skills. It’s all different every year, but as a group, I’m really enjoying coaching them.<\/p>\n

“We’re just trying to bring them out of themselves, and they are \u2013 they’re getting more confident and they’re talking and stuff like that. That’s the challenge at the moment, but we’re getting there.”<\/p>\n

As well as the local scholars stepping up to the academy, Hull have also invested in their squad from afar. They have signed three Welsh players in Charlie Cullen-Thomas, Joshua Harding, and William Mathers, while their makeup goes way outside of the city boundary to West Yorkshire and beyond.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a couple of Welsh players and we’re starting to look in other ponds, which is encouraging,” Cummins added. “That’s what other big clubs do. We’re not just investing in lads from Hull \u2013 we’ve now got lads from Wales and from the fringe of Castleford who are showing up well.<\/p>\n

“They want the opportunity more than other people; they’ve missed out somewhere else, and they’ve got the fire in the belly. That bodes well for the Black and Whites.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hull FC are looking to bring through more club procuded players.Hull FC Academy player Charlie Thomas.(Image: Hull FC)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[126164,20805,5903,20370,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-318783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-francis-cummins","9":"tag-hull-fc","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-league","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}