Quote ="jools"This was an idea certain members of the RFL tried to push quite heavily about 4 years ago. A friend of mine in sports science was involved as a consultant to carry out data collection for the RFL supposedly pre a trial of the system. Sadly some clubs were totally against the idea (guess which ones) and so the regional academies were set up-but the idea went no further. I don't know the details of any proposals but know it involved having regional academies and an American style draft system.'"
I can sort of understand why, some clubs can afford, have spent more in time and capital and other resources to improve their talent pathway over the years and are now in positions to be reaping the benefit from that investment. Obviously they wont want to see their investments benefit another club, when perhaps they haven't done as much previously.
Some catchment areas are large and strong and probably develop a decent number of potentially professional standard players each year, but behind that is likely 5 years of investment to bring them to that standard. Is it fair that other clubs stand to benefit from that? I'd say no it is not.
Only way I see a draft style system working from regional centres is if it cash funded partially by the RFL and equally funded by SL clubs. Each club nominates a number of players each year to the system for age groupings. That then brings up the problem of larger or more successful systems and catchment areas potentially missing out on the numbers they wish to bring though.
Also FT clubs in the lower leagues, when do they get their picks. Bradford for example have a strong record of bringing youth players through, would a system such as the above hamper clubs like Bulls, KR, Leigh or any other in the lower echelons with bigger ambitions?
