Last night the under 20's were told that no reserve team was going to be run next year with only an under 19's team representing the Bulls. This is seemingly what Super League want with their clubs using Championship clubs who will run an under 23's team as their reserves acting as feeder clubs. All Bulls current under 20's who are ineligable for next years under 19's yet still under contract will play for eg Dewsbury under 23's (or first team if good enough). Nothing has been decided as to the club that the Bulls use as this depends on whether they are in Super League or not and could be a feeder club themselves if they end up in the Championship.

What is unfortunate is that all players whose contracts end this year have been told to look elsewhere, this means I have been told that most if not all the local players such as Rob Hawthorn, Jordan Aitchison and Matt Bailey have left the club.

If this is what all clubs have to do then it is a bad day for Rugby League in my opinion.

Once again we see young players let down by the RFL.

With the club not knowing which division they will be in, why have they told the U20s there won't be a team next year? It also seems a bit early to let players go if they might, in fact, have a U23 side.

Have they been given some unofficial 'nod' to prepare for a season in SL or is this whole farrago just becoming more and more bizarre?

Left hand, meet right hand!

Right hand, perform standard reciprocating gesture applied to personages deemed similar to bankers.

What's the idea behind this change? It's only a couple of seasons since the last one isn't it?

My Mates lad was in Bulls under 16s and all have had to be released and Leeds only signed 6 of our 16s when they normally sign 15 ish.
A lot of disappointed lads I hear and some will probably be lost to our game.

I think they thought the much heralded U20s wasn't providing the quality comp for players they envisaged.

As such they hope to farm out players over 19 to Championship sides where the standard is better. In an ideal world that will mean those that don't make it in SL aren't lost to the game completely. Those that are good enough get better preparation for playing in SL by playing more open age rugby of a standard better than the U20s was.

This of course depends on championship sides and SL sides going into it with the best intentions. A SL side could just use the championship side as a feeder club if the rules aren't stringent and see further interest lost at championship level as line ups change on a weekly basis and people see clubs as a "A" team rather than a club in their own right.

I'm sure there's more to it...

I did wonder whether this would have an effect on the Scholarship teams as not really heard yet what will be happening to the U'14/15s which Cookie Jnr and a few of his team mates had been told they had got into.

Don't let Smokey TA hear you blameing the RFL. They are not responsable for anything that goes on in the game.

My lad was one of the 6 signed so i know a bit about this, think the RFL have got it very wrong

Swinton now 'partnered' with wolves. Apparently can have up to 10 players from warrington.....absolute joke. The current system of 4 dr or loan players is just about ok. This devalues the championship completely and if my club Leigh go down this route and the team is made up of over half from another team then my involvement and interest in RL is finished.

Good luck to him

The second part of the sentence is redundant; The RFL are not responsible. - There, sums it up nicely, job done!

I'd feel the same if we get dumped in the Championship

Could anyone imagine being a feeder team for, say, the Huddersfield Giants? Oh wait....

Damm that is very saddening.

A bit more detail. Clubs' youth setups are ranked red, amber, green from the last franchising report.

As I understood it, only clubs ranked "green" were allowed to form "feeder"relationships with championship clubs.

Only 6 clubs were ranked green - of which Bradford are one, but the deadline for doing this ran out on 31st August so unless we get an extension, we won't be able to set anything up because we have been unable to do anything about it.

They might have relaxed the rules over the last couple of weeks if they suddenly worked out that they have effectively closed 14 u20's teams but only 5 clubs can join the feeder clubs...

14 into 5 doesn't go so well.

didnt we announce some sort of linkup with rochdale last year? dont remember any players going there on dual-reg or loan, but could that linkup have been done with this in mind and did it carry over to the new owners, or just quietly get dropped?

The latter. Some time ago.

Some of the olders members on the forum may remember the time when the whole of RL acted as a feeder operation for Wigan and Uncle Maurice - now that very nearly did kill the game.

Well said I remember they used to sign key players from sides that may have threatened them to only play them in their reserves. Nigel Wright as an example never really got a proper chance there.

TBF Wright would've got a chance if were not for that career ending injury.

However Northernrelic is right. I remember when Wigan signed anybody that was half decent and outbid all other clubs for the top players. Their 'A' Team was better than a lot of Div 1 teams.

My Missus recalls when Wigan signed a player at 16, from our village. A lad she had seen grow up (since she worked in the village at the time) and was already over 6ft at 16. And she said that according to his mother that was also the figure he signed on at, IIRC. This was nearly 20 years ago.

In fairness he DID become a regular, and achieved international honours, before sort of disappearing from view. But what other clubs were paying that sort of money?

Didn't he end up playing union Adey?

I thought I sort of said that when I said he disappeared from view...?