Quote ="Donnyman"Exactly hence SL clubs have development foundations to encourage this in schools and community clubs.........
Puts that one to bed. We need quality in the academy system not quantity......'"
True.
The real failure of the British system is not the Academies it's what the Acadamise miss.
There needs to be a far more obvious pathway for players who are not ready at 17/18/19 but are at 20+.
The best way would be no P&R and the chance for the SL clubs to create genuine tie-ups with Championship clubs to use as feeder clubs. That is all your problems solved at once. The Championship clubs won't need Academise as such, SL clubs won't need a reserve comp. Players will have a genuine platform from which to impress the senior club.
Of course, I totally understand why people baulk at this, thus it will probably never happen. P&R is what I'm used to and it's by far the fairest way to run a competition but with it comes massive instability and short-sighted responses. Its very strength is it's the greatest weakness.
The NRL is full of second-chance players from second-string squads, some of them are now stars, that is not the case in SL and it robs us of a huge IMO talent pool. Not every player is ready at 19 and those that are may not last the course. Those that weren't but are now must be frustrated to hell.
