So you'd rather pay a tenner to watch your team play the Cas u 20 s , than play a current Championship side like Rochdale or Swinton ?

If they provide a better game to watch, then absolutely.

The admission is £4 (or free on your season ticket) and the attendances probably match most Championship 1 figures. Hard to tell really because they don't announce the crowds. The Under 20s Grand Final got 2,501 at DW Stadium in 2009.

I think your idea is good in theory, but I’m not sure if it will be in practice. As I’ve said on a previous post, I think that we need to make the heartlands stronger by investing in defunct and failing clubs instead of propping up the championship with academy teams from the super league.

Finally Saddened makes a good point about chucking the likes of Salford, Crusaders and Wakefield in there with them. The fact that we have mediocre teams in the top league says more about the health of rugby league if anything and this won’t make it any better IMO. It’ll just see the clubs with the best academy teams getting stronger, whilst the rest get weaker.

This idea is along the right lines IMO, but wouldnt work.

A couple of obvious problems would be firstly the movement between the two leagues would become a mess. Under this proposal we could theoretically have the team who finished 7th being promoted and the teams who finish 5th, 6th relegated really wouldnt make any sense for that to happen.

Also, you cant be throwing a pack of U20's up against a pack of experienced pro's. They would get battered and it would likely damage their development.

Also, I cant see it being easy to sell your club if your firsts are getting beaten by an u20's side.

I think the answer is more obvious and closer to continental football option.

Firstly we introduce more clubs to championship/1 level. We need to be looking at having 30-40 clubs in these lower tiers.

Secondly we give SL clubs 'feeder clubs'. Each of our SL clubs has 2/3 lower level clubs who are their feeder clubs, there are no restrictions on movements between these clubs, they can share facilities, coaches, and any players freely.

If a club so chooses it can decide not to be a 'feeder club' if it feels its independence or prospect for a future franchise would be damaged.

Its should be pretty simple, get rid of U20's/reserves and use the lower league sides to blood the very best youngsters by having them playing with and against experienced pros without the pressure and physicality of SL.

Players get experience, clubs get players, everybody wins.

Do you go ? , home and away ? , and if it was a tenner instead of 4 quid , or free would you go ?

The main issue with this idea is that we'd have open age teams playing against what essentially are junior teams, which is never a good thing from any perspective. For this to work it would need NRL-style reserve teams, which sort of defeats the object.

Good. That'll make for a stronger Super League and a better test side that might actually be able to compete with Australia and New Zealand. We haven't done that for the past 4 years or so at all and that's because the youth system has been rotten.

It won't necessarily make lower sides weaker either because all those kids in the "best academy sides" as you put it are not all going to earn first team places at those best clubs. A lot of them are going to end up signing for the lower clubs, meaning they improve and thus meaning a bigger pool of talent to choose from.

Hang on a minute ! , when I argued against University teams playing in the Challenge cup for the very same reason , you argued against me , make your bloody mind up ?

I've never advocated senior players playing against a bunch of juniors.

Well I do hope that all this leads to something positive. But I still don’t think that the idea that’s been touted about on twitter would work. But I wouldn’t be against it if it happened, I’d just embrace it like everything else I disagree with in this sport that’s not too bad at all!

We already have clubs finishing mid table getting promoted , see this Thursday

And clubs finishing 9 th being relegated when a club finishes below them doesn't , see Leigh two years ago , and probably again this year

Yet we are happy to see Uni students ( with much less size and experience than SL Academy players ) play against pros in the CC

Quite correct , the semi pro club would cease to exist as such

I go watching the Under 20s every home match but not away. But I'd definitely pay a tenner to watch Wigan Under 20s v Swinton for example on a Sunday afternoon at Orrell and I'd probably go away as well. Maybe not every week but certainly this side of the pennines.

Playing most of our games on Friday's their is a huge void of boredom for me on Sunday afternoon and I think Wiganers would love a team playing competitive rugby on Sunday afternoons at Orrell. The ground is certainly good enough (with a bit of effort), I mean it hosted top flight union for years and if that can get decent attendances in this town, this idea will too!

I know your not buying this idea but I just can't get why you don't think seeing the next Sam Tomkins or Kyle Eastmond at your ground on a Sunday can't be better that what you currently see. Swinton v South Wales or Swinton v Wigan Under 20s - I reckon the latter would double or treble the attendance of the former at least and it would be a far better game.

As for the Under 20s getting battered well I already gave a great example. Our Under 20s went to Barrow pre season and won 32-24. 2,000 turned up, it was 300 more than turned up when Barrow played Leigh and a decent number of Wiganers made the effort as well. Our Under 20s also nearly drew with Leigh's first team the year before. Those clubs are higher standard than Championship 1 and they were great games.

but we dont pretend to have P+R based on league position in that situation, where we would in this one.

there is a big difference between what happened with Leigh and a club being relegated finishing above one being promoted.

there is a big difference between a one off game a season full of them.

Its the same logic which we allow semi-pro players to play in the CC, but we wouldnt allow a team full of them to compete in SL.

In fact we allow academy players to play a few games at very young ages, Kevin Sinfield played at 16, would we allow and would it be healthy for him to have played a full SL season at that age? surrounded by nobody above 20? Was he harmed by being blooded through limited gametime at a young age?

I'm Sheffield fan & i'm not keen on the idea. The idea of watching us play Hull KR under 20's, or whoever is a bit demeening and doesn't sound interesting to me. Doesn't have any appeal or interest for me.

Although I think maybe having them in the Northern Rail Cup. off the top of my head I don't know the exact number of teams but say have an even mix of 2 CC, 2 CC1 and 2 Under 20's teams in a group in the group stages and the top 2 from each group go through to the quarters...?

Play the games through the season rather than a warm up to the real season and still have the final in Blackpool at the end of July.

Just an idea but would add a new edge to the NRC, perhaps increase attendances and for SL clubs who usually don't have the chance to get to Wembley or Old Trafford it would be a good day out for them!

Thoughts?

scrap the NRC and bring back the lancashire & yorkshire cups for championship,C1 & SL under 20's


simples

I'm not keen on it. I just don't see fans of semi-pro sides turning up to see their team play against Super League U20 sides every other week. Likewise I can't see fans of Super League clubs wanting to pay £12 or so to watch their U20's play away from home.

In the last 2 pre seasons at Keighley we've had Saints and Br*dford put young teams out against us and they've been battered.

I like the idea of ditching the NRC for a resurrection of the Yorkshire/Lancashire cup with Super League U20's involved though.

The last Uni team I saw was populated with a number of current and ex pro academy players.

Tell us why it's a stupid idea then, rather than just dismiss it out of hand.

promote a team on the basis of performance on the field, itll never work

i would worry for the development of a team of inexperienced 17/18 yr old kids that ended up playing too high a level on the back of performances from 20yr olds the season before who are no longer eligible to play for the team

Who in there right mind would pay £20 a week to watch their super league team, and another £15 to watch their academy play in the championship?

It simply would not happen. Sure the championship sides would still have the fans attending, as that is their only league games. But the under 20 sides will not be well supported thus make a mockery of the crowds anyway.

To add to this, the RFL are trying to raise crowds in super league, not reduce them. What if fan "A" did decide to attend this championship game if it's at home and the first team are away from home. All that does is reduce the super league crowds.

It's a great idea in an ideal world without financial commitments and travelling. But in reality it is just another fantasy idea.

Surely how much they charge to watch their home Under 20 games would be for the SL club to set?

There's no split of income between home and away teams like there is for cup games, so there would be nothing to stop SL sides playing their Under 20 games with free admission of they wanted to.

So what about championship sides home games?

If crowds are not deemed good enough now, surely you don't seriously believe that more fans would attend a Halifax versus Bradford academy team, than what would attend a Halifax versus Dewsbury game for example?

That same Bradford academy team is not going to have fans going over there to pay £15 when they are forking out another £20 for their teams super league game that weekend.

What you bringing the Championship into it for? I was talking about Championship 1 where the crowds can't really get much worse anyway. The average attendance yesterday was 423! The travelling aspect may well be an argument, it would all be in the pricing, but I'm pretty confident that having Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Leeds (even with Under 20s sides) would significantly boost that average of 423 because the standard of rugby would improve!

I see your points regarding attendances and a better standard of rugby, but I just don't think it could work.

I think a better option would be to put the u20 sides/uni teams into the Northern Rail competition, I think to put them into Championship 1 would be a mistake.

Also, I think that maybe the Challenge Cup could be reformed. Possibly putting the u20s sides in the opening rounds, then in the second round add the lower leagues, then add the Championship teams then the SL teams. However, even though it is highly unlikely, it could potentially lead to say Saints v Saints u20s or Wigan v Wigan u20s.

It's just a thought though.