I quite like the Northern Rail Cup idea though, it's another idea I've suggested before. It would give the Super League kids a real goal to test themselves against not only Championship 1 but Championship sides as well and I reckon it would be very well supported.

Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I think at one point in the 80's Rovers and FC had suggested putting their youth/reserve teams into the lower league. But I think the suggestion was to form a completely new team in a developmental area (Goole, I think).

Could doing something like this possibly help the RFL get the extra teams it needs for it's restructuring aims? Could Harlequins under 20's link up with Hemel should they wish to join the league and help them with coaching, players etc? I am not saying this is the answer, but it could possibly work. If something like this did happen, I would think that the u20 league would need to be abolished, but I would hope that it would be a requirement for the Super League team to give funding to the venture rather than looking at it as a cost cutting exercise.

I agree, that would be a better idea. Paying to watch in a competitive cup match, would be far more likely to happen than paying to watch them in a run of the mill league match and your own super league team also.

Why do fans seem to have this compulsion to fix what they perceive as being wrong with parts of the game , nothing to do with themselves , like constantly suggesting the Cumbrian clubs merge , when they are 40 odd miles apart , and having kids playing against team 2 divisions below them

Nut jobs the lot of you

Lets think outside the box, why not get rid of the under 20,s? Let super league clubs have only 25/30 man squads. That would leave the production of young players to the amatures (where I belive most is done anyway) the progression to the top should go through the semi pro clubs. The semi pro clubs make money from transfers into super League clubs & also provide a worth while competition for us fans. The long term aim is to add more teams to superleague on the American NFL model. The only problem I envisage is getting the right type of coaching to the youg kids but that is where the RFL should play its part.

As your idea is similar to the much ( on here ) praised richest sport in the world , your post will be ignored , in theory a brilliant idea , but totally unworkable

Will you lot just bloody leave the Championships and Northern Rail alone please!!

The only idea I could see working on here would be for the Under 20's to join in a cup competition, but I'd want that as a separate competition (Regal Trophy anyone?) rather than replacing the Northern Rail.

No, no ,no ,no Matt , they all want to ' fix ' us , because let's face it SL is perfik , innit

Is that the one York stuck 130 points past ? , obviously up to the required standard then

Which one did York beat?

Northumbria. Who beat Loughborough in the previous round if memory serves me right.

No. I suspect geography would restrict both of those from getting hold of many current or ex pro or academy players.

Current possibly but why wouldn't ex-academy or ex-pro players study there, particularly given Loughborough's status in terms of it's sports degrees etc?

Wether they would or wouldn't , teams of kids playing semi pro clubs doesn't work , yes they might get the odd decent result pre season , but from a development point of view and a safety point of view it shouldn't happen

didnt Wigan put 106 past Whitehaven? maybe semi-pro teams arent up to the required standard to play pro teams, maybe from a development and safety point of view it shouldnt happen?

Well it would be stupid to put them in a league situation yes , but in your analogy it was still men against men , just that one lot of men not being as fit as the others

nobody is asking them to be put in a league situation, similarly nobody is asking Uni teams to join the championships. I agree, in a league situation week in week out a Uni team and an U20 team would struggle with the physicality. In a one off game they wont.

Do you have any evidence or any examples of long term injuries being an issue when one off games between Uni sides and semi-pro sides are played?

The OP suggests exactly that they be put in a league situation , as for injuries , no , have you ?

and we agree that U20's would struggle with the physicality, especially in the forwards, which is one of the reasons we should look at feeder clubs rather than U20's with a mix between experienced and young players.


no, i dont which is why i dont think it is an issue.

All I can think of is that you're confusing Universities with Sixth form colleges.

I'm not confusing anything , and trying to do the Smokey tactic of ' water muddying ' wont work either

So why do you keep calling Universities, in which final year students who went straight from A levels will be 21/22, and many other students even older "kids" ?

I agree that using feeder clubs would be a better system than sticking the under 20s into the league system. SL clubs could keep their youth systems in the form that they are now (otherwise they would need 3 or 4 feeder clubs each) and each could either set up a new club in a nearby town or link up with any pre existing club willing to act as a feeder club that would then be used to send the cream of their under 20s on either dual reg or season long loans. For example Wigan could set up a Chorley feeder club, somebody already mentioned a Goole club to feed one of the Hull clubs. If willing clubs like Bramley (with Leeds) or Warrington Wizards (with Wire) (just as examples, not insisting that they should) could link up as feeder clubs and join the leagues. This would then give us a greater number of clubs in the championships whilst not forcing ambitious clubs to act as feeders. By careful selection of towns for feeder clubs we could also use such a system to push out gradually from the M62 corridor both to the north and the south of the 'heartlands' and mean new clubs were still fairly local to their opponents helping to build local rivalry and interest.

iirc we've played warrington & huddersfield 'reserves' in pre season friendlies in recent years...and tanked em' both


just sayin

The issue you have with feeders from existing lower league clubs is that those clubs often have an dislike bordering on hatred for anything involving the "big" club in their area, usually from when the two clubs were rivals and on a similar footing some time in their history.

Trying to convince Hunslet for example that they might want to serve as Leeds feeder club is likely to be met with a two-word answer followed by an anti-semitic expletive.

I'd imagine similar reactions (without the expletive) asking Keighley to do the same with Bradford or Swinton with Salford.