With SL clubs now registering entire squads as DR with their ' twins ' , is the Championship at the begining of finally becoming feeder clubs as the NRL clubs have ?

Will we see the SL clubs eventually loaning out their entire junior squads to their ' twins ' resulting in essentially pure feeder clubs in the tiers below SL?

Its looking like it at the moment, wonder if it would be controlled by quota.

i think it began 3 or 4 years ago when clubs like leigh started to use DC players from anywhere and the goings on in this off season have just moved it on massively.

At some point soon, i would say,any players from warrington,wigan,hull,leeds etc will be able to turn out for the feeder/devolopement club,be it to help them back to match fitness if they are established players, or to help the devolopment of younger players.

I hope so. Apart from Fax theres not much going on down there potential-wise.

Many a true word spoken in ' jest '

No jest about it, im serious.

ITS strange if my memory serves me right did not hull and hull kr try to get their A teams in to the league to keep their players fit back in the 80 ts,

maybe this is a better way

Me and you both, however ' jest ' is the only way to deal with the prospect of it

We do seem to be moving to the same situation as they have in Baseball in the US, where the minor league sides are all affiliated to major league teams.

I'd much rather see a system like in European football where Top division's reserve teams are able to play in the same leagues as other Pro/semi pro sides. Wigan & Leeds could probably put out teams in the championship made of kids that would compete very well.

I think they'd lose most games and run the risk of getting injured. A team of 19/20 year olds would get battered by fully grown men.

I disagree. It depends how good they are. Just because they're grown men doesn't need they're bigger or stronger. Possibly not even fitter. Some of these teens are huge. Stars of the future.

Some of them are huge, some of them aren't. But there is a big difference between a young lad as part of a first team playing the odd game against fully grown men and a team of young lads playing every game, week after week, against fully grown men.

I'd agree with Him, the under 19s teams couldn't go in to the Championships as stand alone teams. Don't forget that there is a leap from under 16s to under 19s now where it used to be u15s then u16s then u18s then u20s. Many of the SL under 19s will have 17 year olds who have no other teams to play in playing in them (those lads can't just go away for two years) and the 20year olds can't play for the youth team anymore. Rather than a team of 19 and 20 year olds it would be 17 & 18 year olds mainly and they would get battered by many of the ex-SL veterans now in the Championships. An old style reserve team with about 5 older players in could maybe compete well enough to allow the youngsters to develop but not youth teams.

Yeah but the Burgesses of this world don't need to play in the kiddie league. The late developers do.

You might get 2 or 3 players who can hold there own, but in most cases as a team the consistency of impact from fully grown men would be a damaging one. The younger player no matter how big and strong would have to taken out of the firing line now and again with a few exceptions like Burgess of course.

I think the championship should become a true feeder league but not in respect of simply being a junior partner to SL clubs, but as an independent competition given the responsibility for producing and developing the best Rugby League players we as a game can develop.

I think this will better prepare our young players to step up to SL, i think it would promote a competition to produce the best young players, and i think it would keep some independence for the championships clubs, and give them a clear and valuable position in the game.

Funded by?

The championship clubs themselves.

And dependent on what they were will to actually do, and what format that structure took, the RFL and SL clubs making a contribution.

So bend over and take it basically, nobody will be watching it

Nobody would be watching the championships if the best young players were playing in them?

What crowds do the SL u 20 s get? , and how much do they charge for entrance?

It matters not, the process is already in half way through

They have created a ' death league ' with Championship 1 , all bar 4/5 clubs have no choice but to ' twin ' to attempt to avoid dropping into it, so they will agree to anything ' spun ' in front of them

2 years ago on here people were posting that the DR system was OK as long as it was only 2/3 per club, but would not be happy with anything more, and those same people are now happy to see whole squads DR

Next we will see SL clubs loaning Championship clubs complete junior squads to use as their 1 st team along with 5 DRplayers

Then the process will be complete, the end of PT RL as we know it

But it wouldnt be an U20's league so it would be irrelevent. There wouldnt be any point having the championships as an u20 league, it wouldnt change anything.

Make your mind up, you said the Championship becoming a junior development comp, that would suggest a large number of junior players playing in it, otherwise its just the Championship by another name

As to my previous questions, the answer to both is ' not a lot '

Which is exactly what you would get with a new set up, so very little funding from the clubs, not saving much are we?

That a lovely little strawman you are trying to build yourself, but I have no use for it.

The fact is, that even now, even with the fudge-best-of-neither-world DR system we have now, the only reason these younger players are playing in those leagues, for those teams is because they are better players than those teams could source elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with structure that sees players playing at a level which suits their ability.