Haha excellent

Either an U21s and U23s competition has to return NOW. With a facility to play two over age players per match.

When I read an article like that I get so angry at the weak leadership centrally and self interest at club level that is doing such a great job at destroying the future prospects of what I consider the greatest team sport in the world. The problem is that I can do nothing about it!

Absolutely spot on.
All of the problems affecting Rugby League are being magnified because the people in charge of the game are useless.
Unfortunately these self serving same people will never do what is best for the game, because that would involve them handing over power to a proper executive body, who would promptly sack them.

Very good article.
I would go for (and was disappointed when they scrapped it) the U23's.
It potentially gives the 19's 4 more years to develop.
I don't know the finances involved but I would have thought you could have had a spending cap. I don't know how it currently works but for me the U23's should be a mixture of part and full timers.
The full timers are those on the fringe of the main squad / returning from injury and the part timers those still developing.

Return of the A team comp anyone? Used to enjoy the Friday nights with the Andy Holbrook and Carl Webb tag team.

When would this mixture of full-time and part-time players train? Would the part-timers play at this level or at championship level? Where are all these extra players going to come from?

You wouldn't need a "spending cap", there are few enough teams in SL that can afford their first team squads let alone over-spend on a u23's squad.

How would a club afford to run three match day squads per weekend, u19s, u23s and first team.

Answer for me would be not to return to promotion/relegation for the reasons Smith gives and for the dual-registration/partnership clubs to work on the basis Warrington and Swinton operated it. That would give any Super League squad player not playing Super League a competitive game each week.

Smith is spot on and it is something I have been rambling on about all year. You have clubs like Featherstone putting money into youth development facilities (their new centre of excellence is superb) yet others in the top flight seem to be neglecting their duty to bring through the best young talent.

We need a clear pathway from primary school through to test football or parents will simply take talented youngsters to other codes.

It doesn't need to start so early and I for one am glad they have got shut of the Service Areas from U11-U15s as they served little purpose.

The problem in the game is from u16s until first team.

Sorry what I mean is there should be a clear line of progression. We are immediately behind the Aussies in that they are born kicking a rugby ball, here it is soccer and so the skills don't come as naturally.

Not sure what he means here.....does he mean all our players will be playing in the NRL and will have picked up Aussie accents? Sounds like a positive development to me.

Or is he saying that the England team will be full of Aussies like all the other international teams are.

Would having a draft system not work?

Cumbria
Lancashire
Cheshire
Gtr Manchester
All the Yorkshires
London
Etc etc

Have those run by coaches, have them competing in a county league with a cut off age off 23.
Have a draft system.
Have different age groups from 15 to 21 (22+23) play in 21's
They can only be offerered pro contracts from an agreed age, and employ the Nfl draft system, worst teams getting first pick.

Surely the former? It would mean though that virtually all the players in International teams will end up playing in the NRL.

At least the next World Cup will be competitive.

Surely the real issue is how good the England players are not what league they play in. If the NRL is the best league and the England players are playing in that environment then its good for them, it takes away some of the advantage the Aussie players usually have of being used to playing in a tougher environment.

In football countries like Brazil, Argentina have been successful despite having most of their international players playing in foreign leagues.....then you get sides like France and Netherlands where usually its their younger up and comers in their national squad who play in the domestic league, once they have been noticed they end up in the big leagues.

So the next superstar halfback gets picked up by London, playing behind a beaten pack, losing every week and wondering whether he'll get paid some months. How long before he leaves for RU or Aus? Then youngsters see that kind of thing going on and it puts them off. Sod that! It works in the NFL because there is a massive talent pool, not much direct competition from other sports/countries and the clubs are rich. We are in a vastly different situation and need to do everything we can to attract and retain the best players, otherwise quality, crowds and sponsorship will all suffer IMO

And then a Wigan or Warrington pay London for said halfback and the money filters into the lesser teams.

He means that all our best players will move to Oz. That may be fine if you wish to see England with a much better chance of winning the World Cup, but not so good if you would prefer to see high quality UK players on a week to week basis over here. I don't wish to lose the likes of Hill, Myler, Ratchford etc because I enjoy watching them play. Yes, it's an exaggeration, because some top quality players will not wish to move. But overall it will reduce the quality of our game, which is something we can do without.

I agree with Yed. There is far too much influence from a certain Chief Exec in the West Yorks area.

I don't think when they would train would be an issue. Their training would be tuned to suit their individual circumstances and whether they were going to play U23 or not
U23's would play in a U23 comp.
My image is that more than enough players are being chucked on the scrap heap at 19 now, so I don't see that as an issue.
I don't the set up for U23's but the cost should be tuned to suit the circumstances.
In the past clubs have run 3 or more teams so I don't think it's an issue.

Arguably an A team would do something similar to U23's.
Also I've no problem with the dual registration path but I think this causes problems for the 'lower' club and a fair deal of resentment - if I was playing for the partnership club it's hardly likely to generate a 'team' atmosphere with guys coming in for a couple of games and then going back to play SL.

Surely that just opens the spot for some young lads to have their chance which is what the fans want?

For years when the exchange rate was in our favour the Aussie clubs used to lose big gun players to Super League but they just brought young players through.

We always hear about how there are loads of talented youngsters at the club but they don't get given a chance - if players leave to go to the NRL maybe we will see them play for us rather than be lost to the game.

In the American draft system that can happen in theory, but in practice what the lowest team who has the first draft pick does is trade players.
So they swap round 1 pick, usually a star quarterback, for 3 round 3 picks.
In that way they get probably 9 good prospects for 3 star ones.
This in time drags the rubbish team back up.
It only works of course because even the worst team can afford to pay the wages of an entire squad, and star players if they decide to go down that route.
In order for it to work in our sport there would need to be an entire centralisation of funds.
That means all clubs hand over all revenue, and the RFL split it with the tv money equitably.
Can you imagine any of the big clubs going for that?

If we were in Oz complaining about our best players being picked off by the Brits, I would agree. The answer would be to use the youth development. Oz seems to have lots of talented youngsters coming through from what I can understand. But we have two pressure points, top players being lured away, and a much smaller pool of youngsters coming through. The change to the age groups eliminated the U15 and U 18's, essentially cutting in half the number of youngsters being trained by SL clubs. Even worse, as TS points out, the current U19's that are coming through now have nowhere to continue their development unless they can get a DR berth in the Championship - and a number of these teams don't wan't this anymore as they are looking to the new Promotion / Relegation regime of 2015.

So from a supporters pov, we are faced with falling standards from the loss of our top players, and a lower quality set of juniors coming through from the bottom. It's a mess at the moment, but even worse, a ticking bomb for the future. With SL clubs struggling to pay for their first team squad, the prospect of getting them to cough up more money (£160k) for another team at U21 or U23, doesn't look good.

I don't think you were saying the same thing when you lost Gregory to Wigan, Harris to Leeds and Scully to Saints?
FWIW I do agree that transfer fees did/do help some clubs to survive or reinvest.

And I do agree with Smith that 19 is too young to make a permanent decision on a player. Personally I would go back to U18's and U21's (with three overage players allowed in the U21's)
I know there is a cost to it, but it's a hit that the game needs to take, and maybe one of those age groups could be centrally funded.

I think may be there isn't as much talent available in Oz as we are led to believe these days who want to play RL ,especially when our top players are being head hunted by NRL clubs.

I can't work out whats going on in Australia these days. Having followed the Aussie media coverage recently in cricket, despite their success in this Ashes series, there is a general atmosphere of concern in Aussie cricket that the game is losing its status. Most Aussie cricket fans put Test cricket as the pinnacle and are not happy about Big Bash league and 20/20 cricket and the focus on making the game short and accessible to a 'new audience' but Cricket Australia says the game has to do that to compete because all the talented young athletes are being lost to the "codes of football" that offer more glamour, money and celebrity.

So either AFL is really monopolising Australia now or something isn't true.