But it's basically the chairmen's decision whether or not to run a reserve team, which means apart from ourselves and Wakefield, none of them are sufficiently enlightened.

To me, it's the RFL's responsibility to "enlighten" them, whether that be with financial incentives or some other way. Sadly, we also lack a responsible RFL at present.

It was one part of the old franchise system that worked, IMO, whereby points were gained from having a proper reserve/academy structure.

DaveO mentioned on another thread about the problem with giving players the 'project' tag as many are established players and are quite simply signings like any other, or they are promising players who any team would be chasing.

What qualifies as a 'project player' exactly? Flower was considered a project player but isn't he just like any other signing? He was still young for a forward when we signed him but had a few years experience playing for a team lower down the league. In that respect how is it that much different to us signing Scott Taylor? Is it just that Flower wasn't as highly rated? All teams sign players like that.

Rhodri Lloyd doesn't count as a project player - he was simply an academy signing. We signed him as a teenager, he came up through the academy to play a few first team games and has become a decent Championship player. That's what happens to a lot of our highly rated young players. Gabe Fell and Jamie Doran are former U19's players of the year who are now playing at the same level. Rhodri Lloyd was just a promising young player signed from another club - just like Joe Brown, who we signed last year from Bradford.

To some extent some of our 'projects' are just the club trying to get the most out of the salary cap by getting enough players in so we can have depth without having to use 18 or 19 year old forwards every week, or providing depth in a position where there isn't enough.

Well, yeah. As I see it, a project player is one who is no longer a youngster, is seen as having future potential, but not yet ready for the first team.

The biggest problem with that concept is the lack of reserve games (yeah, I know, Rogues and I, and others, keep whinging about that!) with which to turn that potential into reality.

This means, in essence, that they must be seen as ones who primarily need training and fitness, rather than game time, in order to to convert them.

A 25 yr old "project player" suggests that it would be money down the drain. If they are not ripping trees up by their mid-20s, then its highly likely they've found their ceiling.

Had he been 21, with the potential of 10 years of return then maybe, but spending 2-3 years bringing him to a standard where you might get 4-5 good years from him doesn't float my boat.

Do we count Zak Hardacre as a project player?

How about considering him a 25 year old squad player who takes up minimal salary cap.