Quote ="jonh"Worth a try as long as they build it correctly and do not try to fast track them into SL without the foundations and infrastructure in place. I lived in the not too far down the road in Bedford for a year and there were a good few Summer Conference teams playing in the area, also the union players all seemed to have an interest in League. Most of the pugs in the area always used to show the League when it was on.
Like it or not we need to develop our game........development seems to be a dirty word, but I think that is more to do with the incompetent fools who run the game like Nigel Wood.'"
Problem with a lot of RLC clubs is that they heavily, if not totally rely on Union players playing for 14 weeks in the summer at adult level. They need time to develop their youth set up to be able to have 'pure league' players, and that is what a lot of Midlands clubs are doing now.
I think they are going the right direction as are Nottingham, Telford and Coventry, but they should show they are capable of playing higher level teams in the NCL first before moving up the supposed ability pyramid.
Linking in with a football club is a good step forward, but yet again, without getting supporters on the sidelines to build a sustainable business model, even at that level, will see difficulties rather than longevity without investment in the publicity and education in the area.
