U19 prop Harvey Hallas has also joined Cougars.

I guess this will be unpopular then but I actually prefer the on loan system to the A team.
As long as it's done fairly for club and player.

Imagine Hadley playing A team against effectively the 26th choice player at a club at the bottom of SL if not lower.
On loan I found a lot of form and really moved his career on.
The same applies to a young kid playing on loan at Fev. If he rips it up he'll soon be brought back.

Comparing to 60s A team when even the first team were semi pro. Great players but the businesd of rugby league has changes dramatically.

The question is, as things stand right now, would you prefer an A team, or Jacob Miller?

It's not a pop at you, everyone understands our fanancial position. It's more the clubs who scrap the academy's then vote to increase the salary cap.

I wasn’t suggesting it was.

I was just interested to know. We are working towards a reserve team. Interesting though that Hull FC have decided that dual reg is better for their development of young players

Given the lack of interest from most clubs having a reserves team us a pointless expense at present, there’s hardly any games and many of the scheduled ones get cancelled as it is. If used correctly dual reg can fill the void until the RFL see fit to make it compulsary, although if they did it would in the short term damage clubs like us who don’t spend the full cap as the first team pot would diminish further as MC says.

Atm that's easy Miller. I've heard you talk about this situation a few times on Yorkshire Radio, about eventually wanting a reserve team, but financial cosntraints don't make that possible. Saying that even if we had the extra money, the reserve team structure is such an unorganised one, I don't think it would be worth allocating the resoursces till all SL teams commit to it long term.

That's easy so I won't answer it but then you didn't expect I would.

Yep I get the idea and tbf the A team issue is less to do with club and more to do with the game as a whole.

This was why I picked on the RFL. Isn't it their job to run the game and by doing so keep players in the game and thus have a bigger player pool.

Surely it's up to them to incentify it. Help with costs, get sponsors, produce a workable and cheap completion. Imho they meet to become far more inventive as a governing body.

Doesn't even need to be a full blown league - could be a six team evil al league with just 8-12 fixtures a year. Just so where to nurse injured players back, keep fringe players busy and trial players at a decent level.

Even a joint A team might work - Cas/Wakey/Fev though I clearly see the trust issues involved.

Where their is a will there is a way. Shame the RFL doesn't operate as strongly as the NRL.

You should be in politics I know that. Hanley wasn't DR he was a loan signing as you say. Added to that he was on the extreme end. The only reason he ended up anywhere but Hull was an accounting error.

It may be years before another player that good becomes available. Also I seriously doubt Hanley would have put up with A team football for a season.

I get your point but that has to be the worst analogy.

Is Ellery still playing then?

Didn't Hull merge their academy with Rovers because of the cost, but then go out and sign Frank Pritchard?

Nah, he just gets too excited at times

It’s not about choosing between Miller (by the way very emotive way of trying to kill an argument) and a Reserves team it’s about having the correct structure for the game, the club but most importantly for the players coming through.

Cut the cloth accordingly to get right balance, if that means a lower quality squad or running with a smaller squad in order to fund a Reserves then so be it. The current answer and the Miller/Reserves choice is short sighted, if we had the correct pathways for players for long enough we’d eventually bring through our own Miller. This is exactly the thinking that’s lead us to the situation the sports in today with participation at a record low and young players leaving the game in droves"

Hull deciding that Duel Reg is OK is also a red herring as currently the mess that’s been allowed to develop surrounding recent Reserves competitions leaves them with no other options. A number of clubs have operated a Reserves team only to find that a proposed Reserve League structure collapses leaving them with inappropriate fixtures in both number and quality. Again the recent decisions by those in control are being made on financial grounds and not what’s best for the long term health of the game. I’m not advocating the spending of money that isn’t there, I’m saying cut your cloth correctly and get the balance right.

The RFL would’ve argue that they already give us half of our turnover and it’s actually the club itself that isn’t performing financially and should be able to afford a reserve side.
I can see their argument, and it’s up to me to improve financially so that we can fulfil all requirements of a Super League club

All true but it doesn't mean they can't try harder to make it work more cheaply. I do think the RFL lacks imagination when it comes to players and leagues below SL. After all that is their job also.

It should have been easy. Ringfence a certain amount of money from the t.v deal for clubs who run a reserve team, those who don't then lose that part of the funding
Reduce the overseas players to three, job done. I think Hull had seven on their books last season.

I'm not sure this one can be pinned on the RFL - wasn't it SL clubs who voted to scrap A teams, I suspect for financial reasons?

All the RFL did wrong was allow the vote in the first place; it should be a compulsory requirement for a SL club to run an A team, and if that means less money for the main squad, so be it. I take my hat off to those clubs still doing it, but it's a bit pointless when the opposition and fixtures are so haphazard.

Surely it can to a degree, they are the governing body are they not. Some of them are paid a lot of money to govern and in this case it's about time they did.

As I said - governance for the good of the sport, and with a longer view, would have made them realise that allowing SL clubs to vote to save themselves the expense of an A team was a terrible idea; so they are certainly culpable for that part.

But as far as I understand it, a majority of SL clubs, including ours, voted no - and that's on them.