www.totalrl.com/plenty-in-reserv ... rve-grade/ Having read this article I have to agree with Richard Marshall and say its worth having a reserve setup. At one point I was skeptical because other teams were dropping the concept i.e. Leigh. After last season (failing to make top 4) I took the short sighted view that we should invest money on first team and drop reserves. I am now starting to see the benefits of running a reserve setup. Elliot Morris, Brandon Moore, Nick Rawsthorne and JWH are showing its worth running and investing in a reserve setup. It gives players a chance to make the step-up. 4-5 players making step up every season is worth the investment. Your thoughts please.

www.totalrl.com/plenty-in-reserv ... rve-grade/ Having read this article I have to agree with Richard Marshall and say its worth having a reserve setup. At one point I was skeptical because other teams were dropping the concept i.e. Leigh. After last season (failing to make top 4) I took the short sighted view that we should invest money on first team and drop reserves. I am now starting to see the benefits of running a reserve setup. Elliot Morris, Brandon Moore, Nick Rawsthorne and JWH are showing its worth running and investing in a reserve setup. It gives players a chance to make the step-up. 4-5 players making step up every season is worth the investment. Your thoughts please.

Absolutely agree with you. My view is that the RFL should make a reserve team mandatory for all clubs. They would have to give funding to help support the lower clubs, but this could be done by reallocating some of the Sky money. Until the RFL recognise that SL is supplied by all RL clubs and that it needs some feeder mechanism to bring players through, then the game is in danger of dying. The NRL (which the RFL seems intent on copying) has reserve grades, age grade teams and feeder teams set up in a pyramid structure. This ensures that players can develop properly and make the step up sensibly. We are in danger of losing a high proportion of good young kids as they have nowhere to go. Currently they go into an academy from 13+ and after that ........... nowhere to go unless they are good enough to go into the first team at 17. With a junior set up and/or reserve team they and the club have longer to develop them into good rugby players. My honest opinion, many will disagree

Agree ,Reserve grade a must if rugby league is to progress , great young talent being let go after the academy btec funding stops ,many clubs cannot afford to keep these youngsters down to finance.Leigh have now said they have appointed Keiron Purtell with the task of starting a academy and reserve grade from 2018,Lee Briers and Paul Sculthorpe also speaking out about the subject lets hope the RFL listen. www.superleaguefans.com/videos/play/1F9xsABZfB0/ www.totalrl.com/briers-blasts-su ... -approach/

Agree ,Reserve grade a must if rugby league is to progress , great young talent being let go after the academy btec funding stops ,many clubs cannot afford to keep these youngsters down to finance.Leigh have now said they have appointed Keiron Purtell with the task of starting a academy and reserve grade from 2018,Lee Briers and Paul Sculthorpe also speaking out about the subject lets hope the RFL listen. www.superleaguefans.com/videos/play/1F9xsABZfB0/ www.totalrl.com/briers-blasts-su ... -approach/

We have such an advatantage over a lot of other clubs with our Amatuer clubs doing themselves and the town proud, it was never a case of should we or shouldn't we, we should always have a pathway for local talent into the towns Rugby club.
the question was always about timing, luckily we have a good coach and a board that have bought into it.

Personally I thought we went for it a year too soon and could have consolidated our top 4 first, but we didn't, and I am pleased that some of our senior pros that have been dropping off have been given a rocket up their arris. Rugby League requires desire and commitment, you cannot go through the motions at our level, and some of the lads that have come through are showing more than potential, they are showing that hard work and effort aren't noble, they are effective.

One prime example is, could we really drop one of the pack to get Luke Ambler back in, for me, no, JWH is also making it tough for players like Heaton to come back in, Brandon Moore is making Ben Kaye lift his game too, ideally we need a half to put pressure on the Johnno and Muzza pairing next. It's all good though, keeps everyone honest, and I don't care if they are 19 or 29, they should be looking to improve all the time, and theres no excuse for having a beer/pasty gut and not being fit.

For me it should be a must that SL clubs run a reserve/academy. Businessmen don't always see the benefits because it doesn't show as pounds and pence income in the balance sheet, its just a cost, for the good of the game though, the bridge between amateurs and juniors to semi and professional Rugby needs to in place or the game should hang its head.
Well done to the Club, im looking forward to seeing who we can bring through next. Kids have to start somewhere, you shouldn't have sign them from other clubs all the time.

It's a great effort from the club and is definitely the right thing to do but sometimes the right thing isn't always the business savvy thing to do so it takes some balls to push in with it. The frustrating thing is that we lost Rawtenstall and we should be recompensed for that but probably weren't. Teams taking the SL sovereign should be forced into running a full reserve/junior setup not just using for some old Aussie's pension fund.

Anyone know if the reserves are playing at the shay tuesday v warrington wolves ,nothing on web , if so hope they get a good turn out

It would be nice if there was anything on Website about reserves. Not even a squad on there.

All players need to playing on a regular basis week in week out to get match fit and match sharp and show what they can do, the best place to do it is with the parent club as they learn their systems and have a settled environment to work in. Surely the SL clubs have enough faith in their own systems to be able coach at least some of these players up into the first team as a return for the investment. The reserves could be a really good comp at a good standard if all the SL teams got back on board with as many from the Championship involved as well. The entire game can only benefit from it imho.

Why would S L clubs want to invest time and money on reserves when they can just go out and offer£££ to the clubs lower down the food chain who have invested in youth teams but need the cash to survive.
It is about time the fat cats at Red Hall put the whole house in order and stopped certain clubs from running the game, maybe a whole new RL board, and all clubs getting a vote on how the game is run and monies distributed.
As many have said before the game over here is all but dead, and needs a proper revamp if it is to grab the attention of the paying public.
I do not have the answers but have some ideas,as do most RL fans as what to do, but that is for another thread.
However until a major coup happens I fear this is life as we know it Jim, according to Mr. Spock.

M H O O.

Because the number of players that SL clubs have signed from clubs lower down, youth team or senior team who have actually made the grade can be counted on one hand, look through the current SL sides and name them.
Compare that to the number of players currently playing in SL who have come through their own junior sides who are good enough and the number rises significantly.
The real money being spent and wasted in our game by SL clubs to make up the numbers is on overseas players, some are good enough, some are just average are some are just plain cr#p.
The question I would be asking if I were running a SL club and the game is.
Surely instead of spending my money on these types of players it would be better to bring our own lads through, it's not like they haven't done it before.
Likewise with Red Hall it's simply just Super League and that's it at the moment.
However how you sell it to them and SL is that there seams almost an obsession to be able to compete with the clubs in Australia at national level and club level, well at national level we're not going to able to do it when the majority of SL clubs are bloated with over payed, over rated, over the hill Aussies and the like!!!
So we are back to the home grown talent route which would be much stronger across the board if the bulk of SL players were from Britain.

Faxcari am not disagreeing with you , however how many SL clubs have junior/ reserve sides?
Look at the amature teams around Halifax and how many are poached to SL clubs with the promise of fame and fortune only to find it was all whitewash and they are disalusioned into leaving the game,
As you point out we will never compete international level until imports are restricted, however arguably 2 of Fax outstanding players are Aussies, could home grown talent compete with them ? Maybe if we were full time.
I am not aware of how much 'proper ' work imports do, as they are not supposed to have work permits other than playing for their club, to my understanding, that is not to say they do not work, but being a liaison officer is not as arduous as being a bricklayer, gardener or window cleaner

We're just talking rugby on a forum mate and it makes a change to be able to exchange views on something other than picking MOM.
There's loads to be thought about and said on this topic.

SL clubs should benefit from having a reserve set up as they should be able to bring through enough talent into their first team ranks, this will rely on a number of things one of which is their junior / reserve players competing at a good level week in week out, not play a week miss 2 or 3 and play then again or be sent out on DR to any amount of other different clubs and on the subject of the "stain of the game" that is DR if more SL clubs had reserve sides then there would be less need to farm out players to other clubs just to get a game.

The existing SL clubs who have reserve set ups should be putting pressure on the RFL and the other SL clubs to all comply so they get this level of competition.
To fund it instead of spending on overseas players spend some of it on home grown talent especially if you believe some of the amounts that are being banded about for these so called "marquee players".

There's an argument on the admin side as well as there's a lot involved in bringing people in from half way round the world and often a big gamble that could be avoided.

Even with Fax it will be less likely to see the likes of Mitch and Adam at the club if we start to produce our own.
I feel a chant coming on.
(He's one our own, very near his home, he's one of our own, not out on loan, he's not come far and he's not DR )

Although you can't prevent scouts moving in onto your patch and signing up young talent the more SL teams who have junior / reserve sides the less likely it will be that they want your lads as they will have more of their own, that must also be more beneficial to the likes of us!