You have to bite the bullet and do your best. There are loads of lads from Widnes who are are at other clubs like Warrington and Saints. You just have to make do with who you've got and see who comes through. Giving up and purely concentrating on the 1st team is simply not an option for any club wanting a licence. If and when SL comes then the good youngsters will more than likely stay - short term loss for long term gain.

Well said V4E.

Hey demon. Check out the success of Fax's under 21s before it got disbanded before you come on here mouthing off. Seems our EDITED BY TS is a better policy than hoping a team goes bust so you don't get relegated. Let's hope every team is well run this season so Leigh don't get so lucky. Your youth policy really helped you last year eh? At least our board is trying to strike a balance and we have boxes ticked! At least Halifax are in a position to apply, if that were true at your club you would be delighted.

Dry your eyes boy

I am getting a tad annoyed at fans of two clubs in particular who have money men to fund them being able to run a junior set up, no not jealousy this time its to do with level playing fields as we just cannot afford a junior team or can we???
Thing is RL is just full of holes and I am sick of it, whether it is clubs with money men paying by means not on the radar of salary caps etc... or expansion clubs who have a whole different rule book to the rest, the game is corrupt.

Running an u 18's is basically a waste of time at championship level , however some clubs [ including one that got a licence 18 months ago ] used the NYL to run a team , so you would expect the RFL to accept other clubs using that comp as an academy , wouldn't you

But it seems they dont , I was totally disgusted with the RFL when they brought the ' minimum wage ' argument into the running of juniors

I had a meeting with Bill Appleton and Lee Crooks down at Leigh when I was Academy director , the argument was unless you paid a minimum wage to a set number of players you could not run an u 18's , the u 21's however could play for free , How bloody stupid is that , so you had to give players a contract until 19 , then you could ask them to play for nothing , I pointed out to them that we would be paying u 18's more money than some 1 st team NL 2 players were getting

It is all quite simply another hurdle to jump over , the number of SL players that come through the academies of Championship teams is negligable , basically only Widnes can afford it and if any other clubs want to waste money on it they are stupid

So, basically, the RFL are making it difficult for MOST teams to be in a position to take promotion to SL?

nothing new there

Oldham are able to run a reserve side... www.roughyeds.co.uk/231209.htm

Oldham are able to run a reserve side... www.roughyeds.co.uk/231209.htm

Not only did the Evening Courier mis-report some of the details in their original article, as I discussed it with Mr. James Roberts, so Nosey Parker has lazily got his facts wrong in today's League Weekly rag. It appears he hasn't checked out some particular facts with regards to individual names/schools, seemingly just taking either this thread or the Courier article as correct. I notice Parker is down to a single page of gossip nowadays, a 50% cut from previous times, another 50% cut on that would do me fine he talks a right load of rubbish and he spends quite a bit of time making excuses for previous stories he got incorrect in the first place.....
He even has something of a surprise in his tone about how Halifax have had their eyes opened with the scouting network in this area, if he was on top of his journalistic game, he'd be informed enough to know that every single boy on the Halifax RLFC scholarship scheme comes from schools or clubs within the Calderdale boundaries, that I can assure him is some hotbed of rugby league at under 14's, 15's & 16's with the top two under 15's sides actually playing up a year as under 16's in the Yorks league after recently leaving the ranks of the West Riding leagues. I wonder how many other RL clubs at any professional level can boast that claim ? Very proud are we at the club of our contacts with the local clubs, coaches & players, OK, so we've missed out on a few, but we've over 30 boys on scholarship forms who WANT to be involved at Halifax now and in the future.
So incensed were the parents & coach of one of the young lads in question, his parents got in touch with me as their point of contact with the club's scholarship to ask what on earth was going on. I then approached our club's football manager for permission to clear a few things up with Mr. Roberts at the Courier, which I did via a telephone conversation recently.
He ( James Roberts ) actually surprised me rather, on how clued up he was on some of the junior talent in the district as I don't see too much of him on the sunday morning touchlines, nevertheless we had a good chat about one or two things topical in the game.

Rant over, but very proud and excited of what's going on at Halifax RLFCfor the future.

I'd have actually been suprised if anything he ever reported was true.

Which one do you mean ?

Hopefully you mean Nosey Parker. I think we are lucky to have two good journalists at the Courier. James for the rugby and Dave for the football. I think we are also lucky to still have a daily, local newspaper.

Hopefully you mean Nosey Parker. I think we are lucky to have two good journalists at the Courier. James for the rugby and Dave for the football. I think we are also lucky to still have a daily, local newspaper.'"

Sorry, the bit I meant was the bit in bold but I guess it doesn't show up very well. Yes I meant Nosey Parker, I quite enjoy all the Courier articles espcially Dave Fleming's nostaglic pieces.