That's exactly how it is along with the fact that some clubs are struggling financially to run their first grade never mind anything else.

If and when the reserve comp gets up and running and is successful and becomes the much needed pathway then maybe in a few years time we might have a good stream of talent who will find their own level to play at.

In the meantime it's very thin on the ground and years of neglect takes years to rectify.

It's not going to go away though Hudds.

It's 2019 moving on and RL it's not the game we knew and loved and we either accept the game for what it is now or walk away and I for one totally respect and understand those that do.

Personally I'm still undecided and it will likely come down to whether I enjoy watching it anymore.

If the SL clubs had the power to have some clubs fold and the rest become feeders they would do it now.

As Ian Lenagan said when reducing the funding. Quote: "Who cares about the Championship anyway" and he's not on his own.

As I stated the Championship clubs are all under pressure to either survive or get the results with a top 5 finish.

Fax have run with more of their own team this year than for many a season and look how it's ended up, if it weren't for the cup run we would be screwed financially and may well still be.

Not being in the top 5 with a team that needs rebuilding with no money and several strong sides in the Championship all to compete against with chairmen, directors and coaches who will do whatever it takes to succeed and then Fax saying we won't consider all options is just and = a club going rapidly down the pan never to return playing straight into the hands of the SL masters.

If you choose option 1. Take our DR players and slowly but surely you have to rely on us to get a team out.

If you choose option 2. Don't take our DR players and slowly but surely you won't have a team to put out or even a club.

Hopefully Championship teams can still take players on loan. But when they do, the players are THEIR players, who train fully with their loan club, and are there on a long term basis.

Depressing in deed Hudds.
It will be interesting to see what effect if any, the SL clubs running a reserve side has on DR such as reducing the number of players being offered under that arrangement, as usual it will be the SL clubs that dictate the terms.

If we look back to when the vote was taken regarding the SL clubs getting more of the funding we get an idea of how much some clubs outside SL rely on DR and how much control the SL clubs have over their Championship partners.

Rather than stick together and oppose the reduction many of the Champ and Champ 1 clubs voted for it

The margin of the vote in favour of the SL clubs came as a big surprise to many experienced RL pundit and it begs the question.

Why would any Champ club vote for something where they would get less?

It was well reported in the RL press that in the days leading up to the vote, fearing they might not win several phone calls were made from SL clubs to their Champ counterparts basically saying “vote against us and you will get no one and nothing from us ever again or from anywhere else in SL.”

This was after Lenagen had made his statement so everyone knew how little they were thought of yet still jumped when they were told to jump.

That’s an even more depressing read.

Fax car, spot on. It seems people have been hoodwinked by (mr) Lennigan and his two faced speel .

If its any consolation Hudds, all teams in the reserve leagues will be under an obligation to fulfil fixtures which will have a serious affect on the number of players that go on a DR move. Added to that players coming back through injury are also likely to get a run in the reserves rather than been sent on DR. It probably won't affect the teams that only take 1 or 2 players every now and again but the heavy users will feel the full force of it.

Yes very much a positive there,providing our application to join is accepted.

GFB,

I get where you are coming from, but I don't believe this will be true, especially for the SL sides that already have Reserve sides. Even the ones that don't have reserves all ready will automatically have 2 years worth of academy players available to them next year, because of the change in age group, going from under 19s to under 18s for academies means that players in their last two years of the academy set up will automatically fill the majority of the player roster in the reserves. On top of this most SL first team squads are in the region of 26-28 players so leaves a significant number of players, about 4-5 (assuming that most clubs are running with 4-6 injuries at any one time) that are not getting game time with the first team. Then given that the reserves, to begin with will mainly be 19/20 year old youngsters, SL clubs will probably look to still utilise DR and loans for these players to get game time in the Championship which will generally be a higher grade of rugby than the reserves. This becomes even more true for sides that already have reserve sides.

This partly answers the question Griff asks about where the players are coming from. As an example Castleford have an academy of 24 players from this year, I suspect that that 2/3rds of those will be over age for an under 18s comp next year (if not more), meaning that they will already have a core of 16+ players for the reserves team next year, therefore only need to supplement these with another 7 or so players. Meaning that across the sides without a reserve side currently the SL sides will need to find in the region of 40-60 players rather than 200+ to make up the reserves comp. Beware SL clubs coming to raid Fax/Fev/Keighley/Bulls reserves as well as the armature game for these additional players.

Personally I would like to think that your assessment is true and DR will wither on the vine, but somehow I don't doubt it.

"[Part quoteGFB,

I get where you are coming from, but I don't believe this will be true, especially for the SL sides that already have Reserve sides. Even the ones that don't have reserves all ready will automatically have 2 years worth of academy players available to them next year, because of the change in age group, going from under 19s to under 18s for academies means that players in their last two years of the academy set up will automatically fill the majority of the player roster in the reserves. On top of this most SL first team squads are in the region of 26-28 players so leaves a significant number of players, about 4-5 (assuming that most clubs are running with 4-6 injuries at any one time) that are not getting game time with the first team. Then given that the reserves, to begin with will mainly be 19/20 year old youngsters, SL clubs will probably look to still utilise DR and loans for these players to get game time in the Championship which will generally be a higher grade of rugby than the reserves. This becomes even more true for sides that already have reserve sides."

So if I am reading it correctly FG, for the SL clubs second choice, fringe, coming back from injury etc players it will still be DR as the best option.

For their so called "reserve sides" they will be third choice largely younger players who in the near future as they get older will become first team, first choice players, second choice, fringe, coming back from injury etc DR or move on for a more permanent deal at their level players.

If that's the case then rather than reducing the number of DR players, having a full reserve grade set up among other things will increase the number of DR players coming available.

If I ran a SL club I would want to keep my reserve team costs as low as possible. To do that I would need to play players who are cheap (the youngsters) or I see as needing to get fit (Not likely to go on DR as can be monitored better). For other players, not in contention that week for a SL game, I would want to get some money back to help cover costs - so I would send them on DR to pay part of their salary.

We have also not had clarity on the number of reserve games each season (ie is it one league, conferences, or even divisions. One, two or even three game against each team) this will also be important

Based on this I see little change in the availability of players for DR

For me it wouldn't be a bad idea if next season some sort of rule was brought in to try and prevent certain types of very experienced SL players playing on DR. For instance, although Brad Singleton was made available to Fev because he wasn't selected by Leeds, I agree with those who say that's not the type of player who should be playing on DR, there are plenty of similar examples (Adrian Morley is one who comes to mind). Maybe a rule that says you have to have played fewer than 50 SL/NRL games, or not played at that level for at least a year, to be eligible for DR.

Or just dump it altogether?

Fine by me if they do, but that ship might have sailed. The Championship has become so much stronger that I can't see it being contested exclusively by third-tier players. By that I mean - the top 200 players roughly make up the starting 17 in the 12 SL teams, the next 200 are the remaining SL squad members, and Championship clubs would be left to select from that third tier, players outside the top 400. The smarter Championship chairmen have realised that there's not much point in paying, say, a 20k salary to attract the 400th best player in the country when you can use the 250th-best or 300th best player on loan or on DR.