It depends on the club / area.

I've reffed a couple of junior tournaments in the midlands, and there is pretty much no focus on the score, its just about getting kids playing the game.

Unfortunately, there will always be the situation where the side with teh biggest kid will win. In many ways, you want to play non/semi contact until the kids are at a stage where enhances the game

Quote: Him "I think you're right in that more money/better coaching needs to go in at academy level, however I think the bigger problem is before academy age in the amateur game. Sadly young kids simply aren't being taught and encouraged to use passing and handling skills properly in the amateur game. So when they get to academy level the academy coaches are having to try and teach them the basics and the more advanced stuff which they should be doing, and there simply isn't time for both.'" So we should applaud the Rhinos for this initiative amongst others? www.therhinos.co.uk/news/17975.php

Quote: Him "I think you're right in that more money/better coaching needs to go in at academy level, however I think the bigger problem is before academy age in the amateur game. Sadly young kids simply aren't being taught and encouraged to use passing and handling skills properly in the amateur game. So when they get to academy level the academy coaches are having to try and teach them the basics and the more advanced stuff which they should be doing, and there simply isn't time for both.'" So we should applaud the Rhinos for this initiative amongst others? www.therhinos.co.uk/news/17975.php

Surely all the imported coaches are in possession of that knowledge already? And in spite of all the enthusiasm amongst British clubs for foreign coaches, we're actually farther away from being able to compete than we were when our coaches were home grown. We simply don't produce enough players with sufficient potential for the coaches to work upon.

If the players were better coached from a young age, would we still not produce enough good players though? It's too late in many ways when they're 17 or 18 and they come into professional academies. We need to start the conveyor belt much lower down.

Also, if the amateur game was a better environment for parents to put their kids into we would probably find a larger pool of talent coming in.

I don't believe the Australian players are superior at a genetic level, do you?

I agree with all your points. I was disagreeing with the notion that sending academy-level coaches to Australia would achieve much. As you point out, sending coaches of younger age groups might.

And no, I don't believe the Australians are genetically superior, at least not in the sense I think you mean. But they do have a substantially larger pool of players from which to select meaning that their best 17 is very likely to be better than ours.

Not saying you're wrong about the pool of players, but what are participation levels like in the two countries, in absolute terms? Are there any numbers anywhere?