Quote: JB Down Under "How many schoolboy players are ther? In my schme there would be 2000 in Cas's area, 2000 in Wakeys area etc.'"
That of course assumes that there are 100 schools in Wakey's & Cas' area. Which there are not. More like 14-16ish high schools in the joint area. Pretty much most of which will already run a team in each year group. As it is, I think the involvement of SL clubs in school liaison and the general level of RL coaching in school has improved, although I think it is still rather haphazard rather than systematic.
As for the moving junior rugby to summer, fine at club level. However, it would be hard to synchronise schools rugby with this. You'd be limiting matches to the March-October time, which cuts across two different school years and has huge chunks of time taken out of it by holidays and the examination period (school cricket faces this problem, you end up with an effective season of about 10 weeks and you can't run teams in the last year).
In terms of maximising our player pool, I don't think there is masses of missed potential (i.e. kids with the athletic ability that are lost to other sports) as far as within areas where league is dominant. My experience within these areas suggests that the majority of kids who have the ability get into the game. The wider issue is broadening the base to areas that are beyond the heartlands. What seems to be an issue with some is developing from school age to beyond; far too many who have the potential don't seem to have the real commitment/aren't 'looked after' in the right way and so fall by the way side.