One of the main issues with RL in the UK is that we dont provide a good enough career pathway for people to make a conscious decision to try & make a living within the game throughout their working life. Quiet simply we need to creat an environment so that as broad a base as possible of say, kids at u7s think that they could make a career within the game. Too many times we have lost erreplaceable quality & experienced people not only to other sports but to other walks of life. So many Amateur Coaches & Players etc do not even consider trying to make a living within the game, simply because better opportunities lie elsewhere.

so how many teams in the NRL???? seems a strange concept to me, reduce the number of teams playing at a higher level gives you better quality teams, so how far down do you think we should go?
surely by this logic we should have say a 6 team comp

Difference between the 2 comps is purely Money!"!! and the ability to develop players from the grass roots and keep them in the game

Sixteen but that will increase in the next couple of years in my opinion. You can't compare rugby league in Europe and Australia. Here we're a minority sport shunned by the media and ripped-off by Sky every four or five years. Rugby league is a huge sport in Australia, if not the biggest. The players are on the back and front pages and have the same profile as soccer players in Europe.
Australia can afford to have sixteen teams in its premier competition because it has a massive talent pool to choose from. Unfortunately we don't have that and while progress is being made nation-wide, it's going to be a good few years before we have anything like the number of quality players to support fourteen or sixteen competitive top division sides.

Dont matter how many teams at the top table 6 or 16 if you dont do the basics how many times have we seen a player make a break then look for the man backing up and no support.

les goose!! good answer

That's something that is going to take years to sort out. In the meantime drop the number of clubs then our internationals wouldn't be making breaks and having to depend on players like Karl Pryce, Mark Calderwood, Ben Fisher or Josh Veivers for support.