What we need are juniors in the NRL development system.

Imagine if aged about 16 Tomkins had gone to the NRL for a couple of years playing lower grade RL.

$1bn TV deal.
Country-wide exposure of the game, with TV companies fighting for coverage.
Compulsory schools curriculum

Further - we need better coaching and a proper infrastructure at school and jr level; from personal experience, I know that there are some utter tools coaching kids up and down the land on a weekly basis, such that many have their enthusiasm for the game sucked out of them, their parents get sick of the amateur dramatics that go with many jr clubs and stop taking them, or the coaching is so flawed that by the time they reach academy age, their game is fundamentally broken.

The 3 things we need to concentrate on are:

Tackle

Pass

Catch

Its not hard - the gap between the 2 continents on the basic skills are immense. If we focus on getting the juniors doing those 3 things as well as the Australians and we stand a chance of competing

Get our forwards to be faster, more skilful and more agile

Reward amateur clubs that produce players that go on to play for England with improved facilities.

No doubt, we are playing catch up from a very early age. Our coaches are at academy level are teaching kids stuff they should already be second nature to them.

But how do we do that? The coaches we have at amateur youth level do it out of kindness after all. The volunteer and step in when very few do.

And how do we do that?

Bill Gates buying a Sky subsciption, loving the game and thinking he can turn it in to a better more worldwide product.

To be fair, I expect that would simply see us replaced as the third best nation by the USA, wouldnt really help us catch up Im afraid. Unless it turns out Bill Gates just really likes white shirts with red crosses on it.

Agreed - perhaps the RFL needs to do more with the resources it has at it's disposal?

A proper partnership with schools and some assistance for junior sides would be a good start, at least to get coaches properly qualified and to provide access to updates on coaching techniques for basic rugby skills; maybe if jr coaches were using consistent benchmarks and methodologies around basic skills, the randomness would be partially removed from a young lads RL development. A national curriculum for jr coaching if you will?