Why?

Dutch domestic football was much stronger in the early 70s (relative to the rest of Europe at the time). Now all the best Dutch players move abroad - the league carries on.

People watched part-time RL players for decades, without too much complaint about the overall quality.

And as others have mentioned, we're not turning down opportunities that would make a huge difference to the talent drain.

If, for example, the RFL could get 20% more tv revenue, it'd still be dwarfed by the Australian deal. If we, as fans, could be perceived as a more desirable advertising demographic (rather than potentially interested in mushy peas, Romanian cars and inexpensive cider), the difference in sponsorship revenue would still only make a marginal difference.

The Papuan and French leagues can't compete with SL and in turn SL can't compete with the NRL. In football, the A-league can't compete with the EPL.

If you set matching the NRL as your objective, then yes - you should have very real concerns that SL will fail. Or consider a more sensible measure of success.

Better for the sport as a whole that players go to the NRL than to Union.

Yeah, iirc Bryn Hargreaves jacked it in, when still in his prime pretty much, to be a landscape gardener or similar. I thought then that that sort of thing was probably a bigger threat than Graham or Burgess going to the NRL.

No-one who posts on here remotely convinces me they could do any better than those paid to do so. Could this be because it's actually a bigger ask than it at first seems? If it isn't, at least throw some ideas into the ring.

The first idea would be to sort out the grass roots game - it's a complete mess and with some exceptions, junior teams are extremely badly served; they are unattractive propositions for parents and families, and for a lot of kids other than the big 'uns - and in many cases, they learn very little. The raw material of SL is not nurtured properly - which results in fewer kids playing the game, and for those who do, some serious unlearning is often required when they're picked up by professional clubs; and because there aren't enough of them, certain pro clubs shop around and hoover up kids from outside their catchment area - which often leads to stockpiling and lack of development opportunities for young players. And that goes right through to the criminally short-sighted decision to drop reserve teams and the subsequent increase in the use of DR - SL chairmen who voted for that should be ashamed.

It's not very sexy nor will it have an immediate impact on the quality of the game at the highest level, but the whole system is built on extremely shaky ground so long as the junior game is allowed to be owned and operated by well-meaning (usually) volunteers.

So - step 1 - take ownership of the jr game, reinstate the development officers that were sacked off a few years ago, and introduce some common, robust standards for coaching and governance of junior clubs; and force *all* professional clubs to be more involved with their local jr teams - not just the ones that have a couple of lads they'd like to sign up to their Academy.

Quote: bren2k "The first idea would be to sort out the grass roots game - it's a complete mess and with some exceptions, junior teams are extremely badly served; they are unattractive propositions for parents and families, and for a lot of kids other than the big 'uns - and in many cases, they learn very little. The raw material of SL is not nurtured properly - which results in fewer kids playing the game, and for those who do, some serious unlearning is often required when they're picked up by professional clubs; and because there aren't enough of them, certain pro clubs shop around and hoover up kids from outside their catchment area - which often leads to stockpiling and lack of development opportunities for young players. And that goes right through to the criminally short-sighted decision to drop reserve teams and the subsequent increase in the use of DR - SL chairmen who voted for that should be ashamed. It's not very sexy nor will it have an immediate impact on the quality of the game at the highest level, but the whole system is built on extremely shaky ground so long as the junior game is allowed to be owned and operated by well-meaning (usually) volunteers. So - step 1 - take ownership of the jr game, reinstate the development officers that were sacked off a few years ago, and introduce some common, robust standards for coaching and governance of junior clubs; and force *all* professional clubs to be more involved with their local jr teams - not just the ones that have a couple of lads they'd like to sign up to their Academy.'" funnily enough, as part of our rebranding and updating of the club, Roger Draper did this. https://warringtonwolves.com/club-news/ ... bassadors/

Quote: bren2k "The first idea would be to sort out the grass roots game - it's a complete mess and with some exceptions, junior teams are extremely badly served; they are unattractive propositions for parents and families, and for a lot of kids other than the big 'uns - and in many cases, they learn very little. The raw material of SL is not nurtured properly - which results in fewer kids playing the game, and for those who do, some serious unlearning is often required when they're picked up by professional clubs; and because there aren't enough of them, certain pro clubs shop around and hoover up kids from outside their catchment area - which often leads to stockpiling and lack of development opportunities for young players. And that goes right through to the criminally short-sighted decision to drop reserve teams and the subsequent increase in the use of DR - SL chairmen who voted for that should be ashamed. It's not very sexy nor will it have an immediate impact on the quality of the game at the highest level, but the whole system is built on extremely shaky ground so long as the junior game is allowed to be owned and operated by well-meaning (usually) volunteers. So - step 1 - take ownership of the jr game, reinstate the development officers that were sacked off a few years ago, and introduce some common, robust standards for coaching and governance of junior clubs; and force *all* professional clubs to be more involved with their local jr teams - not just the ones that have a couple of lads they'd like to sign up to their Academy.'" funnily enough, as part of our rebranding and updating of the club, Roger Draper did this. https://warringtonwolves.com/club-news/ ... bassadors/