Yes it certainly needs time and effort. At Wakefield our academy has usually been somewhere between poor and decent and it would have been easy for us to decide to scrap it altogether and spend the money elsewhere, especially as we can't even spend the salary cap as it is. But we actually put time and effort into improving our academy and it's starting to bear fruit, with us having the current SL young player of the year in Tom Johnstone and the Albert Goldthorpe rookie of the year in Max Jowitt plus a few others starting to come through who we have very high hopes for. We've still got a good way to go but the desire is there from everyone at the club to turn our academy into a consistently successful one and everyone is aware it won't happen overnight.

So if we can do it, the poorest club in Super League, then the likes of Salford should easily be able to better anything we do if they put in the same amount of effort considering the much larger funds they have access to. But the likes of Marwan just want a quick fix and thinks "Wahhh, I've been funding our academy for a few years now and we're still not as good as Wigan or Leeds. What's the point, lets just scrap it."

It's embarrassing to read some posters trying to justify their teams not running an academy when the reality is that they're just lazy short termists who would rather let other teams do the work for them so that they can sign another 30 year old Australian.

But that's not what the embedded pathway is about, it's about a clear pathway within the game at any age and at any point in the development of players, not "eliminating" them at 13 years old.
The system is changing and changing for the better IMO, I still has a long way to go, however, whilst we have an RFL running the game at tiers 1&2 and independent leagues and bodies governing the community game, we will have a fragmented system that is not fit for purpose.
There isn't a shortage of talent, there is a shortage of "correct" resource to develop that talent, there has been a big jump in participation numbers From u7-U10's since the introduction of the "sky try" programe with some fantastic success at certain clubs ((SL mainly) who have been targeted to develop these age groups or loose central funding.
It's not all doom and gloom, but it doesn't help when a club decides to scrap its academy and suddenly makes a plan to work with another club which in reality isn't in line with the RFL mandate.

When I did my Level 2 and my Embed the Pathway course they put a reasonable amount of emphasis on the difference between ability and maturity, and also first/fourth quartile babies which maybe helped a bit with counteracting this. There's a lot of support behind leagues being split by weight rather than age in Australia/NZ and I'd be curious to see the same over here. I remember reading a report that found those kids who were bigger at age 14-16 were less likely to make it as Super League players, presumably because they hadn't had to develop their skills as much as they were able to rely on being bigger than everyone.

Why would this temporary measure be necessary? I really can't take the idea that we are so efficient that we have absolutely exhausted the player pool seriously.

Absolutely.

But sadly not every coach does the Embed the Pathway course and fewer actually embrace the ethos of it properly, and even fewer are at clubs where they would be helped to do so, and yet fewer clubs are in league structures that help them to do so.

You're right on the stats about the young players and I know Leeds have been actively searching for quartile 4 players for this reason.

The Embed the Pathway scheme has given me a glimmer of hope because at least I know that the RFL recognise the issues. It just depends on how willing they are to confront the amateur leagues and force them to change. Right now they're sort of preaching to the converted, although that's not necessarily a bad thing to begin with.

The other side of the coin that is almost always missed by those who insist the amateur leagues are fine, is that the amateur setup has 2 purposes, not just 1. Yes they have to develop talent to push up the hierarchy, but their other equally important purpose is as a gateway to the sport for present/future supporters and sponsors. In this regard the amateur setup cannot be described as anything but a failure with only bright spots of mediocrity.

18 months ago, youth was the focus www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ---9239057

18 months ago, youth was the focus www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... ---9239057