www.totalrl.com/plenty-in-reserv ... rve-grade/ Halifax coach Richard Marshall thoughts on running a reserve side and the benefits it has. My personal view is that all super league clubs should be made to have a reserve side, it should be a condition of being in super league, all championship clubs should be offered some financial support to run a reserve side.

www.totalrl.com/plenty-in-reserv ... rve-grade/ Halifax coach Richard Marshall thoughts on running a reserve side and the benefits it has. My personal view is that all super league clubs should be made to have a reserve side, it should be a condition of being in super league, all championship clubs should be offered some financial support to run a reserve side.

we cannot and never will be able to compete with Soccer, even in USA soccer as made use inroads and is pushing the big fore sports over there. but like soccer in usa which will never be able to compete with NFL or Major league baseball. we must strive like you say to grow the game as much as possible, we used to be arguably the the number 2 team sport and are lagging behind too many sports, women football is overtaking RL at moment. we should be able to over take cricket and back on a level with union.

I agree 100% but I live in hope that our game will thrive & grow. It is worth remembering that our game is less than 150 years old in fact most team sports are relatively young so it shows what can be done in a short period of time. The trick is to find that spark that will ignite the publics interest in league. But as we see even us anoraks who live the game can't agree on how to proceed or what we actually want our game to be. Interesting times eh.

Reserve grade in Queensland is an entirely stand alone competition amongst the traditional Queensland clubs. Those same clubs are where the likes of Meninga, Kewis et al played, sometimes their entire careers. Now its genuinely a feeder comp for the NRL. In itself it belies the fact that players need to be full time in reserve grade, as by far the majority of Queensland Cup players are part time. The only full timers are those contracted to NRL clubs. Yet Queensland Cup players are fit and as a competition it would easily rank with the Championship IMO.

NSW Cup is on a par with lower ranking Super League clubs, generally. A few anomalies (I noticed Cameron Phelps playing at 6 for Mounties last year) - but overall pretty good.

It sounds similar to non league soccer here with a mix of old pro's handy young lads trying to make the jump up to full time pro or young contracted lads getting experience at open age. But as we keep saying our problem here in the UK is numbers. We don't have enough teams from under 8's to open age to allow it to happen. I would love the fringe pro lads to play in the national conference as it would maybe attract more of their age group to come along, add interest to amateur teams & show a clear development path to the late developers who are surely about.