Unlike 90% of SL teams Toulouse already have reserves..

Koucash has/had plenty of money but, lacked patience, wanting success overnight.
In many ways he was a good match for RL.

Koukash was Salford so it was his decision, and just in case you haven't noticed we are rather light in the pocket department now he's gone, we have had to sell players to keep going so we are hardly likely to be funding an academy he scrapped.

But surely you can see why people would criticise a SL club for not having an academy?

If Salford can’t afford an academy they should spend less on players.

Good point

Salford under Koucash isn’t the best example, given his wealth and stated ambitions. However, I do sometimes think that SL’s poorer relatives are sometimes told that when the wealthier clubs pursue their self interest it’s dog eat dog, while having to simultaneously defend themselves from charges of not doing the right thing by the RL family.

Think this was an opportinity for Ralph to stamp his mark as CEO but he's completely bottled it.

The biggest issue facing the sport at the moment is participation. Reserves are a way of keeping players in the game. Clubs making a decision on whether a player is good enough at 19 is crazy

If you asked the players i reckon at least 95% want a reserve grade. They'll have a better idea than the pencil pushing chairman.

Yes but we can't have everything we are skint, I think we will spend less on players and still not have an academy, it's a vicious circle.

I'm sure also that if we spent money on an academy we would suffer the critisism Widnes are currently getting where they run an academy, but maybe because they spend less on a squad are accused of having an uncompetitive team.

It wasn't the RFL that scrapped the reserves, it was the clubs - done as a cost-cutting exercise.

The RFL is nothing more than a service provider, especially since the power-shift to SL over the last 10 years.

If the clubs want to make it a rule that all SL teams must run reserves, it's entirely down to them...but is it 5 clubs who have actually run reserves this year??

People tend to like ideas they’re not paying for more than those that they are.

Tell them it is going to be funded by a cut in the salary cap and reallocation of resources from the first team’s wages, and see what they say. Or tell fans that season tickets are going up 25% to cover it. Then we might get a more thorough analysis of the pros and cons.

Even if there was the money to fund it, I think there’s a case for that going into the grassroots community clubs instead.