Quote: Noel Cleal "
Looking at the applications of Ottawa and Belgrade neither of these clubs have "getting to Super League" as their top priority. Instead they have said that the production of talent, Canadian and Serbian respectively, is the main goal. Even the early talk coming from Valencia Hurricanes is that they want to have a Spanish club with Spanish players........
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Then what's the fuss about joining the leagues here about?
They need to start a junior development system in their own countries where they have development officers and coaches going round the towns organising the game in schools and taking that on to junior and amateur level locally.
Perez was told to develop players at TWP so he had a bit of a go with grid iron lads, quickly packed that in and conveniently forgot about development and bought Leigh's players on their relegation. The evidence is these clubs talk about development to try to blag their way in. They get blocked because SL know they aren't serious or capable of it and will end up chasing English players.
Truth is only the M62 has a sizeable established player development system in the Northern Hemisphere, that hardly supplies our own game. To have 12 professional clubs we have to import going on for 100 Antipodeans. It's not that I detest people south of Doncaster and north of Newcastle, I can just see the realities of the situation.
I don't think a certain "foreign" club had a better chance of developing players when they set up just south of the M62. Led by a great RL administrator and innovator this club attracted a lot of admiration, especially when they went all the way to Superleague and then blew the mighty Wigan away to win the cup.
If that club failed to develop any players in their 36 year history what chance do all these other clubs above have?