For the first 15 or 20 years of SL it was very possible to see the dominance of a few clubs as one of the sport’s natural cycles. To me, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, it now feels like a permanent hegemony, and that realisation requires some sort of adjustment - initially from the non-hegemonic faction.

None of the options are hugely palatable but those that occur to me are:

1. I don’t think it is very tenable anymore but we should acknowledge the ‘try harder/follow the example of the big clubs’ argument, which has been the ‘this is just a natural cycle’ orthodoxy for a long time. Such a long time that I feel like it doesn’t now deserve much attention. Optimistic fans of also ran clubs, holding out for a super rich benefactor or believing that this next batch of academy graduates must surely, after so many false dawns, represent a golden generation may disagree and want to wait longer. Even I want to see what new coach can do at Hull KR but optimism seems to be, at this point, in short supply. So, moving on…

2. Make a mental adjustment, or the ‘Scottish Football’ solution. Accept that a small number of clubs will continue to dominate the sport over the long-term, essentially in a higher intensity competition, within and central to the wider league programme, with other clubs providing a backdrop and their fans realigning their ambitions to be… well, less ambitious. The Hull derby might forever more be two bald men fighting over a comb, but it can still be fun and entertaining.

3. Do something radical to have a competitive top flight team to support. I’m thinking something like a part-time league including Cas, Wakefield, Featherstone, Doncaster, Sheffield, York, Hull FC and Hull KR feeding in to a full time MEGATEAM. You could have another based on Keighley, Batley, Dewsbury, Hudds, Fax and Bradford. I know, it’s a bit extreme… but when the other options I see are continually having hopes exposed as baseless or giving up on hope as we currently define it in RL, it seems less so.

I think the fact only Wigan, Leeds, Saints and Bradford have won the GF masks that others have been 80 mins from doing so (Salford, Catalans, Wires and Castleford all in the last few years).

So yes, the name on the trophy doesn't change much, but the finalists do - so it's far from stagnant.

I take your point, and if any of those teams had got over the line it’d feel quite a bit different. Wire had enough bites at the apple and Cas were good enough in 2017 that one or both really should have done. Around the mid-2010s it felt like there was a little window of opportunity - annoyingly for me Hull FC seized the opportunity in the CC while Hull KR… well, suffice to say Hull KR didn’t.

It feels like the window is closed now. Leeds’s (by their standards) poop period looks to be ending, and Matt Peet seems to be doing a good job at Wigan. Making a GF, Salford 2019-style, probably is the height of ambition for half SL for the next 10 years. Scoring a try and not being humiliated - that’d be nice. But not nice or likely enough to enjoy SL as a whole.

I can't help but look at the other Grand Final this weekend as the answer. A Saints v Leeds academy Grand Final. That is why the clubs that win SL win SL. Because they have a feeder system that works (Warrington do too, but they neglect it and aren't patient enough). The likes of Saints, Leeds and Wigan have academy players banging down the door to get a chance. Other clubs aren't allowed a scholarship setup. That is one of the biggest things IMG need to fix. Every club in Super League AND the Championship should be made to run a proper scholarship programme and academy. If they won't or can't afford it, they really don't deserve to be in those competitions, get them out and replace them with clubs that will.

Nonsense. I think the gurning lump of gristle from Cumbria was right in trying to remove some of the Academies. The only way we can thrive as a sport is by narrowing the amount of player pathways.

I think it is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. It could work in a better balanced competition but doesn’t work to achieve rebalancing. Cas and Salford have achieved relative success taking different approaches that suit them. If we want a one size fits all solution we need clubs that are more similar in size.

‘Get them out and replace them’… replace them with who? I don’t think many/any replacements exist… currently. Realistically, imo, we accept the status quo, imbalances and all, or go for a major restructure.

It is the biggest single reason Saints are successful. Salford are a classic example of a savvy group of people identifying a load of misfits and fringe players with talent and assembling something competitive on a budget. They reached the semi final and were brilliant to watch at times, but it's all so short lived. They're losing players to mid-table sides and once Croft moves on they're back to having to do another big rebuild. The strength of those is dictated by the availability of players and eventually they'll have a bad year and go down. That will then kick off a major financial meltdown and it's unlikely they'd ever come back.

There's definitely enough talent around for each team to have their own academy and it doesn't cost much.

As for the replacements, the likes of Featherstone, Leigh, York would all run academies if you required it of them I'd bet. I know Salford want to, they've applied time and time again for the same status as the big clubs. They are desperate to run one and there is definitely the talent around to have a competitive team too.

I really don't see what reducing the number of academies does. If anything it just strengthens the big clubs and weakens the weakest, so you end up the situation we've got now with only three clubs in the division who have ever won it.

Another wild suggestion is the return of town teams. Have regional centres of excellence for the best players in each region and have those drafted into the professional clubs. That means the big clubs can't just sweep up all the talent.

I take it this is sarcasm? I can't really tell anymore, think I'm getting to that age.

Well for a start referees can stop pandering to the big clubs especially at their grounds.

If they do pander to big clubs, then they could stop... but they likely won't. Why would that change if nothing else does? If the other clubs in SL were bigger, then that'd change perceptions and help overcome any learned expectations and unconscious biases.

I firmly believe that we need a youth development system that
[*Ends the big club monopoly on youth development[/*
[*Gives other clubs the opportunity to invest in academies without the full costs associated with running their own systems[/*
[*Encourages all teams to invest healthy and appropriate amounts of money in youth development[/*
[*Rewards clubs suitably with players or compensation for their investment[/*
[*Allows youth players the freedom to sign with the team of their choice when leaving the academy system[/*
[*Involves a neutral authority to look after the interests of both youth players and the overall strategy game in the UK[/*
[*Tailors individual programmes to suit the area in which they are operating[/*[/list

If we're worried that too many academies dilutes the quality of the pathways to the pro game too much, my suggestion is that academies should be decoupled from clubs. The current setup simply grants the top clubs a conveyor belt of talent which makes it easier for those clubs to stay at the top. That isn't in the interests of the wider game.

I would suggest that academies should be run on an area by area basis by a dedicated division of the governing body, which should be led by someone who is proven in delivering talent to the game. Areas would be devised and revised around their expected ability to output professional players.

Clubs in or around the academy area can choose to provide funding to the academy. Super League clubs and / or clubs spending over a certain amount on the salary cap would be obligated to provide funding to a minimum level.

The level of funding provided by all clubs funding the area academy in relation to each other would then determine their position in a draft system to sign players when players come to senior age or wish to sign pro contracts. Of course, you can't force a player to sign for a particular club, so there would be a minimum fee based on draft pick position for another club to compensate the drafting club and sign that player.

I'm not 100% of the legal position of such a draft system, but I don't think that this or something like it is impossible to achieve within employment laws.

Short lived, relative success is better than none at all. The Saints model simply wouldn’t work for a lot of clubs, imo, in part because it has worked so well for Saints (amongst other things). It’s really hard to shift this level of incumbency.

You could replace the current whipping boy clubs with new, slightly smaller whipping clubs but we’d soon be back to square one.

The draft idea is attractive, but I don’t think it’d stand up to UK employment law.

Fundamentally though, I think this argument always coming back to youth development means nothing will change. It is a symptom rather than a cause of the underlying problem. Suits the big clubs because they’re the winners and suits the small clubs because they can pretend to themselves one day it could be them. Deep down, I know there isn’t the impetus or desire for real change. I’ll just focus on Hull KR, and take the Scottish Football approach of ignoring the existence of the Old Firm.

So I don't think theres anything in the current system which would currently block any of the aims you outlay, with some minor changes in governance.

I think over the years I have seen there are two major challenges to the current system; funding and the "big" academies bogarting talent.

For the latter, you have to put yourself in the position of a young player, being signed at 16 by a professional club to join their academy. There are probably several factors which go into the decision making process, and then look to influence them.
[list
[*Likelihood of opportunities to go professional[/*
[*Access to coaching and facilities and the quality of them[/*
[*Opportunities and further education away from the game[/*
[*Salary or any other perks the club is offering[/*[/list
There are probably more but probably a good starting point. If you can influence each of these factors, you can assure that clubs can't entirely ringfence the local elite players - or at least give other clubs a better opportunity to be in the conversation.

The going professional factor is the one thats most entrenched and hardest to fight. If you look at Saints, they can point at Roby, Lomax, Percival, Knowles, Davies, Welsby, Bennison (deliberately in age order) to kids they want to sign to show not only the consistency of giving youth opportunities, but how showing the right attitudes and attributes builds into a pathway that doesn't stop at getting to first grade, but all the way through to dream team, England and the leadership teams within the squad. Its taken a huge amount of patience and false dawns for Saints to get into that position. I think it was the SMTM podcast where an agent was criticising clubs for short termism in their approach to recruitment, effectively looking to bay the fans complaining rather than actually building towards a strategy, and it seems youth development is the same way - some years its in to parade in front of the fans, a bad season and needing some big names and they get thrown out the window for old familiar Aussie imports and journeymen (look at how Warrington have treated Dean and Thewliss as an example of this). The problem we have though, is that the franchise system was supposed to resolve this - how many clubs actually took it as an opportunity to do so? Arguably Catalans, and we are starting to see more French youngsters coming through (certainly more than 10 years ago), but struggling to think of anyone else. No amount of draft or regionalisation will solve this problem, and will effectively just hurt our ability as a league to create elite players. Do you think if you handed Warrington Jack Welsby he would be the player he is today? Maybe I am biased but I just don't honestly think you can be sure of it. So all in all, I don't know how you resolve this (though I see how you can break those academies that are actually working in the triopoly).

Access to coaching and facilities, and further education can all be solved with money, so I don't think theres a huge issue with this (though again, it comes to how much time and energy the teams want to put in - I believe Wigan have recently set up their own college to fully integrate the training schedule for their academy and their studies, which is a model football academies use), its just a matter of encouraging teams to spend more (I wouldn't be opposed to the RFL "selling" Marquee tokens, which the RFL can then distribute to poorly performing academies with conditions on improvement - if Warrington want to sign the current Australia National Team, be my guest, but theyll need to fund everyones academy for the next five years to do so).

But on the point of teams putting more effort in, again using Saints as an example, prior to Covid, they would organise a tour of Australia every two years for the academy (and I hope it returns soon). Its a huge amount of work for everyone involved, but is also a massive sales pitch to the kids we want to sign, allows players to get better testing themselves against Aussie clubs, and creates a bond with the club which may or may not help with retention should the player make it (though I can't evidence this ...). There isn't any reason why any other academy cant do the same, but Saints have set this up and put the effort in, outside of the strict boundaries of the funding for elite academies.

People act like the withdrawal of the elite status was the RFL stopping clubs having an academy, but that was more a convenient excuse for the teams doing very little whilst cashing the cheque to then do absolutely nothing. I understand the RFL need to meet strict guidelines for the elite status and the funding and I dont agree that clubs shouldnt expect to pay the full cost of an effective academy (else we go down the RU model of the RFL having more influence over internationals due to having invested in the kids). Giving more money to the failing academies seems contrary (why invest in bad money...) but taking the funding away completely seems contrary too, especially as I think most would agree that it should be mandatory for the 37 clubs to have an academy. As above I like the idea of the RFL building an additional fund to invest into academies but I am sure there are other ways too.

For some clubs they might point at P&R being the limiting factor - and that annual survival is their priority over medium-long term development.

Does this mean perhaps that the franchise model needs investigation again?

Then, isn't the game just repeating the same cycle again....?

Even in the absence of relegation, 'patience' (for losing a lot) isn't sustainable in even the medium term. Fans and ambitious players will head for the exits anyway. The successful club transitional year (e.g. coming fifth) type of patience is a different thing. Poorer clubs have to prioritise more, inevitably leaving them relatively weak in other areas. As long as we're discussing what is prioritised rather than the underlying disparities and options for a more even competition, SL will remain predictable season to season.