At 13/14 they are talented boys, nothing more. Their development in the next few years is the real key especially given the fact of different physical maturation rates, different skill levels (which is 99% down to the quality of coaching received up to that point, sadly it's often quite poor) different emotional maturation rates, different confidence & self-esteem levels etc.
At 13/14 even the top scouts will admit it's a punt and it depends on the coaching received & how the individual reacts to that coaching plus a healthy dose of luck, be it good or bad.

This reliance upon the academy systems to teach players the skills properly (ie poor amateur coaching in a poor amateur system) is also one of a few development related reasons as to why we lag behind the Aussies.

Before I start let me make the point that I'm generalising about the quality of amateur coaches, there are some very good coaches in the youth amateur game but they're few and far between.

Up to the age of 13 the majority of players have poor to virtually no core skills development, this as you say is down to the poor coaching they receive at amateur clubs. The RFLs Embed the Pathway programme seeks to address this by putting amateur coaches through a rudimentary core coaching programme.

However, as things stand the better young players enter into pre-scholarship camps with awful levels of core skills right across the spectrum. Worse than that the more successful players tend to be the biggest and fastest which again as you rightly say is because of early maturation or because they're quartile 1 & 2 in terms of when they were born.

The problem here is that because they're bigger and faster the amateur coach doesn't change them or seek to develop them, instead they're satisfied with the big kid scoring 6 tries and winning the game because the coach and the parents have a winning/performance culture rather than a development culture. That means that when these bigger often more athletic players reach pre-scholarship or actual scholarship they're often the worst players in terms of core skill development.

The other side of the coin is that the smaller players often get shoved out of the way, played on the wing or don't get enough game time so their core skills are under developed as well.

Both groups, big and small, suffer a number of lads who give up the game, the smaller lads because they get too little game time, get knocked about and become disillusioned. The bigger lads have it too easy and when their peers begin catching them up in terms of size and physicality it means they can't score 6 tries a game anymore. They struggle to cope emotionally and physicaly because they can't dominate games and have the success they normally enjoy, because they've never been developed they don't have a plan 'B' and many give up playing.

Many of these young players receive core skills coaching for the first time ever when they enter scholarships with professional clubs. Every aspect of the game has to be addressed and core skills coached session after session after session in order to bring these lads up to somewhere near where they ought to be but the lost years of development can never be fully regained and that's where we really lag behind Australia.

Once in scholarships they receive dedicated, intense and expert coaching on everything from tackle technique, catch- carry - pass, evasion, PTB, defensive systems, marker play, mapping, kicking, catching etc etc etc

They also receive coaching on conditioning, physical literacy, SAQ, emotional Intelligence, diet, hydration, prehab, rehab, self analysis, goal setting and many other elements of the game that are alien to them because they've never seen it before.

This coaching goes on 2 times a week for 1 year in pre scholarship and at least 3 times a week for 2 years during scholarship. The lads are mentored, advised, reassessed, Tested, benchmarked and retested by experts during the 3 years of contact with the professional club.

When they reach the age of 16 they are all unrecognisably better players than they were at 13 when they started but unfortunately not all are good enough to become full time professional Academy players.

Also at the age of 16, unfortunately, you get the bigger clubs who have monitored the progress of these players from afar, coming in with a bigger financial offer and taking many of the players from the clubs that have invested years of time and expertise to get them where they are.

That's the nature of the beast, that's life, thats rugby league and I can live with that!

What I don't like is some poster from a big club who is obviously clueless about elite youth sports development coming out with ignorant statements that the development of the young players that leave for bigger clubs has "the square root of FZ All" to do with those who've invested so much time, money, expertise and emotion into the players in question.

Agree entirely with that Avenger. Unfortunately, like you say, the Scholarships at the age of 13/14 are having to teach the basic skills that should've been taught or at least started upon well before that age.

It sounds dramatic but I honestly think it's one of the biggest reasons why we lag behind the aussies.
The RFL are trying to address it but unfortunately until the old boys networks in the amateur leagues and clubs are eliminated and we get better people in to coaching positions and club and league officials positions then it won't change much.

got to agree with what you say last time I was in OZ a long time ago 1992 every team if I remember right had young kids from the age of 10 upwards school teams learning the same has their teams we don't and I don't think we will ever get to that stage

what I don't like is fans of smaller clubs playing the victim because they gave a young player in his early to mid teens a few coaching sessions and laying claim to his achievements, portraying an image that hi s success was stolen from them by big bad clubs splashing the cash. I don't like it because it is the lie the game tells itself to justify the fact that ALL clubs aren't investing enough in youth development.

I know what academy kids earn. It's not a lot. Nobody is blowing anyone out of the water with these offers. I know that academy lads.at leeds earn less then I did as a student working part time in a call centre years ago. Let's not pretend this is some robber barron scenario of smaller clubs finding diamonds in the rough and polishing them up to sparkle before the big bad steals them away.

The fact is that scholarships are teaching naturally talented kids the pretty basic skills of our game and a player who makes it from scholarship to academy does so far more because of his talent, because of his determination and because of him.

covering up the failings of your clubs academy by vicariously claiming the achievements of children as those of your own is a pathetic lie and worse it is a pathetic lie covering the failure of the game to give it a young players the best chance to make a career out of the game.

A kid like Ryan Hampshire got a gig at Wigan and became highly rated because of his natural talent, his determination and his hard work, anybody trying to claim a piece of that because a few years ago they did a few coaching sessions with him is lying to us and lying to themselves.

The Burgesses played for Leeds Scholarship. Nobody I pretending that we developed them.

As HIM says, this game is filled with people who think youth and amateur RL is about them and not the kids.

Here's another challange.

Could somebody show the best route, say a 7 year old, would take to become the professional England Rugby League team captain.

There has to be a way but how easy/difficult can it be?

Once again you betray your ignorance of what actualy goes on during the 3 years that players spend in pre scholarship and scholarship. Your dismissive attitude toward the amount of work that gets done and the vital importance of it is disgraceful and quite insulting to those who carry it out.

The thrust of this discussion only goes to show how important it is to give the Toulouse youth the opportunity to play Super League.

No it goes to show how damaging the current amateur setup and, unfortunately, a lot of people within the amateur setup are to the game.

I obviously don't include everyone in this and my experiences and knowledge is based mostly upon the amateur game in Yorkshire and a bit of Lancashire. But there are too many clubs that accept (and some sadly encourage) violence and needless aggression at their club, be it from players/officials/coaches/fans/parents etc which just drives people away from the sport at all ages including open age.
There are too many league officials who accept this kind of aggression from their member clubs (games abandoned for fighting or excessive abuse of referees at u12's and sometimes younger FFS) and don't punish the clubs, coaches or club officials responsible.

Then there's the similarly major issue of God-awful coaching. Kids coached from age 8 to fight, 10 year olds coached wrestle technique before they can pass a ball or tackle properly. Kids coached, quite literally, to pass to the biggest or fastest kid in the team.

Again, this doesn't apply to all but sadly does apply to too many in the north. Fortunately my experience of amateur RL further south is a much better one, but the heartlands is currently letting the sport down.

Good, any coach who would be insulted by it isn't needed in our game. It isn't about them. Far too many think it is. It seems you are one.

Don't be ridiculous, what an idiotic thing to say!

The coaches who deliver pre-scholarship and scholarship are almost 100% volunteers who give up their time, 10 hours+ every week, in order to help young budding professionals reach their goals. Most of the coaches have funded their own learning through the RFL and UKCC and continue to finance their own learning in order to better their knowledge and delivery to the players. They are conscientious individuals and are dedicated to the groups of lads they coach. In almost every case the coaches are virtually anonymous and seek no recognition but derive their satisfaction from knowing they played a part in moving the youngsters forward.

Your moronic, ignorant comments are so wide of the mark it renders anything you have to say on the subject irrelevant as you clearly don't have a single clue about youth development or what motivates the coaches who deliver it!

Word of advice, stop digging, go back to pontificating about some other subject rather than winging it about this one!

a little tip. Bluster is not a good replacement for content.

Coaches who coach for the right reasons understand that at 13, 14, 15, their influence is minimal in deciding if a player goes on to be a pro deserve and have earned our respect and applause.

But those claiming that a player who they coached twice a week as mid-teen went on to be a pro because of them? meh.

Ill ask again, how many of Wakefield 2009 academy GF side have come through to being full pros? Youth development is so much bigger than scholarship coaching, the difficult part isn't picking up naturally talented children and giving them some coaching, its not even about offering the best of those kids academy contracts, its not even about getting those best academy kids to win. By far the most important part, and by far the defining factor of whether a player becomes a pro or not is the time between a player being an academy player and actually being an SL player because as we have seen with the litany of examples throughout our game, players can be miles ahead of their peers at 14, they can look world beaters at 16, but if the academy doesn't prioritise their development, and they aren't blooded properly, it doesn't matter if their scholarship was one on one with Craig Bellamy, they wont be a pro.

Like I said, anything you now say on the subject is irrelevant. You don't understand and never will, your ignorant about the subject, speak in ridulously superficial terms, make ludicrous sweeping statements and ignore what others are telling you.

To be fair to Smokey, if all he's being told is opinionated bollox then he's perfectly entitled to ignore it.

If it were opinionated bollox, I'd expect anyone to ignore it, but it's not!

You of all people should be wary of making such a statement.

Be careful what you wish for!