The Rugby Football League and Super League have awarded academy licences to 10 clubs, believing a smaller pool of academies will strengthen the sport and community game.

"[iHull has been identified as not having a big enough playing pool to warrant two academies, with Hull FC the sole representative for the region.It has left many children who had their sights set on an academy contract with Rovers upon leaving school this summer feeling that chance to represent their club has gone".
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Lesser but better teams creates a more elite development environment, I think that's a fair point......

Less kids taken out of their community club teams means less such teams disbanding through the loss of their best players, which reduces the numbers of kids left which are often not enough to continue the junior team at their community club. e.g Cas sign four kids from Lock Lane Under 15, and so it ends up with the kids left struggling to raise a team and disbanding - Fair point again....

The chance remains for the next Roger Millward to step up to academy with Hull and once through that process sign for Hull.K.R. AFAIK you are not committed as an academy player to sign for the senior club who runs that academy....

Too much Rimmer bashing here, he's not the point......

It is said he set the requirements for the continuance of the Academy 2022 onwards three years ago giving clubs a long time to meet them Cas as an example dragged their heels and didn't meet them....

We need to be rid of people like Rimmer who is obviously clueless and out of his depth. If these sort of people are allowed to remain in their positions, the game of rugby league will be damaged possibly beyond repair.
Rimmers lack of understanding of the grassroots of the game plus LACK OF VISION is breathtaking. Why do the RFL keep managing to shoot themselves in the foot with such appointments of personnel who are not up to the job. Who are out of touch with the fans and players, and who do not act in the best interests of the game?

This might all be true but I'm not sure how it helps to actually grow the game at grass roots level and increase player participation.
In regards to Castleford, the reasons given by the RFL specifically mentioned their geographical location being a factor, which on the face of it doesn't seem to be very fair.

If the RFL keep shooting themselves in the foot with such appointments, then presumably it's the governing body what make the rules and does the hiring and firing which to a great extent exonerates Mr Rimmer for a large part of the criticism he is receiving as it's the RFL making the legislation, and he's simply the front man taking the flack, you can of course say that's what he's paid for, as he's the only one the fans can identify with.

Does anyone actually know what happens with the relationship between community clubs & academies?
Community clubs have yearly groups - the important ones in this context are u14, u15, u16, u18, open age. So, note double age group for u18s.

AI don't know what the plan is for next year, but this year academies are playing 4 (four!) u16's games and about 16 u19's games. The academies can pick from 3 years worth of players for the u19's but generally it's yrs2 or 3 that get a game. And if they're not picked, they can play for their community clubs.

So the u16's, for example Lock lane - I really can't see the coach of the u16's saying - right, we've an 18 game season, we have a full squad of 24 to pick from for 14 of those games, but unfortunately, due to scholarships, we've only got our (weakest) 20 to pick from for 4 games. We'd better fold....

The next group up, I can guarantee you it isn't academy games that affects the u18's. That discussion will go " right, we've about 40 players on our whatsapp group - 8 are playing for their academies, 14 are working, 10 are at Gary's birthday party, so they've said they'll make it but some might be too worse for wear to turn up - what does that leave us? 18 have said they'll make it, but a couple might be too drunk to turn up. Ok, that's enough to play with. Game's on.

Again, it's not academies that are the problem with community games.
I would love to see the evidence that the RFL seem to have that it is all due to academies. I think someone has just made this stuff up to fit an agenda.

One thing I do agree with is there whether it's licenced or not academies should need to be of a certain standard.

Whether that's facilities or more important the quality of of coaching there should be a criteria that guarantees youngsters we getting the best coaching possible.

Rimmer said "Rugby union in this moment in time have 9,000 participants in the 12-16 category, per academy, netball has 3,500. Rugby league has 1,400"

This number is very low is it not and the game needs to do something about this.

Well I aren't sure that those who run the game have ever had any great influence on it's fortunes.

The emergence of BARLA years ago really boosted the playing numbers, and in recent years playing numbers have plummeted.

In both cases I would not give a medal to, nor shoot, the head of the RFL at the time.....

We always seem to believe if we had the "Right man" at the RFL things would take off big time, but for me there's little the administrators can do to either "massively grow the game" or "damage it beyond repair"..........

Never sure about the validity of any numbers quoted. When sports England were dishing out grants, with the money being based on the number of participants I seem to remember RL claiming very big numbers of young players that never rang true.

Whatever Rugby Union are claiming I know clubs near me struggle very badly for players clubs that used to put four senior teams out only have one now, and many don't have junior sections any more. Kids soccer has also been decimated, and amateur sunday foortball seems to have disappeared. It was massive when I played....

I'm not saying Rimmer a liar, I'm saying he's only quoting numbers that other sports may be quoting to big themselves up. Rimmer low number may actually just be the truth

Well there's back road I take from Wakefield to Castleford that isn't too far to go before your in Cas, I can walk from Wheldon Road to Pontefract, there's a right turn on the way that goes to Featherstone, then a road that can take you back up to Cas etc.

The Briscoe's are from Fev. Eden Clare Watts and Holmes are Cas lads, there's more Wakey born lads in the game than Cas, but only because Wakey is bigger.A good number of quality players like Rob Burrow are Pontefract lads and erm they don't have a team. It's a smashing "geographical" location with a great RL pedigree.

The club issue isn't really relevant. Wakey have an acadeny and Cas don't. Pontefract don't even have a senior club...so what?

By all means have one really strong academy, call it "Calder" and play at Fev, Cas and Wakey in turn..........

Holmes is from Normanton, which is considered Wakefield territory (the Knights is a Wakefield club).

Wakey have invested heavily in their academy - why should they now piggy-back Cas, who have neglected theirs?

A service-area style academy, as tried in Hull, just didn't work.

The whole thing is club first.

It would benefit from being much more player centric, imo.

The whole game should be collaborating rather than the teams in the top division chasing their narrow, though legitimate, interests.

We still won’t beat Australia on anything more than an infrequent basis, but if that is the RFL’s KPI we might as well give up anyway.

The formation of Super League, all those decades ago,was going to be the improvement of ' elite ' players,so the national side could defeat Australia. That has certainly worked.

Cumbria and Wales are without the elitism; so,as in football,clubs will plunder players from far and wide.

The governing body,and the clubs,should sort out the areas of responsibility,and look towards a whole game improvement. It hasn't happened- and it won't happen.

Just more people exiting the sport...

How long did it take before widnes gave up on Cumbria?

They volunteered to do that region did they not?

The whole point here is there is still no bloody strategy..
Ok, so we cut the number of SL academies to try and "concentrate " the talent in fewer "hubs".
Will this actually make a positive difference to the quality of players coming through those fewer academies ?

These things are all down to numbers and good luck and decent coaching

THE main issue for RL is to find a way of increasing the participation numbers at the bottom and then ensuring that the better players stay in the game.

Tinkering at the top, reducing academies and numbers of competing clubs in SL wont save the sport and instead of cutting SL academies, "we" should be helping those SL clubs who's academies aren't up to scratch and not binning them off.

Quote: Fantastic Mr Catpiss "How long did it take before widnes gave up on Cumbria? They volunteered to do that region did they not?'" Ah.An easy one on sport. As it's rugby league.You know short-termism,and how nothing they decide lasts for 5 minutes? Well it seems in 2015 - https://www.rugby-league.com/article/32 ... vikings-to But reading this,by 2016,it ended - https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.ph ... academies/ plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Quote: Fantastic Mr Catpiss "How long did it take before widnes gave up on Cumbria? They volunteered to do that region did they not?'" Ah.An easy one on sport. As it's rugby league.You know short-termism,and how nothing they decide lasts for 5 minutes? Well it seems in 2015 - https://www.rugby-league.com/article/32 ... vikings-to But reading this,by 2016,it ended - https://www.totalrl.com/forums/index.ph ... academies/ plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.