I'll Bite....................Other than St Helens and Wigan, which other SL or even UK RL Academy provided 3 players in this years Grand Final? Name me the last player other than Sam Tomkins to score 4 tries in an England shirt?

Unearthing players is great....it's how you got Martin Offiah.

CULTIVATING and PRODUCING Rugby League Players isn't something that happens over night........it takes time and Money.....London spent the first 10 years of SL spending money to avoid relegation with little heed paid to the development of locals. The following 8 years they had some money to spend on the CULTIVATION as well as connecting with the local amateurs and assisting in their development.........alas, the powers that be decided to reintroduce [usupposed P&R [/u in 2014, which will now result in the London Academy dropping out of the elite comp in 2016 if the Seniors remain in the championship at the end of 2015.
If the "pathway" to a career in RL isn't open to these youngsters, who do you reckon will benefit from their development? I'll give a clue, it won't be Rugby League.

If the RFL had attempted to develop London along the same lines that the Melbourne Storm were cultivated, with assistance and double funding, I suspect that Professional RL in London wouldn't be a joke or a failure......

What an idiotic comment - the game was between St Helens and Wigan no other clubs would be giving their best youngsters away to their bitterest rivals - only London because they were going to fold.

Is that the same Melbourne storm that cheated the salary cap to win their GF's? In Melbourne there is a chance of attracting fans because it is an open-minded sports city. London on the other hand is a soccer mad city with 7/8 professional sides. 5 of which play in the PL. Not a chance to build a sustainable RL side. Even the RU sides have largely moved out.

.....you could have just said "none".



The Bigger clubs have never been shy of "nicking" so called smaller clubs talent and Wigan and Saints didn't pick these three up as "charitable cases"......they were signed on merit and 2 of them were gone BEFORE WE LOOKED LIKE FOLDING.....but let's not answer the original question, because it paints London in a positive light. Ask Cas or Wakey fans about "kids being pinched" by "BIGGER" Clubs.....


Yep....that's them. The same club that were given every opportunity and extra funding from the central fund...........same club that when they were punished, rallied and have continued to grow. Same club that have now employed a top level Union exec to lead them for the next few years....one who has also been employed by the RFL to promote games and one who saw the opportunity for London in Twickenham but who was shouted down by the London owner "who thought he knew better".......








It's AFL Central and well you know it is........followed by cricket and soccer. The Melbourne Storm have succeeded for many reasons and increased funding is a major one.


Melbourne is AFL Central....50% of the ENTIRE AFL attendance figure for 2014 was in Melbourne......that's 3,500,000 fans.

6 London premier clubs combined over the Premiership season attract just over 4 million fans to games......Melbourne 4 million population, Central London twice that........no comparison....AFL is Melbourne and Melbourne is AFL.

The RFL actually took control of marketing a WCC warm up game at the stoop and got close to 8,000 in. They spent money marketing it, engaged an agency and placed adverts everywhere and anywhere they could.......London themselves did this a couple of times and got crowds of 7k......but with the cost of living being higher yet with no additional funding to counter this, marketing spend was the first thing to go. There was never anything other than Lip service paid to London and the Day Lewis had seen enough rubbish and went to a proper job is the day Londons number was up

Careful now....bringing the bigger code to the thread usually ends badly on here.
Wasps and Irish have moved out, Wasps to secure their own home and generate more revenue rather than making less than 15p in every pound currently. Sarries have moved IN and Quins, who own their own stadium are doing just fine........Irish own their own stadium too, but can't develop it. They still host a lot of events there. Also, these clubs, Like Melbourne understand marketing......66k for their season opener double header at Twickenham.....more than London managed in 2014, 13 and 12.

Comparing these Union clubs to a professional entity, parachuted into the top tier with little planning or assistance is like me saying that Melbournes 15k average is poor because it's not as big as Collingwood or Essendon......

With more money and proper guidance, London would still be in SL. Chances are though, even if they were, Wigan and Saints would be looking to pick up our decent prospects.......as it is, relegation will pretty much cut off this conveyer belt within 2 years.

Back on topic, which guttersnipe always manages to divert from: Daniel Sarginson was a great talent waiting to blossom. Had he not been held back by the inept coaching of Robert Powell and Anthony Rea (aka "Tony Ray"), he might have won his England shirt earlier.

Cas and Wakey both have excellent youth development schemes not sure which Cas and Wakey youngsters you are talking about TBH? Clubs like Saints and Wigan have the pick of the best youngsters in their area so its unlikely that the likes of Leeds/Warrington etc will release their best players to the likes of St Helens and Wigan as they can - unlike London - afford to keep their best and those they release will be of no interest to the likes of Saints and Wigan.

Melbourne is completely different city to London, outsides of sport Melbourne is limited in what it culturally has to offer. London is a huge city comparable to any major city in the world. Sport is huge in Melbourne, soccer is massive in London and no other sport has a chance. RL is a regional sport in the UK, RL is the second biggest sport in Australia so the chances of there being interest in RL in Melbourne is high, the chances of there being interest in RL in London nil. Of the 8m that live in London the demographic is very diverse, 200k Americans for a start - also how many Londoners follow clubs like Man Utd and Liverpool!! you see comparing the population of London to Melbourne is crazy.

Even after all that investment and nearly twenty years and a very successful side in Melbourne the crowds are still poor and youth development virtually nil - how many Victorians are playing for Melbourne or any other NRL club for that matter? Is that your idea of understanding marketing? You think employing a RU executive is going to help Melbourne - the team is in decline its key players are nearing the end of their careers and they have a coach who appears to have been figured out - good look to him

The TV revenues in Australia for RL are much bigger so the sport can afford to invest significant sums in a project to prove a point and not bankrupt the sport. The investment required to develop London would bankrupt the RFL. If it were such a great thing somebody would have come in and bought it the owner is desperate to sell.

So extended marketing yielded 8k to a game and you still consider that there is a viable option in London!!

People talk about Wigan as the sports leading area for producing players and it may well be but it'd be a very very close run thing between them and the Wakefield/Castleford area.

Wigans and Warringtons and Leeds Academy and Scholarships all have a large contingent of players who are from the Wakefield/Castleford area, at last count Wigan had 7 in their Scolarship alone though this may have changed in the last few months.

The RFL have even changed the qualifying rules for the Carnegie Schools Cup because of the dominance of Wakefield/Castleford schools. Just a few years ago there were 11 Wakefield/Castleford schools out of 16 finalists. Now the Wakefield schools knock each other out in a regional competition meaning not all of them can get through, this allows for other regions to have some success even though it's a bit manufactured in their favour.

As things stand Castleford Academy are THE stand out Rugby League school in the country but St Wilfred's of Wakefield, Outwood Acadmey and Ossett Academy are all really strong.

It's a shame that these lads don't all stay with Trinity or the Tigers but money and the lure of the badge often wins

To give them the deserved credit, St Wilfrids is Featherstone really, but all in the Wakefield Met area you refer to. Great area for rugby league

I was really happy with Sargisons contribution, has great footwork, strong defense, made lots of good decision in attack,

I wasn't expecting him to go so well but I am pleased he did, hopefully he will have a great England career ahead of him

Congratulations on McNamara picking him and showing us we were all wrong

Sarginson has been the one real and genuine positive of this tournament and a welcome international class discovery.

I've always preferred substance over hype anyhow.

For instance...
Sarginson = Substance
Watkins = Hype

Interesting that. Its a shame decent posts like this one get swallowed up due to the same half a dozen tools arguing the toss over and over again about the same things.

All??