Again look at the squad and you get the same answer - clubs like Halifax don't buy young players from other clubs with a view to nuturing them through their reserve grade - they sign players who are ready to play in the first team - the fact they may have to play some games in the reserves due to recovery from injury or loss of form isn't the same as development through reserve grade.

Or a Rugby Union fan who loves knocking everything to do with the other code

Surely a club that despite receiving less money than all other SL clubs finishing 5th is money well spent.
The clubs wasting the money are surely those that have empty plastic seats, spending full SC and yet still cant muster a finish in the top half of the table ?

Why do you have such an obsession with attendances (which you clearly do) when the GAME is about the on field action, something that Trinity have been pretty good at in recent years.

The cold hard facts are that as you've said so many times, attendances are no longer important.
Modern sport is all about filling tv screens and quite frankly, the attendance or numbers of plastic seats has rock all to do with how many people are watching the game from the comfort of their living room or local pub and potentially being drawn in by the advertising on Sky.

Well done for citing a cherry picked season for London for having a pop at Trinity's support, it's similar to the Catalan attendance at Wembley and intimating that their appearance at Wembley wouldnt have a negative effect on the attendance or the 50,000 neutrals that would turn up anyway

Maybe you should get back to watching union and give us all a break

I don't know which squad you're looking at, but Fax have 17 players in the first team squad that have progressed through the reserve team.

You are completely wrong in using Halifax as your example. Our reserves are lads that have been thrown on the scrap heap but are given a chance to develop. We have a few youngsters now that are really coming on and in the next few years can develop into 1st team players.

Really - how many first team games have they played?

If the 1-17 is the indication of the squad then your note above is without foundation. As far as I can see only Butler, Calcutt, Syme and Morgan have come through the Halifax system all the other started their careers elsewhere.

How many new SL players are required every year ?

Let's say a squad of 25 , a career lasting lets say 10 years , so every year each club needs 2.5 new players , we'll times that by 10 clubs for ease of calculation

So every year 25 new SL players are required , how many players do the SL clubs that run academies induct every year ?

Probably a dozen , times 8/9 teams , let's say a round 100

So every year there will be a surplus of players not making the grade , where do you expect these players to go ?

This thread is titled ' Mergers. ' , so let's be clear mergers don't work , so there won't be any , ok, end of

I wasn't meaning players when I said contributing to a merged club - I was referring to cash.

You said "clubs like Halifax don't buy young players from other clubs with a view to nuturing them through their reserve grade - they sign players who are ready to play in the first team". You've changed your point with your latest post.

We don't claim that Fax have taken many school age players and led them through academy grade, then reserves and into the first team. Calcott is one player that has done that, and we have the structure in place now to repeat the process with other players.

What we have done though is taken young players who have been cast off by other sides have developed (and continue to develop) them in the reserves. A lot of these are now registered 1st team players, albeit not many command a regular place just yet.

How this all relates to mergers, is that the structure is very much built on the amateur scene and schools in Calderdale, and it would fall apart if Fax merged with another team (or teams).

So essentially Sparky what Fax are doing is , instead of taking lets say players number 51-63 in Yorkshire every year and trying to find a very rough diamond you can polish up for Leeds or the Giants to nick off you , you are picking some of the previous 3/4 years players numbers 1-50 that hasn't quite fulfilled their potential for whatever reason and giving them a different environment that they might flourish in

Sounds good to me , well done

it is a shame that Halifax cannot run a reserves team like all those Super League outfits. Otherwise I might be congratulating them for their sterling efforts to keep our game alive.