Donnyman gets his wish, kill the game, plenty of grass roots pitches to walk the whippet.

Don't let the facts get in the way of the Wind Up's Ste

Not a clue what he's on about but it's always been a fact that only one or two kids per hundred or even far more than that make it to Professional level so if all SL clubs run academies that's enough academies. OK a London academy and a Newcastle academy is needed due to distances.

But taking on kids for the sake of it and watering down the quality of the academy teams is a nonsense.

As with all "junior" sides, clubs are lucky to find one player in each year that will make the SL grade, although not all players develop at the same rate.

Academies are neccessary but, they're probably not as important as getting numbers in at the bottom and above all, decent coaching.

Exactly hence SL clubs have development foundations to encourage this in schools and community clubs.........

Puts that one to bed. We need quality in the academy system not quantity......

Ill be amazed if Widnes are still around this time next year. Big trouble ahead for them

Grow up

True.

The real failure of the British system is not the Academies it's what the Acadamise miss.

There needs to be a far more obvious pathway for players who are not ready at 17/18/19 but are at 20+.

The best way would be no P&R and the chance for the SL clubs to create genuine tie-ups with Championship clubs to use as feeder clubs. That is all your problems solved at once. The Championship clubs won't need Academise as such, SL clubs won't need a reserve comp. Players will have a genuine platform from which to impress the senior club.

Of course, I totally understand why people baulk at this, thus it will probably never happen. P&R is what I'm used to and it's by far the fairest way to run a competition but with it comes massive instability and short-sighted responses. Its very strength is it's the greatest weakness.

The NRL is full of second-chance players from second-string squads, some of them are now stars, that is not the case in SL and it robs us of a huge IMO talent pool. Not every player is ready at 19 and those that are may not last the course. Those that weren't but are now must be frustrated to hell.

Thanks for putting the "poster" straight, much appreciated as is the Mods intervention.

There's some great discussions in these interesting times, I can only think being insulted (on a regular basis for me ) puts some interesting people off bothering.

Thanks again........I urge people to report not reply to this sort of thing........

Do you not see a value in the reserves competition? I go back far enough to have been to many "A" team games? Is a reserves side a more settled environment for a fringe player....or is championship Rugby the better game to be playing??