It all stems from 18+ years of a select gang of clubs squandering 100's of millions of pounds on players and naff all on improving the game as a whole .

Fylde Warrior you do come across as an extremely arrogant dismissive kind.
I for one won't miss your posts when you've decided to do what most would want on here.... Now Jog on.

Agree with most of this, but do want to flag: it's not the RFL's fault.

The RFL (unlike Football and Union) has kept - indeed brought (BARLA, SRL) - all its strands under one body. The 'price' for that is that the (SL) clubs decide where the money they raise is spent.

The SL clubs dictate to the RFL that the total money spent on development is.... nothing.

Union, like us, lost a chunk of its Sport England development money. Their solution - employ everyone centrally. Our solution - sack 2/3 of the development staff. Again, not the RFL's fault. Union fills Twickers ten times a year or more. We almost fill Wembley and Old Trafford, once each, which we have to hire. WE geet 40,000 at Wembley for a test with Australia. They get 40,000 at Wembley for a club game. Union has Zurich Insurance and the might of the city behind it. We have Peter's Pies.

I met with a high profile RL Chief Exec not long since, suggesting that if the RFL wanted to become a genuine, national, developed game, it would push places into a 15-20 year development plan... my specific pitch was for Bristol, where there is a RLWC game, 450,000 people, a million within 30 minutes, a RL Academy (who lost narrowly to Catalans u20s in France this month), a strong amateur team with a junior league they run, a huge tradition of rugby (its the principle sport in many schools), two university teams (and others close by, in Bath, Gloucester, Cardiff, and not too far off in Exeter), a big inner city population, particularly African Caribbean, who would respond to our proud history of integration in a way that they don't to the other code... you could play England v Wales there, and bring in locals as well as Welsh fans over the bridge... you could put magic there, and sell out Ashton Gate (26,000), rather than half-sell Etiad... oh, and no football team in the top 2 divisions, no union team in the Premiership, and only a second-choice county cricket ground, in a sports-mad city.

If you were looking at a 15 year plan, the 2028 Academy team aren't even in primary school yet.

Other, obvious big-city choices would include Coventry, Nottingham, maybe Milton Keynes, maybe Wolverhampton.... maybe Cardiff (not bloody Bridgendoftheworld) or Glasgow, maybe Reading or a South Coast Club (Southampton, Portsmouth), maybe Newcastle. Some (especially the east Midlands, but also the North East) already have good amateur teams, (Loughborough) Uni & College, an Academy pathway. Some (especially the Midlands towns and cities, again) don't have top flight soccer or union teams.

The august gentleman agreed... but also said, there is nobody planning for 15 years ahead. The 12 SL clubs control the money. They just want to pay next month's wages.

<<edit: when I said I was agreeing, it's because I'd only read page one, and therefore I am officially a bit daft>>