And the amateur team that I played for in York is no longer playing!!! park teams come park teams go in all sports everywhere in the country.

Love the optimism on here though, maybe we should all pack up and go home.

English RL continually re invents itself, it has done through its history. The play off system next year could!!! I say could BTW turn out to be quite entertaining.
As I said before the 4 from the top coming down will be the teams that have been losing, the 4 from the bottom tier will have been winning, so one lot will be going in to the back end of the season with confidence and presumably playing well, where as the other lot will be lacking in confidence.

Look at it this year! if you went to the 8 team league as it stands now what would it be?
Us, Bradford, Salford, Wakey
Leigh, fev, Halifax, Doncaster.
On current form how would that end up? probably the way teams are playing Salford (only coz of recent buys) Wakey Leigh fighting for 2/3 place Bradford, Us Fev Halifax, Donny, although I might put Fev ahead of us.
But thats down to current form and going in to games with confidence and a winning or losing mentality
so on that Leigh would get promoted and we would be in the mix with Bradford and fev for the 4/5 play off.

That would be entertaining!

But surely to God were going to sign a few players either with SL experience who are out of contract or a few Championship level players? We are surely going to need a few old tough heads to help the kids along no?

Alternatively you identify the weaknesses in the structure and work to improve the situation. To his credit it is clear that Joe is well aware of the issues and doing what is on his power to resolve the problems in player pathway. Fingers crossed the money men, be it at Broncos and/or the RFL are so far sighted.

I've said on here before that my favourite level of RL is Championship. I watched a lot of it on lot of it on long weekends up north and have thoroughly enjoyed my two seasons watching Championship One. Next season could be enjoyable but I'd rather it goes down in southern RL history as the season we finally began to got to grips with the challenges in player pathway down south. Something that goes beyond the Broncos but in which they are hugely important.

LW used to have problems when playoffs for RU season came around as cricket season had started. Not sure the venue can be used for rugby during summer months.

Agree that's what we need as a minimum. But as yet we've yet to sign or announce them. Got to hope thise signed have the right mentality.

....none of these players would have developed as they have donen or quite probably come to the attention of their new employers without the London SL outfit.......that's the PATHWAY. Now, if there's a young LMS out there, he's limited in his aspirations and options to either head north or play for the other lot.

Have you compiled the list of open age SE RL clubs with a 5+ year pedigree yet Michael? Looking forward to hearing tales of guys picked from London park RL pitches to play for Wigan.

IIRC Ealing continue in some form, via a series of mergers, as South West London Chargers.

Wokington after a series of moves and name changes still exist as Elmbridge Eagles.

Oxford and Cambridge Universities still play RL.

The point is "how many professional RL players came through the ranks of these park sides to play at the top level WITHOUT passing through the Broncos/Quins hands on the way?

None.

That's not to say that no professional RL players will ever be signed up by M62 sides though.

Rob Purdham works for Wigan and scouts Cumbrian RL on their behalf.

I'd suggest that this will probably happen in London if Broncos don't bounce back.

At the moment it doesn't pay to scout London RL as Broncos will have first call of any promising players but as they can't keep those players, it's easier to let Broncos do the scouting and even blood the players for you.

so the Pathway is now a lot longer and more difficult if a youngster wants to step up to the top tier, now that the top london side aren't in that top tier?

True but I would expect to see at least some Londoners making it through the system. The "big problem" that you already talked about is that London amateur clubs aren't particularly stable. The nature of London I'd say.

I believe the idea of doing some development work down south may have crossed Warrington's mind. I've heard from a few sources that they thought about keeping Phil Jones down south. Obviously Wigan are working in South Wales so there is a precedent for such a move. It's not impossible the pathway to professionalism could survive in a rather unexpected manner.

Edited to say I see the 2014 gradings for Superleague academies are out. London have slipped from a 3 in 2013 to the bottom rating of 4. Possibly not too surprising given the destabilising effect of losing Phil Jones.

And Rob in his interview on RLDS said that the number of kids playing in Cumbria was on a downward trend and he reckoned it was because there is no SL team at the top of the pyriamid, exactly my fear for the south.

He's not wrong and neither are either of us!