....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!

In the South, the issue is a lack of development officers. I imagine if you checked the figures you'd find the London numbers are down as well e.g. very many players came through Greenwich Admirals but the Admirals are defunct. Now that's not down to the Broncos.

No longer. The Scorpions cut the dual-registration link.

The dual reg agreement has indeed ended but I believe Wigan still have strong links with the South Wales academy set up. This was separate to their deal with the Scorpions.