Quote: inside man "Not just looking at the the benefits to the club but RL at an amateur level is moribund, we need to have more kids interested in playing as well as watching, we will reap the benefits long term.'"
Participation numbers from 6-12 years old are up and a lot of work has been done by WT community team to help with that, the area in decline is from 15-18 years old where the community game is on its backside, not to mention open age sides dropping like flies, 2 years ago the Pennine league had just short of 100 teams in their league s and now it is short of 50 teams registered to play 13 a side, this is the area where the apathy lies and needs to be addressed as so many potentially good players are leaving the game. We won't find all the next world beaters by just looking at U12's to 14's as players are nowhere near fully developed at these ages, there is more potential to be found at 17-19 year olds, so rather than picking up a 100 15's and then letting 93 of them go at 17 and probably lose them from the game (as a player and a supporter) forever, the focus should be moved to the area of the game that is genuinely in decline and offers genuine potential.
