It’s not just over age players that benefit from reserve team Rugby but the first team players too. How many times do we see a player return from a few weeks injured and look off the pace for one/two matches. And as we saw this year one or two matches is the differences between making top 4.
Also it gives lads a chance to showcase there abilities if they aren’t in the first 17 and push for a starting place increasing competition for places and thereby raising performance levels.

I remember back in the 60's players like the great Ken Hirst staying at the club from being a 16 year old all through his career, but for the most of it he was back up to such as Smith, Coetzer, and Prinsloo etc. He seemed happy enough playing in the A team competition, which was very competitive for players.

Spot on. It's not money it's the will to make it work. RL biggest failure has been short term thinking and the actions that follow.

God only knows how much our current North American adventure will cost us but I doubt it will be worth it.

Ken Hirst made 142 appearances for Trinity, scoring 100 tries.
Played in ‘62 Wembley win and scored.
Played in ‘68 ‘water splash ‘ scoring ‘ the try followed by the great Don Fox missing the conversion.
Not sure but think he also played in one of our Championship Final wins.
Not bad eh?

U19 prop Harvey Hallas has also joined Cougars.

I guess this will be unpopular then but I actually prefer the on loan system to the A team.
As long as it's done fairly for club and player.

Imagine Hadley playing A team against effectively the 26th choice player at a club at the bottom of SL if not lower.
On loan I found a lot of form and really moved his career on.
The same applies to a young kid playing on loan at Fev. If he rips it up he'll soon be brought back.

Comparing to 60s A team when even the first team were semi pro. Great players but the businesd of rugby league has changes dramatically.

The question is, as things stand right now, would you prefer an A team, or Jacob Miller?

It's not a pop at you, everyone understands our fanancial position. It's more the clubs who scrap the academy's then vote to increase the salary cap.

I wasn’t suggesting it was.

I was just interested to know. We are working towards a reserve team. Interesting though that Hull FC have decided that dual reg is better for their development of young players

Given the lack of interest from most clubs having a reserves team us a pointless expense at present, there’s hardly any games and many of the scheduled ones get cancelled as it is. If used correctly dual reg can fill the void until the RFL see fit to make it compulsary, although if they did it would in the short term damage clubs like us who don’t spend the full cap as the first team pot would diminish further as MC says.

Atm that's easy Miller. I've heard you talk about this situation a few times on Yorkshire Radio, about eventually wanting a reserve team, but financial cosntraints don't make that possible. Saying that even if we had the extra money, the reserve team structure is such an unorganised one, I don't think it would be worth allocating the resoursces till all SL teams commit to it long term.