Trouble Brewing

One of the consequences of the RFLs current policy won't be seen for ten or fifteen years and even then most of those who are still following the sport won't connect the two.

Without a Wakefield Trinity and the stars it creates to follow many, of the young kids will never take Rugby League to their hearts. A drastic reduction of adult supporters means an equal or higher reduction in junior supporters and therefore the loss of potential future fans and players.

Without a Neil Fox there might not have been a David Topliss, without a Derek Turner there might not have been a Trevor Skerrett, without a Keith Holiday there might not have been a Nigel Bell, without an Alan McCurrie there might not have been a Billy Conway, without a Graham Idle there might not have been a Gareth Ellis or a Ben Westwood and so on and so on.

Wakefield is one of the most fertile breeding grounds of quality Rugby League players in the world, up there with Wigan, but if you stop sowing the seeds then a few years down the line there's nothing to harvest. Worse than that, something else grows in it's place and when football finally wins the day in Wakefield there will be no way back for Rugby League. You don't begin strengthening a structure by knocking out one of the supporting pillars which hold the whole thing up!

The decisions of Lewis, Wood & Rimmer have a far greater reach than the next three years, their impact will last decades and may even inflict irreparable damage to the game. The direction in which these three are leading the game alongside the near amputation of Cumbria, the artificial loss of a strong Wakefield club and who knows who's next it is bordering on a level of incompetence that is almost criminal.

I'm not against expansion but you cannot artificially create a Rugby League culture where none existed and expect success. Expansion has to begin at the very foot of the game with constant, persistent and quality exposure to the sport within primary schools, kids summer coaching camps and secondary schools. You have to be realistic in your goals and understand that the outcome might not be hundreds of players, it might only be the the creation of a generation of young parents who have an affinity to the game. Those parents are like the early settlers of the wild west, it will take three generations of constant support to eventually create a culture.

You must do all this, you must be 100% committed to supporting this with every resource at your disposal and you must be willing to accept that it might or more likely will fail.

The provision of amateur facilities and the creation of local amateur clubs is the next step forward, then and only then do you begin to see a community of Rugby League followers who might one day form or support the formation of a semi-professional club playing in the lowest division of the RFLs league structure.

That league structure must be established, rigid and have integrity, it must be consistent in it's rules or else it becomes open to the corrupting influences of ambitious individuals who seek to circumvent it at the expense of those who compete within it.

IMO that is the only way to expand the game but it's a slow methodical process that would not deliver immediate results. Unfortunately we are governed by men who lack the vision to adopt such a system, they are men who desire the kudos of basking in the glory of their paper thin achievements.
I have no doubt that they understand their folly but such is their desire to make an instant mark that they will always be susceptible to a man with money promising the world on a stick.

Wake up fellas!
Nothing worth having ever came easy!