Quote: Chris71 "If licensing is put through one of the criteria to meet should be that any club has to have a fully functioning academy set up.
It should also be compulsory for all clubs to have a genuine reserve team to play in a structured league alongside the SL fixtures for young players on the fringe to get regular games alongside players that do not make the 17 each week. The farce of the U23's where some clubs participated and others didnt and some of the ones that did couldn't be d to feild a team at times was just a total joke.
Unless the game as a whole start to invest in the young players and improve the way they come through to senior level the game will never expand.'"
I think the licensing scheme was done to death, previously. League sealed off and 14 clubs sharing the tv cash led to the big 4, with other teams finding it hard to fund the catch up. An open system with salary cap and promotion/ relegation, has led to super League becoming far more competitive. If the RFL revert back to franchising, would the league become a 16 team competition, with the existing 12 plus Toulouse, Toronto and the top 2 in the Championship. I’d definitely miss relegation, it was my favourite part of 2016 season, second only to Wembley.