Sounds positive, good on the club for taking a lead on this.

That's a very good point. If we have a first team squad of 30 full-timers some fringe players in the 30 will be called into the first team to cover injuries. Maybe we can borrow "our own" players from the U19 but that will leave them short as well.

The u23 teams will include at least 4 'overage' player spots. So we can play the likes of BTW, Turgut , Abdull and a couple of players not in the first team squad. The rest will be made up of the majority of what are our current (older) 19s, the likes of Lancaster, HTW and Dean who, despite being able to do another year in the 19s are too good for that comp.
This will leave the new 17 & 18 year olds in the new 'merged' academy, the likes of Jez Litten etc.

..... this adds up to as many, if not more, players than we've currently got at this level, and higher earners, I would have thought.

I wonder who the other clubs would be to participate? Lancs clubs, Bradford, maybe Cas? Really interesting development. It's been suggested that AP has taken the cash for the more junior academy merger to reinvest in this [ipotentially[/i more practical reserve grade competition. No idea whether it's true or not.

One thing I've said for a long time is that there aren't enough occasions for fans to interact with the club now, in days gone by the Alliance games were a good way to maintain fans' regular engagement. Not sure whether this would help bridge that gap in an era of fewer games but it will be interesting to see how it progresses (if it does).

Think in the end that the 'super academies' will be largely funded centrally, allowing the clubs to focus resources on the 'A' team.

I've been an advocate of this approach for years.

Also see this being the end of the dual-reg system, maybe not immediately, but in the next couple of years.

I think the arrangement with Doncaster seems to have already finished

You just know this will end up being another merged team

You've said this a few times before, and players have subsequently gone to Doncaster on dual-reg.
After the end of the "regular" season, once a player has played for a club, that's the only club he can play for until the end of the season.
Probably explains why there are no more dual-reg players at Doncaster, rather than that it has "finished".

Not sure, said on RH this morning that Rovers have no plans to run a team. Apparently 9 clubs are interested though.

I just doubt we'll find 34 fit players each week so the only option is to take players from the merged academy

I think the idea is that the kids in the merged academy from 16 upwards are ring fenced to the two parent Clubs and as I understand it the under 23's will get precedent and they will make up the numbers in there and the merged under 19's team will draw on younger players within the academy if they are short. well that's what I think anyway?

Maybe. I guess the benefit of us having 23s and Rovers not is that players 19 and over would come to us as default?

I still think the rugby league should fund a proper reserve grade.