http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/j ... gby-league? It was nothing short of a disaster IMO getting rid of what was effectively the reserve grade and introducing dual registration. It's good to see at least a couple of clubs trying to address the progression problem we have at the moment. Hopefully for the good of the game others are involved and eventually the reserve grade will come back. My preference would be either an U21 or U23 with up to 3 overage players allowed in each game.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/j ... gby-league? It was nothing short of a disaster IMO getting rid of what was effectively the reserve grade and introducing dual registration. It's good to see at least a couple of clubs trying to address the progression problem we have at the moment. Hopefully for the good of the game others are involved and eventually the reserve grade will come back. My preference would be either an U21 or U23 with up to 3 overage players allowed in each game.

GREED will prevent this coming to fruition.

Scrapping the u21's league with 3 overage players allowed has been the worst decision made in the summer era.

Weren't Wigan one of the clubs who voted for the previous U21 format to end, to be replaced by U19's and the dual reg system?

I think only warrington and saints voted against it?

It was a shocking decision motivated by saving a few quid. The same clubs then vote in a marquee player allowance so they can spend more....? Crazy.

I still don't understand the reasoning for the scrapping in the first place. An U23 competition with an allowance for some overage players would be a far better idea. It then gives players a chance to mature and develop, rather than the current situation which is "you're 20, you're not good enough to break into the first team yet, but you can't play in the u19 so we're having to let you go".

An u23's would also then allow us to do away with the u16's. So we're not making decisions on players at 14 years old.

U23's is an very expensive exercise in failure that will also taken huge amounts of talent from the lower leagues.

I don't see why that's the case or why that's a good thing?

If coaching standards in the Community game were reliably better and had some consistency of quality across the clubs then maybe, but they're not!

I do believe that an U23s with a 3 overage limit is the correct way to go though!

Unfortunately we're making a decision on whether a kid is good enough or not at the age of 14. I think that's way too early and we're losing kids with talent because of that (there's lots of other reasons why we lose/don't identify/don't attract/don't develop talented kids too).

I agree on the standards of coaching in the amateur game! Partly I think the setup is poor, we don't need the amateur game to mirror the pro game whereby it's a straight league system. I think kids need to play fewer games so allowing for standalone training sessions so that they don't need to be tailored toward/aimed at the next league game and coaches can concentrate purely on developing skills. I also think there should be a touch rugby league as well as a contact league. Touch rugby is great for developing skills and in increasing confidence. And more festivals/tournaments that kind of thing.

I also think the pro clubs need to do far more to improve the coaching in the amateur game and this is why I'd favour dropping the u16's because I think it avoids making the decisions on kids, but only if it's alongside pro clubs sending coaches regularly to amateur clubs to take sessions and help develop the coaches too. There's, unfortunately, a significant proportion of fine fellow coaches in the amateur game, but there's also a lot who just need pointing in the right direction in terms of how to coach and how to develop young players.

Just as an aside, I do wish the RFL would either take control of or get the league management in to line, because many of the issues (especially discipline, violence, intimidation etc) can be solved by the leagues management/officials. But they often seem too friendly with the clubs and their officials/coaches, who are usually the ones at fault.

With the Scholarship system, players are selected and move into the Scholarship U15s but it doesn't then become closed. Clubs still regularly take players in and have them on trial for a 6 week minimum and lots of lads who missed out in the 1st draft get into Scholarship that way. The same thing happens at Scholarship U16s as well but to a slightly lesser extent. I know of at least 3 at my club who joined on trial at Scholarship at U16s a good 7 or 8 weeks into the programme, 2 of them have been offered full time Academy deals since.

What they do benefit from is a higher standard of coaching which is squarely aimed at DEVELOPMENT rather than winning. They also receive a greater level of strength and conditioning which, if missed, can't be caught up on for years and would see them at a real physical disadvantage when opposing Academy players who've been in the programme for up to 5 years.