As someone has already said it is Bishop Burton. The RFL have been asking them to apply for 2 years now.

National Conference is the aim, not professional. Yeamo may play, as may Horney apparently!!! Its great to be watching a better standard of rugby at Beverley but its hard work funding Yorkshire league games let alone pro level.

their fixtures last season included Hull Uni reserves. Fair enough, it'd be easy enough to upgrade the squad, but they're clearly a long way away from semi-pro as things stand. Opportunity for growth would be limited, I'd assume.

Unless it was effectively a development squad, I'm not sure I see much sense in it.

They are not even sure they want to do it, it is the RFL pushing them to do it. The COH Academy may well look at a joint venture to make up the squad but it is all talk. The RFL are keen to get it done but for their own reasons.

If you think about it a League 1 full of expansion clubs such as North Wales, Newcastle and London Skolars who are all being supported and encouraged to start academies which will produce players for the first team plus sides like Bishop Burton (Great facilities, production line of players each season who are being educated for a life after sport and no risk of going bust) and Manchester Rangers who appear to be trying to work with a college for a similar model to Bishop Burton (and outstanding facilities) is exactly what the RFL would be wanting instead of clubs like York, Keighley, Workington and Whitehaven who are at risk of going under on an almost seasonal basis.

It's only my personal opinion built on talking to many clubs at that level and above but I'm sure the RFL have a vision of Super League with a strong Championship followed by League 1 which will be nothing more than a league for new sides and current clubs that have had the vision to set up an academy and education side to things like London Skolars and Keighley Cougars have/are doing. I suppose the logic is that the education side of things makes the players wages easier to manage as many of them are students and being paid to study with the Rugby League Club.

So to quote your original point yes, sides like Bishop Burton, Manchester Rangers, Oxford, Hemel (already seemingly resigned to being Dewsbury's reserves) and Newcastle would be little more than development teams in a league full of expansion and development teams with a few old war heroes like Keighley, Barrow and Workington being the bigger fish in the pond and hoping one day to get back into the Championship. There would be next to zero chance of most teams challenging for promotion but their role would be to develop players and not be reliant on success to pay the bills which is sadly the case now for many of the teams such as Keighley who have almost gone under in the last couple of years pinning their hopes on promotion two years on the trot.

They key thing is that most of them are unlikely to be going bust because they are off shoots of bigger clubs or college teams.

Thank you - that is an interesting answer and an intriguing concept.

A low cost semi-pro development league does make some sense. As these clubs will presumably have very low commercial income, I guess that they'll rely on RFL funding in return for providing a stepping stone? Whether the money is best spent here on the grass roots, I'm not sure but I've certainly heard worse ideas!

I think if you take an established club, in the sense we currently know clubs to be, such as Workington who have a large and crumbling ground that needs maintaining, very limited income from fans and merchandise and overheads such as wages, medical bills, travel etc etc there is going to be a shortfall every year that has to be made up by a rich owner, sponsors or both.

The first time these clubs struggle to get one or the other they are in trouble.

Take one of the new concept clubs (if this theory is right) that are low wage bill (young unproven players) playing and training in modern facilities (college link) with additional funding (the BTEC Academies most clubs run are worth about £4000 per student and they make profit on that) you suddenly start to see a much more stable and less risky model that most Super League and Championship clubs will be happy to attach themselves with to loan players one way and use the League 1 clubs as a feeder club to gain talent coming the other way.

You are going to have exceptions down there, the top 4 will be the likes of Doncaster, Keighely, Barrow, Haven and Workington etc will keep trying to chase the Championship dream I guess but below that a bunch of well kept and safe sides.

Could be all totally wrong but it's how I see it panning out.

Oxford, team are 'bussed' down from either York or Cas apparently, similarly Hemel for which there was a massive fallout down here with long term supporters of the club.
Development of players is immaterial to just actually having a team play in an expansion area it would seem the way the RFL are backing things.
Obvs a team based around a heartland area this is less apparent but getting the majority of your team sent on coach every other weekend from 100 miles away and not training with the'local' players is not doing the sport any favours in the long run, not at the expense of developing/encouraging local talent.

Totally agree about the development but I think the reasoning behind these short term partnerships like the one between Hemel and Dewsbury is that eventually Hemel will have generated enough interest, enough youth and grassroots foundation and enough of a fan base to go it alone with local players.

Personally I think it is a terrible plan but I suppose we can only watch and see.

What I do know is that Skolars have quietly gone about their business for 20 years, many of them being known as a laughing stock bottom of the league, and have now got a thriving community programme, a half decent squad, a very promising coach and have just had their best season to date.

It takes time but they are a fine example of what can be done when you do it properly. The biggest problem I can see is that despite the improvements in these areas they have still not increased their crowds to much better than a few hundred and that is a worry given they are in a very working class area of London, the area that was supposed to be the one that would embrace the sport along with East London and the Millwall/West Ham boys.

But Hemel was already developing a fan base, it already had a youth system, they already developed their ground (new 400 seater main stand)3g MUGA pitch and 3g 7 aside pitch.
All the latest shenanigans has put an awful lot of fans off and a heck of a lot of goodwill has being lost.