Now that Wigan are reviewing their decision to run a reserve team that leaves us and Wakefield as the only two SL clubs. Given that the rest of the league comprises 4 lower league teams one of which is Keighley, who are in dire straits, is the decision to field one a waste of time and expense? . I appreciate that these are effectively practice games but have to have a degree of competitiveness to be worthwhile.
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As LR has gone for "a thicker squad" (his words not mine) there could be a lot of players on dual reg' or waiting for a game.

Radlinski has said that "It is a bad business decision"

I wonder if AP feels the same.

It seems we have been hoodwinked into running a Reserves for 2019 . Only 2 SL Clubs is a farce.
With this news would our recruitment have been different?
Instead of thickening the squad as Radford has said, would we have gone for more quality?
I bet Clubs would be running Reserves if it made them exempt from relegation!!
Maybe that should be the case for us and Wakefield next season?
It at least shows commitment to growing the sport as a whole, rather than throwing money at overseas signings.
The game in this Country is a farce at all levels at the moment.
No Reserves, merged Academy, and the game dying at Youth level .

What a farce! We have increased our squad depth to 'fill out' the Reserves side, to have the talented kids surrounded by players with more experience - and now the Reserves is likely not to happen! With the money that Levy, Langtree, Thompson etc are on - we could have got a real quality prop.

People say the RFL are killing the game, but the clubs have to look at themselves as well.

"we could have got a real quality prop".


My thoughts exactly.

It should be mandatory along with all the other rules which clubs have to abide by - clubs who cop out
need to be hit financially, perhaps only receiving 80% of sky money until they get their @rses into gear
The other 20% going to junior development (or whatever)

typical rl,still no official reserve league,yet they bring in golden point nonsense.the game is a farce and is dying on its feet through poor leadership.

Hoodwinked by who? If it’s a problem for you, it is one of your own making. If it is a farce, it is an utterly predictable one.

I’m sure relegation exemption would get teams to do it, in an at least half-assed way. As it is going to cost money and offers player development benefits that I think are probably massively overstated by its proponents, there’d need to be some pay-off. But there isn’t and most club owners seem to agree. Fans say they want it, but not the extent of demonstrating any great willingness to show that by paying to see these games regularly. Players say they want it, but i’ve yet to hear one advocating cutting first-team wage bills to fund it.

The path to our 2016 relegation was paved with self-harming good intentions, and now you want special protection for similar!

a proper reserve grade should be funded by the rugby league<a far better use of money than wasting it on paying off waste of spaces like nigel wood and the like.

It took me a bit by surprise that Hull invested so heavily in a Reserves set up. There was never going to be a Reserves league in 2019. I thought that Rovers and Hull would join forces and play a few friendlies throughout the season.

The Reserves league will kick off in 2020 but it won't be how Hull seem to think it will be. The current under 19s Academy league will revert to being an under 18s league. The Reserves league will be an under 21s with a few over age players. It won't be a true Reserves I don't think.

Introduing golden point (not that i’m very keen on it) is pretty much free.

Throwing money at overseas signings accounts for about a quarter of most squads. You might be able to make savings going domestic, but you still need 6 or 7 full-timers to complete the squad, and any major savings are likely to be reflected in worse results on for the first team... Unless everybody does it - but if you cut the quota and not the salary cap, it’ll just see demand for fed-trained talent push their value up.

Nigel’s pay-off might pay for a couple of reserve teams for a season. But it was a one-off payment, and the reserves league is an ongoing commitment.

Basically, the sport needs to find a couple of million from somewhere every year. And I don’t see where that is coming from. Even if we went to 10 SL teams, I reckon they’d put the salary cap up first.

Maybe 2020 will be different - although, i’m not sure why it would be.

Also reduce their overseas quota .

And only 3 points for a try?



It’s not a rule or a requirement, so creating punishments for breaching it is... premature, shall we say?

If the clubs want to do it, they’ll do it. The version RBA outlines sounds like a sensible enough approach and not dissimilar to what we had about 10 years ago, continuing the back to the noughties theme of the league restructure.