An over reliance on overseas players and the ability in the past to raid RU perhaps?

The fact that he's coming out with this idea just as he has a number of potentially great backs in his youth teams is a damning indictment on him and his coaching IMO.

Short term Wigan tinking.

A £100k contract on an RU player would be better spent on developing youngsters in link ups with St. Judes/Pats etc.

even if RL as a sport still doesnt attract those players with the natural abilities to play in the three-quarters?

there are probably 15 players of each generation in the whole country to be a truely world class three-quarter, if RU are taking all of these, it doesnt matter how much we put into youth development, if the players arent there, we arent going to bring them through

Rugby Union doesn't take many youth players away from league. Our Andrew Johns', Darren Lockyer's and Israel Falou's are playing Sunday league football because playing a mickey mouse sport like rugby league never crossed their mind or wasn't an option because they weren't brought up along a few miles of the M62.

they take plenty, any player playing RU is one taken away from RL

I'm up for debate on this one.
Yes there are flaws in the proposal, and I've always advocated pro clubs forming alliances with the local amateur clubs, but throwing money at young players does not make them better.

What Brian Noble is advocating is cherry picking some of the best Rugby Union talent.

I accept that we (as a sport) have to be able to afford it, and I presume that is why he was looking at the sponsorship and image rite route.

Surely by spreading the net further we have a better chance of bringing top class talent into the game.

I have some thoughts on that as well which I'll share on here at a later date.

I really don't think that we as game can afford to be so insular.

Its not insular its about having faith and investing in your own talent.

In the past RL signed RU players for two main reasons.

1. RU wasnt professional so working class RU players who wanted to make a decent living had no choice but to sign for RL clubs.

2. The sporting apartheid sytem that existed within the UK until the mid 1990's whereby RL was treated as an outlaw sport, forbidden to be played in most schools, colleges, the armed forces etc meant that the sport was historically denied huge swathes of talent, and therefore had no option than to sign up RU players, athletes or even wrestlers. This has now changed with a genuine open gangway throughout society, and it now means RL for the first time can truly invest in developing its own young talent. Hence the huge national growth in children playing the sport.

The best 50k any RL could invest in would be to bring the best youth coaches over from Australia. It would take a few years to pay off but it would definitely work It's what the successful Olympics teams did, just poached the best Aussie coaches, and look at the Brit medal success as a result.

Coaching/conditioning is the area where Australia is streets ahead of SL and Union for that matter.

It's not just that though.

When I was in us for the World Cup I had along conversation with a former Aussie International player, about the dreadful state of the English team and what could be done to improve it.

His response was that the many of junior Aussie players are "cherry picked" at a young age and sent by their clubs to specific schools which specialised in sport, Rugby League in particular.

Rugby Union are doing it now to a certain degree I know of one young Sale player who ha been "placed" in a University close to home to alow him to continue his studies but train on with the Sale squad.

Even before professionalism in RU, you had private schools like Kirkham offering scholarships to u17 and u18 internationals players.