Yes Barry is always sat next to Brian at Super League games with his Leeds Rhinos jacket on. Hunslet doesn't exist anymore they are Leeds reserves.

DR is a super league "self serving monster" aimed at pushing the championship toward feeder status. Public enemy number 1 is Garry Heatherington.

Championship clubs are looking at cheap quick fixes and beggar the consequences, coaches are looking at furthering their careers with little thought to the real effect on the game.

If RL is to survive we need more players in the game not the selfish cost saving SL changes that have reduced their A team/academies and brought about the need to keep their fringe/returning from injury players match fit by foisting them on us.

The original Trojan horse was the concept that DR was to keep their "young" inexperienced players in the game but they have shown their true colours by regularly using first team players. Warrington took the pee last year and Adrian Morely turning out for Swinton was the icing on the cake.

A complete and utter SL self serving farce.

Is it my imagination, or was there a post here from Rach that has now been removed?

Yep I posted but then realized on reading it back that it didn't really make sense

It was just in relation to the DR fiasco and not just its impact on clubs like ours to develop their own players but to the future of the entire sport.

Out of a squad of 22 for last Thursdays Reserve Fixture to my knowledge only three of our squad were not developed by the Keighley club - Scott Lee , Liam Darville and Luke Haigh , (by that I mean a product of the Cubs / Albion set up , Cougar Scholarship or National Youth league U18s or were scouted from their Amateur Teams to join Cougars as their first Pro Club ) .

I doubt very much if there are few clubs at our level could match that (Fev / Leigh / Fax possibly) but if all our league is going to become is a practice match for SL stars needing to stay match fit we might as well give up on youth development all together at our level ..

Decrease the opportunity for young players to play professionally and you see a decrease in youngsters taking up the sport from junior rugby upwards .The RFL has seen Sport England in the last few days reduce its funding because of participation numbers , less funding = less development work=less participation=less funding and the cycle continues .
Allied to that the cuts to other budgets that will surely come with a new Govt , things like sport facility management , school sport and funding to non sports specific trainng and development bodies like West Yorkshire Sport are all likely to take hits as Councils concentrate on keeping statutory services afloat and then suddenly the future looks tougher for much amateur / grassroots sport.

A smaller player pool to choose from means a drop in quality and so a downward spiral continues , an inferior product brings smaller crowds , smaller crowds bring less revenue , less revenue brings an even worse product which brings less publicity / coverage and smaller crowds = less revenue etc etc etc

So Adrian Morely turning out for Swinton Lions right now might seem like small fry to the SL Clubs but the potential damage caused by DR in the long term to the sport could feasibly become terminal . A short term fix would be to fill our teams with foreign imports like the Premier League but with neither the finance or commercial draw of the round ball game this would only be the pallative care before its demise ..(see the Broncos for details )

Though knowing the ineptitude at the top, in a few years as the sport is in its final death throes you can bet your house on the fact that someone at the RFL actually might suddenly have this bright idea ' mmmm well maybe what might just work and would make it all better would be if ALL clubs looked to develop their own players ??? ' ......

I can't believe that from you Rach



Yep! That pretty much sums it up.

The RFL complain about lack of player pool then put in place systems that reduce it further.

If you read the Virtual Terrace there are still a significant number of SL posters who think they are doing us a favour!!The premis seems to be "If it benefits them it must be good for the game" (after all there is no "real" rugby outside SL )