I think the academy system works much better for clubs where they have a much stronger junior club base. We have to be realistic, how many local lads from Salford have gone on to be Internationals in the past 50 years? 4 or 5. Most of the one's that did weren't even interested in playing for Salford like Betts, Morley and Watkins. We simply don't produce enough because we aren't a first choice option for 99% of the best kids from Wigan, Warrington, Widnes, St Helens and Yorkshire etc.

The problem is if the club invest and produce the odd decent kid they're off the minute a Warrington, Saints or Hull come knocking. For the cost of running a severely handicapped and failing academy you could have 3 more top quality players in your squad.

But I thought your owner was a billionaire? Surely a few hundred thousand for an academy is peanuts to him?

That's debatable but even if he was a club has to be run as a business.

Not sure about that that redshed. Betts is different to the others. Wigan were full time when Betts came through, Salford couldn't offer him a FT contract.
For many years Salford scouts refused to look at local players. Morley was one of my those that we didn't court as we should have. Think Watkns is as the same but know less about him.
If you're a junior player and you have a choice between a club with an excellent academy set up, clear pathway into first team and are regularly challenging for honours and Salfords haphazard inconsistent approach to junior development, what are you going to choose? Same happens in football too
In the past Salford put no effort into developing links with local clubs, building relationships with coaches, club secretaries and the like and all that impacts on the advice junior players get and therefore the choices they make
Ironically in the last couple of years they have built massively improved links to local clubs and with junior coaches. I hope all of this doesn't ruin those improvements

I admire your positive spin, however if we have aspirations of wanting to be a super league club surely a condition should be to develop the infrastructure including the reintroduction of an A team not just the academy system.
There is a reason our game has been devalued & lost its way, it is all about importing a quick fix from Australia at the expense of local talent. If more clubs adopt this approach the game long term would continue the decline.
Developing the game at under 19s or academy is not just about measuring the success of a player making the grade although I understand the goal, it is also about developing the game & interest locally because without this infrastructure the club as no future.

Hi Mario! Bad news story of course you'll be straight back on. Sad person

Bad news..............if true.

The club signed several local lads over the years but the fact is they struggled to make a huge impact in the game. From memory a few local players I can recall the club signing were Watson, Darren Betts, Southern, Cousons, Burgess, Potts, Jaimison. I'm sure there were many others that either we can't remember or have never even heard of. The only one's that really developed into top division regulars were Blease, Fletcher, Groves and McAvoy.

If local kids were overlooked by Salford how many went to other clubs and made it apart from the small number I've already mentioned? The hard truth is the junior clubs in Salford aren't as strong at producing top quality kids compared to the traditional rugby towns like Wigan, Leigh, Warrington, St Helens, Oldham and Widnes. These elite junior clubs have a long history of producing the best kids from a larger pool and their development know-how gets passed from generation to generation.

Let's be honest the best academy kids we've had in the past 10 years were born in Wigan, Oldham, Halifax and France not Salford. I'm sure our local clubs are fully committed and trying their best with what they have but it's incomparable. It's all well and good developing links with local clubs but if a production line of quality isn't there it's worthless apart from a bit or PR.

I'm a proud Salfordian and I'd be bursting with pride watching a Salford team performing well in Superleague with a team full of local lads. However after 45 years and god knows how much time and money invested over the decades, I've realised it just isn't going to happen.

Scrapping the academy is a signal that the club has binned off any plans to build into a top 4 team and have reverted to survival mode. It's a real shame as the current academy had potential challenge the top 4 at U19's over the next few years. Last season's team had some good wins with a very young squad (remember the pasting they gave Leeds) given that they had only a handful of top age lads this season the future looked bright. From what I understand there's no going back now as they're all either at other clubs now are soon will be. Shame.

Personally, I can't believe that it isn't a requirement from the RFL that all superleague clubs have an academy.

I'd agree with that if the club were producing first team talent every year or two and players showed some loyalty when other clubs come knocking. I find it interesting that Leigh don't run an academy team considering the junior clubs in Leigh have a long tradition of producing a lot of talent. If cost for end result is the issue perhaps we should have approached Leigh about having a joint academy like Hull and Hull KR.