Egg ChasingFather Ted:
I mentioned a larger bench from four to eight. In that clubs have to name a squad of 21 reduced to 17 an hour before KO. It may benefit Wigan in the larger picture but each of the 12 SL clubs has to name 21 for a game. In soccer they have a bench of around eight Union the same. Our bench of 4 in out of date, needs modifying and this is the opportunity.
Clubs like us Saints and Leeds will have the advantage due to current work in the youth sector. All three clubs have the four tier set up with Scholarship, Academy, Reserves and First Team. Other teams are now going along with the four tier but it needs to be a requirement in the new 14 team Super League.
i think its a fair suggestion and one that should definitely be considered, if the minutes rule does get implemented, but i also think there would be opposition to it. If i take our current pack we could have Havard, O'Neill, Thompson, Faz, Junior and Ellis starting, with Walters, Mago, Dupree, Byrne, Hill, Leeming, Eckersley & Farrimond on the bench, thats pretty impressive, and thats before we get to the upcoming youngsters. Another slightly different slant to it, and it falls into the suggestion you make about all clubs having scholarship, academy, reserves and 1st team (which i completely agree with and have aired my view on this in relation to the IMG gradings) is that in that bench of 8 you need to have at least x homegrown players which is promoting clubs to develop their own players. The other part to having 8 is how many can be used whether that be number of interchanges / number of the 8 that can be used, but all good points for a discussion
