paul hicks

it was not aimed in particular at leigh indeed there are clubs still in super league who don't have an academy team and others who have in the past lip service to them i mean hull and hull kr sharing an academy was a joke. as it happens i know a bit about the academy structures and that yes player join clubs in areas away from were they live for sometimes money and other times because they see a better path than staying were they live . take a look at O'Neil at Castleford on that score comes from a small village outside of barrow. I do not expect Toronto or any other north American team to have juniors coming through for 20 years or so unless of course they were to take the route you have mentioned of showing the money to juniors in this country to bring half a dozen into an academy that would then be bulked out with local players to make the numbers up which already happens in England in that case they may find the odd Canadian junior but just as with Melbourne storm they will rely mostly on brought in talent as indeed a lot of English clubs rely on brining in players they did not produce . indeed if as i suspect you are a leigh fan do leigh not benefit from bringing in players from other clubs and i have no problem with that in the championship the whole point is that in professional sport to get established in a winning way to bring in spectators and sponsors you need success so especially new clubs need to bring in players for a number of years as you don't build a modern club from the roots you build it on success and then establish the roots. if not you start in league one and stay there for a long time before you get out .ask Newcastle/Gateshead about that its taken them over 20 years to get to the point were they may climb up a league and even then they needed a money man in the end

well actually it includes new Zealand which is quite a distance from Townsville. that's without mentioning the PNG team in the Queensland cup or the Fijian team in the NSW cup

yes they do

perhaps to help the clubs be more prudent we could go back to clubs not been able to spend more than 50% of income on players wages or even reduce it to 40% given additional costs and debts that will have built up

no big surprise as the squirrels are getting there supply of nuts sorted for the winter

indeed

yes but in terms of size Victoria is bigger than England I would think and yet Melbourne could not get a single home grown player in 19 years but forward thinking NRL did not throw up there arms in horror over it . my own club after 130 years has 7 players from down under plus one born in each of the following countries in the first team squad Poland ,Swaziland and Nigeria . the point in a expansionist game is to spread the game from a strong position not to scratch around for kids who have no experience of watching the game when we have clubs who have been around since pre 1895 who don't even run a junior team now yet claim they deserve a place in super league on the basis that they are solvent again .

without expansion the game will be as good as dead in 20 years. maybe talked about in the same terms as shinty

lamport stadium has had one of the best and most friendly atmospheres i have experienced and i have been to just about the grounds in England

I don't get all that oh Toronto wont have Canadian players in the team for a long time so should not be in super league stuff. it took Melbourne storm I think 19 years before they had a Victoria born player junior play in there first grade. even now its virtually a Queensland born team

indeed and who knows this could be one of them

i would hope that any licencing would take into account past recent financial history of a club . if Toronto were not allowed to bid for a place i would think it only right not to allow other clubs who have had a bad financial situation within the last 5 years to apply as well. it would certainly whittle down the list of eligible clubs

thats what i thought but you never know his guesses sometimes come true

last night for my sins I listened to the full 80 hosted by mick Gledhill. in the 31st min he came out with the comment that there was another superleague club teetering on the verge of going belly up but would not name that club. anyone know if there's any truth in his statement as he seemed pretty sure about it.

money . it turned out not to be the cash cow to support the soccer club so was let go to struggle on its own