Toronto Academy/Reserves

[Kayakman]

It will all come together in its own time...all of it.

Build it and they will come.

[Sports Prophet]

Interested to know, is it feasible a full strength USA or Canada would beat full strength Wales/Ire/Scot?

[Hemi4561]

1 minute ago, GUBRATS said:

Not sure how familiar you are with RL players ? , Never good to have them away from their families for any length of time 

Very.

I do admit that some of the poor little darlings might get homesick, be tempted to spend far too much with their own cobbers at the beach and bbq rather than integrating with the rest of their team mates who speak a funny language, might be tempted to "play away from home", might forget to get their car Mot,d, and that pubs might have CCTV. Maybe most players should sign for their hometown clubs and stay there so that their families can look after them, although that doesn't always work either. 

 

 

[Themusician_2]

They need leeway in the cap to keep them in Super League considering TW doesn't value junior development at this stage

[Hemi4561]

15 minutes ago, Eddie said:

But you have no idea how. 

 

14 minutes ago, Kayakman said:

He has no answers to the hard questions.

How do you know I don't know how? As far as I'm aware the weather in Toronto doesn't paralyse the city, put its inhabitants into hibernation, close down all transport, and bring all construction to a halt.

What hard question would that be K'yakman? 

[Hemi4561]

13 minutes ago, Themusician_2 said:

They need leeway in the cap to keep them in Super League considering TW doesn't value junior development at this stage

If they don't value junior development that would be a reason to reduce their cap in my view. 

[frank]

5 minutes ago, SL17 said:

You invest in youth. Simple.

You guys would still criticize if the Pack invested in youth. Maybe you will lay off a bit when Ottawa and New York come on board.Plenty to keep you busy then.

[Kayakman]

4 minutes ago, Hemi4561 said:

 

How do you know I don't know how? As far as I'm aware the weather in Toronto doesn't paralyse the city, put its inhabitants into hibernation, close down all transport, and bring all construction to a halt.

What hard question would that be K'yakman? 

Look up St. Johns, Newfoundland and see what happens to Toronto occasionaly...you could not be more wrong...

Do it now and get back to me.

[Davo5]

14 minutes ago, SL17 said:

You invest in youth. Simple.

How is Leigh’s academy looking ?

[Hemi4561]

1 minute ago, Kayakman said:

Look up St. Johns, Newfoundland and see what happens to Toronto occasionaly...you could not be more wrong...

Do it now and get back to me.

Occasionally K'yakm'n, less of the imperatives, bumptious commands from you won't help your argument. 

[TheReaper]

I see a few different approaches TWP could take, non are perfect,  they all have their own problems and would pay off in different ways. 

England

1. Have a full time reserve squad. I assume these aren't under the same salary cap? Cue crying from English clubs about "taking" more players. Either play in England full time (most likely) or in Canada, ideally with a mirrored schedule.  Cue crying about flights. 

     1a. Feed up any talent they scout from North America.  The same targets that usually get brought up, NSMT guys who aren't with MLR clubs, top CRC guys, cut CFL guys.

Canada 

Some sort of structure to find guys to send to SL or reserves.

2a. Partner with ORL. Assign say 5-10 players to each club. This would help get those clubs with playing numbers since they're always stretched as this as possible.  Problems include the cost of moving players over, and skill gap between amateurs and pros.

2b. Enter a club in the RU Marshall Premiership.  This would have to be Canadian-player based, since I doubt RO would allows pros mixing with amateurs to help RL. Possibly also have to start in a lower TRU league. They'd have to play RU but could do it in a RL style and focus on RL at training. Limited usefulness admittedly but would give them the best Canada based competition. 

USA

Either enter a Toronto based team in their league structure,  or just send guys to teams like in 2a. Last I saw I think they still claim to be semi-pro so might be a better fit. I know very little about them so not sure how likely that would be. Might have to pay for housing etc if just sending guys down.

 

Honestly they could do all of these things, and we wouldn't know effective each would be until they're tried. They seem to flip between being cheap (broadcast cancellations) and not caring about money (SBW). All but 2b would for sure cost lots of money. 

[GUBRATS]

Just now, Davo5 said:

How is Leigh’s academy looking ?

Academies are only the final part of player production , the 1 st part is the community and junior school teams , Leigh having an academy trying to produce silk purses out of sows ears for little if any return would be a waste of money , and would most probably damage the local community clubs 

But with your obvious dislike of the Leigh club you will ignore this post and the point in it 

[Davo5]

3 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Academies are only the final part of player production , the 1 st part is the community and junior school teams , Leigh having an academy trying to produce silk purses out of sows ears for little if any return would be a waste of money , and would most probably damage the local community clubs 

But with your obvious dislike of the Leigh club you will ignore this post and the point in it 

So a heartland club that’s been around for over 100 yrs,has aspirations for Superleague has no better youth development than a 3 yr old Canadian team,funny how a lot of Leigh fans use this as a crutch to best Toronto with.

[TIWIT]

1 hour ago, Hemi4561 said:

And I am sure it would be possible to train in Toronto, or near it if they wished to, training on a grass surface under an open sky is not mandatory. A little thought, some money, and the will to train in their home country should be able to provide a solution. 

They could train all they wanted but they need someone to play against. Perhaps until Ottawa is up and running and they have a rivalry Argyle is sitting on his wallet.

[GUBRATS]

Just now, Davo5 said:

So a heartland club that’s been around for over 100 yrs,has aspirations for Superleague has no better youth development than a 3 yr old Canadian team,funny how a lot of Leigh fans use this as a crutch to best Toronto with.

And there we have it , as I said , you ignore the point being made , the school and community clubs in Leigh have produced and continue to produce professional and indeed international players , how many Canadian professional RL players are there ? 

You have a choice , if you don't understand the point I made , say so , and I will explain again , if you don't want to understand it , then fine just say so and we can ignore you 

[TIWIT]

1 hour ago, Mr Plow said:

Exactly, every other club has been around for 100, 50 or 25 years ect. How long has it taken London to produce home grow talent? Same goes for Melbourne. Once you expose people to the game then it will catch on and grow. More people will watch it and want to play it leading to more amateur clubs being set up 

Pretty obvious to some. Others remain completely oblivious.

[Kayakman]

31 minutes ago, Hemi4561 said:

Occasionally K'yakm'n, less of the imperatives, bumptious commands from you won't help your argument. 

I'm not arguing anything...just look it up will  ya...then you will understand.

Just trying to help...Gee Whiz.

[aj1908]

1 hour ago, Mr Plow said:

Exactly, every other club has been around for 100, 50 or 25 years ect. How long has it taken London to produce home grow talent? Same goes for Melbourne. Once you expose people to the game then it will catch on and grow. More people will watch it and want to play it leading to more amateur clubs being set up 

theres a thread on league unlimited asking when melbourne will produce their first nrl player.

and theyve had over 500 million into them.

anybody with half a brain would realize it way to early to be asking these questions of toronto.

if toronto are still around in ten years time then maybe look at youth development.

the focus was primarily on getting promoted into super league.  now the priority is commercial to get the club on a sounder footing.

toronto have no incentive to spend money on juniors with P&R.  it doesnt reward it

[Man of Kent]

14 minutes ago, aj1908 said:

theres a thread on league unlimited asking when melbourne will produce their first nrl player.

and theyve had over 500 million into them.

Melbourne always crop up in these debates but people forget that countless players have made their first grade debuts at the Storm.

OK, there may not have been many Victorians but Melbourne does produce NRL players through their various systems.  

Ask yourself why they do this. 

Toronto needs to find a way to produce their own players sooner rather than later.

Doesn’t have to be Canadians and I suppose that’s what the Skolars (non)investment was about. It’s a shame that didn’t materialise.

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

Top down approach, a perfectly valid way to do things. I’m sure Toronto would love to start with 13 Canadians too but where would they get them from, it will take 20 years. 

They also wouldn't be allowed 13 Canadians under the quota rules now.

[Moove]

5 hours ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

A lot of talk about Toronto's squad depth and the lack of an academy and reserves.

Are these two avenues an option? Are there any plans in the pipeline?

I would assume that they could have a UK based academy and/or reserve team playing in the SL structure. This would certainly alleviate their squad depth problem and would strengthen them as a viable organization.

If the plan is to bring through North American players eventually then it could be a good natural step for them rather than being plunged straight into the first team with little chance of success. 

Bit of fag packet strategising but I would think that a set-up along the lines of the below could be achievable and really set them up for success.

• Set-up and manage junior league in Toronto and surrounding areas up to u18s
• Wider scouting network across NA e.g. USARL/Union
• Have UK based academy, perhaps in an area of untapped or neglected potential (London/SE, Midlands?) and start signing good UK juniors.
• Good players from NA system can progress to UK academy team
• Reserves acts as normal reserves with a mix of squad players and academy graduates plus any trialists from the NA scouting system.
• Maintain link with London Skolars for dual reg first grade experience. could also link nicely with a London based academy team.

Normally the issue to doing something like this would be money but that obviously isn't a problem. They could conceivably have a world class production system in place in a few years with the right investment, increasing the player pool for RL too.

Any chance of something like this happening? Maybe the impending squad size troubles will help get something like this moving.

Re an academy, I don't see that being particularly viable or worthwhile for them without a community or college structure to support it. Neither of those are going to get to a useful level any time soon though regardless of immediate funding. However I do think it's important to invest in that community or college structure now if there is any intention to grow the sport in Canada longer term. Even if the quality is low and none make SL level for 20+ years, it's still engagement with the next generation of TWP fans and more exposure for the sport.

The other thing they could maybe look at in the medium term is something like a scholarship set up. They have a top quality university which might be particularly attractive to prospective players both here and in Aus. There's a wider sport benefit there as it gives us an opportunity to retain players who might otherwise give the sport up when they reach that age. There'd be the coaching network etc to sort out but it's certainly something I'd be looking at.

Re reserves, recruiting a team would be easy enough but given the travel involved during the bulk of the season they'd either have to take the hit on costs or base them permanently in the UK. I don't really see much point in either. They'd probably be better making use of the loan system where required in the short term at least. Or potentially use the link-up with London Skolars as a dual-reg/reserves sort of thing.

FWIW I'd make a significant chunk of collective funding (from TV/commercial deals) reserved for community/academy investment for all clubs. The idea that TWP should have structures anything like 100+ year old clubs is daft, but I'd like to see similar levels of investment in this stuff across all clubs, TWP included. I don't have a problem with TWP having leeway with this though for as long as SL prevent them from an equal share of collective commercial income (I wonder how the spending of that is going...)

[aj1908]

16 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Melbourne always crop up in these debates but people forget that countless players have made their first grade debuts at the Storm.

OK, there may not have been many Victorians but Melbourne does produce NRL players through their various systems.  

Ask yourself why they do this. 

Toronto needs to find a way to produce their own players sooner rather than later.

Doesn’t have to be Canadians and I suppose that’s what the Skolars (non)investment was about. It’s a shame that didn’t materialise.

Ok so if Toronto give English players their first grade debuts you will be happy ?

To be honest I find your stuff amusing.  I don't think you believe all of it either and deep down you like the pack just a bit

[aj1908]

I think if the wolfpack came out with a cure for cancer today some people.would still.be complaining.about them 

[Man of Kent]

2 minutes ago, aj1908 said:

Ok so if Toronto give English players their first grade debuts you will be happy ?

To be honest I find your stuff amusing.  I don't think you believe all of it either and deep down you like the pack just a bit

Yes, I believe players making their professional debuts at Toronto would be a success wherever they are from. 

Even though part of me thinks the whole thing is a bit bonkers, I do actually want Toronto to succeed. 

[aj1908]

7 minutes ago, NOS4A2 said:

I don't think it's the fact that they exist that rankles many, more that they have had an easy ride of it to date (the expense was their choice) with permission to play a top tier team in L1 and then 2 Years in the championship, but now they've arrived, then they should play by exactly the same rules as everyone else.

They have 2 Marquee signings costing them 300k, and another 21 players who it would seem are on a collective 2 million. That's bad management/Planning and the fact is that any players they approach are going to want top coin, so where does it end?

Just because Argyle can afford it, doesn't mean it's right. Say we let him BUY a SL title. Do you really think they'll be the catalyst for RL in North America? London made the CC Final then crowds bombed. Catalans won the CC, but still the game struggles in France. Melbourne won titles (kinda) but it was only when they changed tactics did they really see crowds and revenues grow and as you say, 500 mil and counting. 

I'd love TWP to win the lot, but I don't for one second think they are either the solution to the games problems in the NH and neither do I see them boosting the games participation numbers in NA

Ok I'll pass on your concerns to David argyle and tell him to walk away from the club.

Even though they get the highest club rugby crowds in Canada and America