Denis Betts confident of Newcastle Super League bid

[The Future is League]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/revitalised-denis-betts-confident-newcastle-23686591

[Harrogate Fire Ants]

20 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/revitalised-denis-betts-confident-newcastle-23686591

To be fair to him I agree. If the academy expanding as wide as it is produces the talent like London have and they are able to keep them in the squad with a couple of additions I can't see why they won't be at least in the mix if not going up within the next 9 seasons.

[Damien]

Its nice to see a bit of ambition. Everything Betts says is very sensible and there are no wild predictions.

[cookey]

I really wish them well.

They have built slowly and have solid foundations. If they were to be promoted,someone would be relegated,which is a shame but realistically,Newcastle offer more to the game as a whole than a number of current SL clubs. Clubs who worry about their travelling support,should generate more of their own match day revenue and home support.

Surely SL know they are on their final reasonable tv deal,to survive they must change,that means introducing a couple of 'new' clubs and allowing a couple of the existing to regroup and change their ways.

[Eddie]

I’d love to see them in SL, though I expect the existing clubs would be horrified at how far away they are and would find a reason to kick them out in favour of Dewsbury. 

[Derwent]

1 hour ago, Harrogate Fire Ants said:

To be fair to him I agree. If the academy expanding as wide as it is produces the talent like London have and they are able to keep them in the squad with a couple of additions I can't see why they won't be at least in the mix if not going up within the next 9 seasons.

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

[The Future is League]

27 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I’d love to see them in SL, though I expect the existing clubs would be horrified at how far away they are and would find a reason to kick them out in favour of Dewsbury. 

Don't jest.

[The Future is League]

15 minutes ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

As in all these things there would be some academy players in their academy better suited to playing union and some players in the union academy better suited to playing Rugby League. A win win for both codes at the club

[Eddie]

27 minutes ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

I’m not sure if you’re parodying rugby league fans or not. 

[Derwent]

9 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

As in all these things there would be some academy players in their academy better suited to playing union and some players in the union academy better suited to playing Rugby League. A win win for both codes at the club

In the real world it generally comes down to money. An 18 year old at a SL club is lucky to get £15k a year, there are teenagers in the other code on more than double that.

[Derwent]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I’m not sure if you’re parodying rugby league fans or not. 

No it’s a simple fact of life that money talks. Newcastle Thunder are not a standalone RL club, they are a small subsidiary of a business that generates 95% of its income from the other code. 

[Eddie]

2 minutes ago, Derwent said:

No it’s a simple fact of life that money talks. Newcastle Thunder are not a standalone RL club, they are a small subsidiary of a business that generates 95% of its income from the other code. 

That may be, but they are very clearly hoping to establish a strong RL club capable of challenging for major honours, and have already set up many community clubs in the North East, so what’s not to like. People can always find a negative I suppose. 

[The Future is League]

1 minute ago, Eddie said:

That may be, but they are very clearly hoping to establish a strong RL club capable of challenging for major honours, and have already set up many community clubs in the North East, so what’s not to like. People can always find a negative I suppose. 

It can always be relied on that some Rugby League fans can find a negative in a positive story

[fighting irish]

21 minutes ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

You are discounting the fact that, as kids and young players, these people have chosen to play Rugby League, because like most of us, they just prefer the game (by a mile).

I'm surprised you can't find the good grace to compliment the amazing achievements of the Newcastle development programme, to which they have committed many years of volunteer effort and ingenuity.

''The problem with their academy...........''    smacks of complete ignorance of what it takes to get to where they are  and/or utter contempt for their achievements.

With friends like you, who needs enemies?

[Tommygilf]

1 hour ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

There are plenty of RU players in the North East (and by extension Yorkshire, Cumbria, and the Scottish Borders as they fall into their "catchment area"). 

I'm sure Thunder's owners want both clubs to be as successful as possible.

[The storm]

1 hour ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

The thunder will be more successful than the falcons over the next ten years 

[Hela Wigmen]

There’d be something to worry about if Thunder were haemorrhaging players at Academy level to union. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything to suggest this has taken place at any time, certainly not to any sort of level where Thunder would have any issues with this practice. 

Thunder are building nicely. They have an Academy that’s playing Super League opposition, they’re improving on the pitch and would have been amongst the favourites in 2020 and will make the Championship better for their presence. 

[Eddie]

5 minutes ago, Hela Wigmen said:

There’d be something to worry about if Thunder were haemorrhaging players at Academy level to union. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything to suggest this has taken place at any time, certainly not to any sort of level where Thunder would have any issues with this practice. 

Thunder are building nicely. They have an Academy that’s playing Super League opposition, they’re improving on the pitch and would have been amongst the favourites in 2020 and will make the Championship better for their presence. 

Indeed, why on earth would Newcastle go to the effort of setting up a RL academy just to try to find players to play Union, when they could just have a bigger Union academy instead. 

[OMEGA]

I’ve got first hand experience of working on player development in the NE. There are some extremely well talented young players and athletes in the region. In past years they were held back by their RL IQ but as the decades have passed the amateur game has allowed these lads to start playing at 5 & 6 years old so the current players are right up there with most other regions.

There has been a core of volunteers almost RL missionaries who’ve been involved from the very first day, they’ve nurtured the game and started new clubs with multiple age groups, they along with others are a credit to the region!

Id love to see them compete at the top of the Championship and gain promotion, it would be just reward for the endeavours of those who’ve worked so hard with little to no help from the RFL.

Should they gain a Super League place and keep it then it would be great if York could follow them as geographically it makes Newcastle less of a ‘satellite’ club and maybe creates a rivalry that both can feed off. In time they could make a Newcastle, York, Hull FC and Hull KR rivalry and really reignite the interest in East Yorkshire as well.

Good Luck to them

[Cumbrian Mackem]

39 minutes ago, The storm said:

The thunder will be more successful than the falcons over the next ten years 

Why?

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, Derwent said:

No it’s a simple fact of life that money talks. Newcastle Thunder are not a standalone RL club, they are a small subsidiary of a business that generates 95% of its income from the other code. 

And yet the RL side of the operation still puts numerous established clubs to shame when it comes to development both on & off the pitch.

Loosing players to Union is a game wide problem due to our low salary cap and not just Newcastle’s

[DimmestStar]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

I’d love to see them in SL, though I expect the existing clubs would be horrified at how far away they are and would find a reason to kick them out in favour of Dewsbury. 

Surely Newcastle won't want to join this dastardly lot?

[Harrogate Fire Ants]

2 hours ago, Derwent said:

The problem with their academy is that it is essentially funded by a business who's main activity is RU, Thunder are very much a junior partner in the setup in terms of the financials. Anyone with genuine high class talent coming through may well be steered towards the senior partner club who of course can offer them much more financially.

That may well be the case. In some ways it's not the end of the world. Players will be dropped from the RU side who can be picked up by Thunder and developed.

One example at York where this type of thing has happened  is Jason Bass, he didn't make it in Union with Leicester Tigers was using League for fitness and switched to it fully, played for England students, Coventry and now 1st pick centre at York mixing it up with an excellent performance against Hull last night still only 24 with plenty of opportunity ahead of him. 

[Damien]

Surely a bigger problem would be getting no support, no funding and having no ground to play at?

[OriginalMrC]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

Indeed, why on earth would Newcastle go to the effort of setting up a RL academy just to try to find players to play Union, when they could just have a bigger Union academy instead. 

True, and I've said this more than once - A good RL player does not necessarily make a good RU player and vice versa! Don't understand why so many people seem to be under this misapprehension