del capo Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 It's a never ending circle. Barla won the Colts war 40 years ago but the problems remain as the Pro clubs thereafter swung into the Academy set ups. A simple question. How do you best protect nourish and promote the true talent with the least disruption to a Community game that has brought that player to a point in his sporting life ? A Community game remember that is now the only life blood ( after the RU went pro ) of our sport Answers on a post card to the Etihad once the RFL are installed there..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubleD Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 12 hours ago, DimmestStar said: Which other sport would actually remove academy status from clubs desperate to promote young players, are putting time, effort and money into the process and are now beginning to see the results with brilliant players like Mikey Lewis. Football. Btw they haven’t removed academy status, they’ve advised Hull KR that their academy doesn’t meet the criteria for Elite status. HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 14 hours ago, David Dockhouse Host said: Thanks for sharing your experiences, very insightful and very close to what I have witnessed. Talk of 'Super clubs' at under 13s/14s as players (encouraged by parents at times) move to strong community clubs hoping to be scouted leaving their well run teams for these 'super teams' massively affects the club they leave. I like the mention of 'toxic' as I've seen similar. Pro clubs don't want this to happen, it's an unwanted by-product of the current system. I've spoke to Pro clubs who encourage players to stay with their initial clubs, many young players get picked up from 2nd, 3rd league tier, but parents don't think this is the case, hoping to give their children the best opportunity. The "Super Clubs" is a double whammy too as like I said at my brother's age, those clubs can't even put out a team now. Pro clubs can say they don't want the toxicity to happen, but ultimately their recruitment strategy is the root cause of it. I mean "strategy" in its entirety too, given how its not just special amateur clubs but individuals who are seen as gate keepers to the scholarships. Its also not a nice environment if you're not bezzie mates with a coach or you play the same position as the coach (or coaches friends) son(s). As you can imagine that can be very toxic for young lads and their parents - as well as being frankly unfair for kids whose parents aren't steeped in the game or know the right people. This isn't a "unique to RL problem". I know RU has/had a similar problem, but that said there was only 1 RU scholarship academy in the area and we really should be trying to be better. What is ironic out of all this is that it clearly isn't working either, given the results of the national side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 59 minutes ago, DoubleD said: Football. Btw they haven’t removed academy status, they’ve advised Hull KR that their academy doesn’t meet the criteria for Elite status. HTH Which means they lose access to the elite league structures for academies and now get fixtures against a local sixth form, if they bother to show up. So essentially yes, they have had their academy status revoked. About 3 other people already tried that argument about 4 pages back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spidey Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 3 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Which means they lose access to the elite league structures for academies and now get fixtures against a local sixth form, if they bother to show up. So essentially yes, they have had their academy status revoked. About 3 other people already tried that argument about 4 pages back. College teams are Cat 3 aren’t they? With elite being Cat 1 I can see a big gaping whole there. Is that where everybody else will sit if they still want to run an academy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 3 minutes ago, Spidey said: College teams are Cat 3 aren’t they? With elite being Cat 1 I can see a big gaping whole there. Is that where everybody else will sit if they still want to run an academy Yes, it's a grand canyon in difference in terms of development and league structure. One point of clarification, having looked at the RFL operational rules a lot over the past few days trying to make sense of this all, the system that was referred to as cat 2 seems to be completely gone now and RFL seem now to be using Cat 2 to refer to college league academies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 6 hours ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said: I can 100% see that perspective. I really do think there’s an argument for a tied/farm system where the community game partners are the scholarship platform for clubs 16-18, and act as the periphery partner for clubs’ academy players outside of the top 20 (or less). My issue with the new plan is that it doesn’t deliver that... your example is Leeds, who will continue as is. The RFL model just limits an ineffective pathway to 9 out of 12 clubs, making it “worse” for the 3 versus their peers whilsg not addressing any community game issues for 75% of their peers. We should either do one thing, or the other. As ever the weak and strategically limited leadership of our sport have chosen the worst of both worlds, instead of delivering meaningful change (or keeping the current model but mitigating its downsides) Depressing as... Tbh I think they've looked at the available player pool and said up to 9 elite academies can be in the heartlands but given the small player pool we only will fund those that meet our standard. There's only 7. That is the most depressing considering the focus Super League money has had on this region for the past 25 years. Its the inevitable rationalisation that has been coming for 20 years given the failure of the sport to grow. I'm not surprised these acadmies look very similar to the locations of the original "Super League". The sport can accept Cas or Hull KR scraping away underfunded though still earning their place on the field at the first team level, but its not honest to say its the same for the academy. FWIW football does exactly the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 16 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Which means they lose access to the elite league structures for academies and now get fixtures against a local sixth form, if they bother to show up. So essentially yes, they have had their academy status revoked. About 3 other people already tried that argument about 4 pages back. Virtually every pro club in the heartlands runs a Cat 3 team, even those with a Cat 1 academy. Its not a joke competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Just now, Tommygilf said: Virtually every pro club in the heartlands runs a Cat 3 team, even those with a Cat 1 academy. Its not a joke competition. They are playing a against teams that only train if there is no game on because they have a single afternoon of contact time a week. I know it's a joke competition because I played in it. Cat 3 academies do serve a purpose, they get players focusing on eduction and life after rugby making them great to run in synergy with a cat 1 academy. Cat 1 academies are all about readying elite players for the pro game, Cat 3 academies are about transitioning those who won't make it into qualifications such as A levels or BTECs so they aren't lost when rugby ends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 1 minute ago, LeytherRob said: They are playing a against teams that only train if there is no game on because they have a single afternoon of contact time a week. I know it's a joke competition because I played in it. Cat 3 academies do serve a purpose, they get players focusing on eduction and life after rugby making them great to run in synergy with a cat 1 academy. Cat 1 academies are all about readying elite players for the pro game, Cat 3 academies are about transitioning those who won't make it into qualifications such as A levels or BTECs so they aren't lost when rugby ends. In fairness, if your Cat3 academy is ran like that do you wonder why there's not more Cat1 licenses given out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 31 minutes ago, Tommygilf said: The "Super Clubs" is a double whammy too as like I said at my brother's age, those clubs can't even put out a team now. Pro clubs can say they don't want the toxicity to happen, but ultimately their recruitment strategy is the root cause of it. I mean "strategy" in its entirety too, given how its not just special amateur clubs but individuals who are seen as gate keepers to the scholarships. Its also not a nice environment if you're not bezzie mates with a coach or you play the same position as the coach (or coaches friends) son(s). As you can imagine that can be very toxic for young lads and their parents - as well as being frankly unfair for kids whose parents aren't steeped in the game or know the right people. This isn't a "unique to RL problem". I know RU has/had a similar problem, but that said there was only 1 RU scholarship academy in the area and we really should be trying to be better. What is ironic out of all this is that it clearly isn't working either, given the results of the national side. None of that toxicity you describe would change without academies. Coaches(or even the loudest parents) kids will always get preferential positions as will anyone with a relative in the pro game. Same with player drain. I played for Leigh East from under 7s right through to under 18s and whilst there were a few in my age group that went into the academy systems, most players started leaving at 15 onwards because they just lost interest in maintaining a 3 days a week commitment when they were discovering girls, parties and then going on to work/education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubleD Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 26 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Which means they lose access to the elite league structures for academies and now get fixtures against a local sixth form, if they bother to show up. So essentially yes, they have had their academy status revoked. About 3 other people already tried that argument about 4 pages back. They’ll be playing in the same league as other SL development academies. The Premier division is a national comp, not local and the better colleges also partake. I’m really not sure what your point is? At the end of the day too many clubs just took the money and were padding out sides, paying lip service to junior development with little end results. Those clubs that weren’t upto standard can either go away and look to address their weaknesses or continue down the path they’ve been going Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 4 minutes ago, Tommygilf said: In fairness, if your Cat3 academy is ran like that do you wonder why there's not more Cat1 licenses given out? Someone get on the phone to Hull KR and Castleford, let them know they didn't get a Cat 1 academy because of someone off the Internet who played for Winstanley college! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 8 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: None of that toxicity you describe would change without academies. Coaches(or even the loudest parents) kids will always get preferential positions as will anyone with a relative in the pro game. Same with player drain. I played for Leigh East from under 7s right through to under 18s and whilst there were a few in my age group that went into the academy systems, most players started leaving at 15 onwards because they just lost interest in maintaining a 3 days a week commitment when they were discovering girls, parties and then going on to work/education. I think it would remove a lot of the pressure from the environment that creates the toxicity. As I said I (and my brother too) went to play for other sides and had a lot more fun where that pressure and focus on "getting in the rhinos/Cas/etc scholarship" wasn't front and centre of why we were playing on a weekend aged 14/15/16/17. On a personal level I had a much more positive relationship with the sport as a result. It is that which was toxic, as it ramped up the pressure on the loud/in the know parents etc. Its never going to remove bad coaches etc entirely of course. Though maybe that is where SL clubs should be investing in coaches for local clubs to phase out the Dad coach dynamic. What I can certainly say is that the current scenario isn't good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 17 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Someone get on the phone to Hull KR and Castleford, let them know they didn't get a Cat 1 academy because of someone off the Internet who played for Winstanley college! I'm pretty confident from my own experience, people I know, and the publicly available information as to why Cas have lost their license. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the same for KR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 3 minutes ago, DoubleD said: They’ll be playing in the same league as other SL development academies. The Premier division is a national comp, not local and the better colleges also partake. I’m really not sure what your point is? At the end of the day too many clubs just took the money and were padding out sides, paying lip service to junior development with little end results. Those clubs that weren’t upto standard can either go away and look to address their weaknesses or continue down the path they’ve been going Unless they change the way the leagues work, no they won't. Wigan, Warrington, Salford and Leigh were all in NW division 1 for the last completed season. Cat 3 academies are primarily an educational tool for Elite clubs, which is why they are used in conjunction with a proper cat 1 academy. How can clubs that have had their main academies removed, or application rejected, address things like end product without a means to do so? This isn't about the money, it's about access to the systems to develop players properly. If Garreth Carvell is to be believed(as someone overseeing Leighs bid and former head of the players Union I have no reason to doubt him) there wasn't any funding at stake for these licensing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Just now, Tommygilf said: I'm pretty confident from my own experience, people I know, and the publicly available information as to why Cas have lost their license. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the same for KR. And I'm pretty confident from my experience of the college leagues(along with a decent level of amateur rugby up to u18) what challenges face teams in the college leagues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Just now, LeytherRob said: Unless they change the way the leagues work, no they won't. Wigan, Warrington, Salford and Leigh were all in NW division 1 for the last completed season. Cat 3 academies are primarily an educational tool for Elite clubs, which is why they are used in conjunction with a proper cat 1 academy. How can clubs that have had their main academies removed, or application rejected, address things like end product without a means to do so? This isn't about the money, it's about access to the systems to develop players properly. If Garreth Carvell is to be believed(as someone overseeing Leighs bid and former head of the players Union I have no reason to doubt him) there wasn't any funding at stake for these licensing. A Carvell tweet has got his facts wrong on this thread already. Wakefield were rejected last time, and have worked to improve to now have a license granted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Just now, LeytherRob said: And I'm pretty confident from my experience of the college leagues(along with a decent level of amateur rugby up to u18) what challenges face teams in the college leagues. Were you in the proper kits though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Just now, Tommygilf said: A Carvell tweet has got his facts wrong on this thread already. Wakefield were rejected last time, and have worked to improve to now have a license granted. Which one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said: I think it would remove a lot of the pressure from the environment that creates the toxicity. As I said I (and my brother too) went to play for other sides and had a lot more fun where that pressure and focus on "getting in the rhinos/Cas/etc scholarship" wasn't front and centre of why we were playing on a weekend aged 14/15/16/17. On a personal level I had a much more positive relationship with the sport as a result. It is that which was toxic, as it ramped up the pressure on the loud/in the know parents etc. Its never going to remove bad coaches etc entirely of course. Though maybe that is where SL clubs should be investing in coaches for local clubs to phase out the Dad coach dynamic. What I can certainly say is that the current scenario isn't good. Unless you are going to get rid of all academies, that isn't going away. It'll just become even more competitive for players to catch the attention of the fewer scouts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeytherRob Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said: Were you in the proper kits though? Yes, but what relevance does that have to anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 6 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Which one? Up to 9 spots were open for heartland sides. Up to 2 for basically London and Newcastle, and up to one French side. No heartland club has lost out due to a non-heartland club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 5 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Unless you are going to get rid of all academies, that isn't going away. It'll just become even more competitive for players to catch the attention of the fewer scouts. I don't disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommygilf Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 2 minutes ago, LeytherRob said: Yes, but what relevance does that have to anything? Wakey's Cat3 seems to work quite well is all, just wondering what the difference is/was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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