University Rugby League

[Damien]

18 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Is there any data on how many ex student rugby league players watch the sport on tv or attend games? Not that I’m aware of, the only data I’m aware of is when England play in London you always hear a significant percentage of ticket buyers are in the South.

30 years ago in 1992 University Rugby League was virtually non existent, or certainly a very small operation compared to what it is now. Some people are always going to be lost to the game just as they are from community clubs when juniors stop playing the game. Do you have any solutions to reduce the numbers that are lost to the game? 

It quite obvious the vast majority are lost. Everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet on this thread with the same experiences and certainly my own experience tells me that the vast majority of 50 odd people in my final year never played RL again. Friends outside the heartlands all played RU after, if anything, and few particularly follow the game. For many it's just a case of out of sight, out of mind for much of the time.

As ever it takes a whole game solution. Without local clubs to play for, and just as importantly in meaningful competition, the vast majority will always be lost. That should be the starting point for the whole game, never mind the student game. The RFL should be looking to help set up alumni clubs, like Leeds Akkies, to keep students playing the game and spread the game throughout the country. Semi professional sides such the likes of London Skolars, Newcastle and now Cornwall are very important too as they provide that semi professional route. Ideally we'd have another division of clubs like this, as envisaged some years ago but not properly followed through.

Students should certainly be enrolled with the RFL when they register in fresher week in some kind of student alumni group for use going forward forever more. They should also be encouraged to join groups on the likes of LinkedIn too, RL as a common interest but sell it as a way to network and build your career and help each other on the jobs market. It's amazing the power of that platform and the people you come across who you wouldn't ordinarily otherwise. Again it is keeping people together and keeping in touch with successful people without RL being forgotten about.

The RFL should look at partnering with the likes of Unidays and Student Beans when it comes to specific targeting of students when it comes to offers. It is par for the course for many major companies and again specifically targets students to get them engaged with the game. 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

4 minutes ago, Damien said:

Semi professional sides such the likes of London Skolars and now Cornwall are very important too as they provide that semi professional route. Ideally we'd have another division of clubs like this, as envisaged some years ago but not properly followed through.

A League One South would be ideal, I’ve been calling for it for some time 

[Colin James]

Chris Atkin and Mike Butt played as students and have been two of Swinton's best players in recent history. Atkin obviously has gone on to make a career at Super League level with Hull KR and Salford while Butt has been an excellent winger at Championship level for a number of years and played internationally for Wales. 

It's definitely a potential source of players for the Championship and League One where rugby can be combined with a fledgling career outside sport. I doubt we could ever see something like a US draft system but the facilities and resources at universities outstrip both amateur and lower level professional RL clubs and should be utilised more by the sport 

[RP London]

55 minutes ago, Damien said:

It quite obvious the vast majority are lost. Everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet on this thread with the same experiences and certainly my own experience tells me that the vast majority of 50 odd people in my final year never played RL again. Friends outside the heartlands all played RU after, if anything, and few particularly follow the game. For many it's just a case of out of sight, out of mind for much of the time.

As ever it takes a whole game solution. Without local clubs to play for, and just as importantly in meaningful competition, the vast majority will always be lost. That should be the starting point for the whole game, never mind the student game. The RFL should be looking to help set up alumni clubs, like Leeds Akkies, to keep students playing the game and spread the game throughout the country. Semi professional sides such the likes of London Skolars, Newcastle and now Cornwall are very important too as they provide that semi professional route. Ideally we'd have another division of clubs like this, as envisaged some years ago but not properly followed through.

Students should certainly be enrolled with the RFL when they register in fresher week in some kind of student alumni group for use going forward forever more. They should also be encouraged to join groups on the likes of LinkedIn too, RL as a common interest but sell it as a way to network and build your career and help each other on the jobs market. It's amazing the power of that platform and the people you come across who you wouldn't ordinarily otherwise. Again it is keeping people together and keeping in touch with successful people without RL being forgotten about.

The RFL should look at partnering with the likes of Unidays and Student Beans when it comes to specific targeting of students when it comes to offers. It is par for the course for many major companies and again specifically targets students to get them engaged with the game. 

Its the bit in bold i think is very important. Sport can get you jobs, playing sport and captaining the side gave me "leadership" experience before my peers at work and helped me step up the ladder quicker (i know this as i was told it by HR). 

Union for so long has done this and I am sure the same happens all over as it is all about similar interests and similar people therefore "fitting in to the team". League can exploit this too with a good network of Student RL.. initially it is not going to be as easy while people are still working their way up but by now and 22 years on since my graduation (blimey!) people would be getting into good positions to help others coming out with a similar experience. Oxbridge, public schools they all are useful because it is a common bond of experiences and knowledge (you cant have been a c**k if you came from a similar background etc).. 

[zylya]

On 07/02/2022 at 10:14, Damien said:

I think many RL players seem to finish University and then disperse all over the country and unfortunately forget about RL to some extent. As I alluded to previously we had a cracking team and our players with RU backgrounds were fundamental in that. They loved the game but to the best of my knowledge every single one left University and never played the sport again and had little to do with it. The University scene is great but unfortunately for the players not going back to RL heartlands after there is often little to keep them within the game. If they go working in somewhere like London it is far easier, and often more worthwhile both financially and from a jobs/networking point of view, to join a local RU club. RU then reaps the benefits again of any career path. At best the RL alternative is a sporadic fixture list of a low standard, usually playing 2nd fiddle to a RU club at a RU ground.

Definitely right about being outside the heartlands and not having many RL opportunities. I was lucky in that a club started in my area the year after I graduated, although it fell apart some years later. That said, I think clubs should be partnering with universities and sharing knowledge/resources to help uni teams grow and get them playing in the summer for club sides. In many ways, there's actually a bigger chance than for a lot of union teams - since the uni season is different from the club season, there's less concern about having multiple games per week. I know when I was at uni that we would've loved more involvement from a local club (not a pop at any local clubs btw - totally understand lack of resources - just think it's an easy win in terms of player recruitment).

[RP London]

23 hours ago, zylya said:

Definitely right about being outside the heartlands and not having many RL opportunities. I was lucky in that a club started in my area the year after I graduated, although it fell apart some years later. That said, I think clubs should be partnering with universities and sharing knowledge/resources to help uni teams grow and get them playing in the summer for club sides. In many ways, there's actually a bigger chance than for a lot of union teams - since the uni season is different from the club season, there's less concern about having multiple games per week. I know when I was at uni that we would've loved more involvement from a local club (not a pop at any local clubs btw - totally understand lack of resources - just think it's an easy win in terms of player recruitment).

Interesting, if the club had good links too that could get a few players summer jobs (not even brilliant ones) then it could work well. Plenty of students go home for the summer, work and come back. Sure they would be happy to stay in their uni city/town and work there while playing RL.. know I would have. 

[northamptoncougar]

Student RL is shrinking imo, 2 of the players for the south are at universities (Bedford / Coventry) that no longer have sides.

Covid has hit the player pool hard and next year could be crucial in regards to its development. 
 

It’s my belief that the student game shouldn’t be there to churn out pro / semi pro players, it’s more about growing the game and having those that did play (who often end up in influential white collar positions) keeping an interest in the sport once leaving. 

To my knowledge that issue hasn’t been overcome.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

12 hours ago, northamptoncougar said:

Student RL is shrinking imo, 2 of the players for the south are at universities (Bedford / Coventry) that no longer have sides.

Covid has hit the player pool hard and next year could be crucial in regards to its development. 

Is there any actual evidence that the student game is shrinking? To me it appears to have grown considerably, Covid will have caused disruption over the last couple of years but that doesn’t mean the game is shrinking.

 

12 hours ago, northamptoncougar said:

It’s my belief that the student game shouldn’t be there to churn out pro / semi pro players, it’s more about growing the game and having those that did play (who often end up in influential white collar positions) keeping an interest in the sport once leaving. 

To my knowledge that issue hasn’t been overcome.

The sim should be to produce both, it’s not an either or situation. Players leaving the student game can become pro players, semi pro, community club players, work in media/journalism/administration, become sponsors of the game either directly or influence businesses they work for to become sponsors, become club owners/directors/investors, fans of the game. We don’t need to pick one, it’s all of the above. 

[northamptoncougar]

1 hour ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Is there any actual evidence that the student game is shrinking? To me it appears to have grown considerably, Covid will have caused disruption over the last couple of years but that doesn’t mean the game is shrinking.

 

The sim should be to produce both, it’s not an either or situation. Players leaving the student game can become pro players, semi pro, community club players, work in media/journalism/administration, become sponsors of the game either directly or influence businesses they work for to become sponsors, become club owners/directors/investors, fans of the game. We don’t need to pick one, it’s all of the above. 

Only my personal knowledge, as said there’s less sides in the Midlands area than a few years ago.
 

I know Loughborough used to be a well financed powerhouse by the university but they’ve now been demoted to “social” status.  

[zylya]

On 10/02/2022 at 16:10, RP London said:

Interesting, if the club had good links too that could get a few players summer jobs (not even brilliant ones) then it could work well. Plenty of students go home for the summer, work and come back. Sure they would be happy to stay in their uni city/town and work there while playing RL.. know I would have. 

Absolutely - this used to happen with the Rugby Union club I played for - a couple of club members had businesses that always needed extra workers, normally minimum wage/warehouse type stuff. If anyone needed a job, they could normally get you in within a few days so was ideal for a lot of us if we were between jobs or whatever in our late teens/early 20s.

A lot of freshers get kicked out of uni accom but 2nd/3rd years, depending on the uni, tended to live off campus so were renting privately anyway.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

5 hours ago, Saint 1 said:

In short, yes there is. Looking at 2013-14 compared with 2018-19, without looking at the Northern leagues, St Mary's 2s no longer exist, Gloucestershire 2s no longer exist, UWE 1s no longer exist, Essex Uni 1s no longer exist, Loughborough no longer run a 3rd team (they've just re-launched their 2nd Team in the last couple of years).

Compared with 2018-19, Bath 1s folded this year, and none of the following teams entered leagues: Coventry 1s, Derby 1s, Bangor 1s, Aberystwyth 1s, USW 1s, Cardiff Met 1s, Swansea 1s, Bristol 1s.

What are you basing your observation on that it appears to have grown considerably? 

I'd expect Loughborough were demoted when they decreased from running 3 teams to 1. They're back up to 2 now, also run a women's RL team. From the outside they are much better set up than a couple of years ago and I'd expect they'll get performance status back. 

Some teams have folded in that time, but are there any new sides that have come along to balance it out? As I said I get the impression the sport is expanding at University level but have no figures or stats on the sport 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

28 minutes ago, Saint 1 said:

In short, not really, maybe one or two. Even without figures or stats, that impression must come from somewhere though?

I've been involved in student RL for a decade. The representative programme is IMO better organised than a while back, but the student game is probably in a worse state than five years ago, and worse five years ago than ten.

If you look at the recent North v South game it was a relatively close game with players represented from a lot of different unis across the length and breadth of the country. 

[northamptoncougar]

University intake has significantly changed over the last 10 years, due to the fee's / expenses a lot more people go to university locally than in the past, for a fact there's a lot less northerners that join Northampton Uni and this in turn hampers the universities abilities and aspirations. 

This could be a reason why some other clubs now cease to exist.

[craig hamilton]

On 05/02/2022 at 21:41, Damien said:

This is so true. Even the better RU players weren't interested in all that. I definitely noticed two types of RU player at my Uni. The ones you describe, who all seemed to talk the same way and came from certain backgrounds, and the normal ones who had accents and were pretty much like the RL lads in every way but for whatever reason played Union.

We had so many outstanding RU players play for us precisely because they thought the RU lot were a bunch of pricks and/or their face didn't fit. Decent working class RU players weren't interested in that nonsense. Also very good semi professional RU players who were in their 2nd team or even 3rd team behind vastly inferior players, because they hadn't gone to the right school before or weren't friends with the right people, just came to us instead.

This post sums it up. My best mate from university was a great RU player but when he went for trials, the first question he was asked was 'which school did you go to?'

 

Incredible.

[GeordieSaint]

On 15/02/2022 at 17:07, craig hamilton said:

This post sums it up. My best mate from university was a great RU player but when he went for trials, the first question he was asked was 'which school did you go to?'

 

Incredible.

You had a mate at uni?

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

The England University Squad is below, a lot of players in the squad are from universities outside the heartlands 

[TheFlash]

Watched the last part of the game. A bit odd in that there was some really good play (particularly in defence, where even late on, players were locking on in the tackle, controlling the ball carrier, getting 3 in where needed etc) but also some really poor play, like the Leeds guy who ran in a 1 out carry on the last tackle ... Idiotic stuff.

Définitely a lot of positives though. Shame it was played on a university field in Nottingham mind... Can we not do better than that?? The union kids get to play their final at Twickenham - I can't see us attracting many of the better student rugby players when there is such a humongous difference in the profile of the two sports at student level. 

 

[TheFlash]

40 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

That comes with time and building it up.  Exposure and pathways.  Northumbria uní dominante as Thunder prioritised it and now the culture is established.  

Think theres a place for a strong Sheffield and York uní teams as the clubs try to build their presence and exposure in their communities. 

Liverpool started to develop a decent team also before covid. 

 

Eh??

The uni RL competition has been going for 30odd years. My brother played at York in the mid 90s.

Union have had their university final at Twickenham since those days too, yet all these years later we still can't even manage a club stadium??

(In fact, we can barely manage to hold it on a Rugby League pitch ... Did you see the in-goal areas on that Nottingham field??)

[dead man inc]

https://rugby-league.com/article/60298/england-confirm-student-tri-nations-squad