The promoted Championship team.

[MattSantos]

18 hours ago, yipyee said:

Why ?

Fewer regions equals fewer games and fewer players playing. Who would even coach these teams? Who pays for the rest of the staff. Who supports them?

Don't even get me started on a draft. It's daft thinking by people who are genuinely clueless

[yipyee]

2 hours ago, MattSantos said:

Fewer regions equals fewer games and fewer players playing. Who would even coach these teams? Who pays for the rest of the staff. Who supports them?

Don't even get me started on a draft. It's daft thinking by people who are genuinely clueless

In your head maybe, in the real world it would work.

[MattSantos]

16 hours ago, yipyee said:

In your head maybe, in the real world it would work.

Try answering my questions. 

[yipyee]

21 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

Try answering my questions. 

OK

Coaches would coach them. 

Central funding would pay a portion for them as clubs wouldn't need to pay for their own academy's.

Some academy's could even be self funded, especially if the draft was only for players over 23!

[Barley Mow]

1 hour ago, MattSantos said:

Try answering my questions. 

I'd be in favour of RLF run regional academies. I can't speak for people you are questioning, but I'd see it working like this:

- Academies run by the RFL instead of clubs - This means there is no 'favouring' some clubs by having academy licences and funding and wage cap deductions when other clubs don't.

- Regional basis - Est Yorks, Central Yorks, Wst York, Est Lancs, Wst Lancs, Northern (based around Carlisle/Penrith to cater for Cumbria & North East), South of England, Midlands. With the RFL now only being directly responsible for England this doesn't include Wales, etc but I'd be happy to see a Wales academy in if WRL wanted to.

 - Eight academies ensures that the number of players who typically currently get taken on as pro/semi-pros would get a place, but would reduce the numbers taken out of the community game to make up numbers with no prospect of making it professionally, thereby helping to sustain the community game as well and improving standards within the academies overall.

- Academies to play each other home and away once - 14 matches. This year academies played 13 regular season matches each.

- RFL to employ the coaches, etc.

- Each academy assigned a geographic boundary to their area. They can take on players currently living, playing or being educated in their area. If that left a decent prospect without an academy place because his 'area' was particularly strong that year, then another academy could sign them on the agreement of his home area.

- On leaving the academy, players are able to sign with any club as a free agent. No draft, I don't think it works in a British context.

- Academies' funding - RFL would use the funds they currently give to the licenced academies, plus either an increased share of TV money (clubs to take a reduction, but those currently with licences would no longer be spending money on academies) or clubs pay a fee to the academies upon signing a player they have trained.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Barley Mow

[MattSantos]

12 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

I'd be in favour of RLF run regional academies. I can't speak for people you are questioning, but I'd see it working like this:

- Academies run by the RFL instead of clubs - This means there is no 'favouring' some clubs by having academy licences and funding and wage cap deductions when other clubs don't.

- Regional basis - Est Yorks, Central Yorks, Wst York, Est Lancs, Wst Lancs, Northern (based around Carlisle/Penrith to cater for Cumbria & North East), South of England, Midlands. With the RFL now only being directly responsible for England this doesn't include Wales, etc but I'd be happy to see a Wales academy in if WRL wanted to.

 - Eight academies ensures that the number of players who typically currently get taken on as pro/semi-pros would get a place, but would reduce the numbers taken out of the community game to make up numbers with no prospect of making it professionally, thereby helping to sustain the community game as well and improving standards within the academies overall.

- Academies to play each other home and away once - 14 matches. This year academies played 13 regular season matches each.

- RFL to employ the coaches, etc.

- Each academy assigned a geographic boundary to their area. They can take on players currently living, playing or being educated in their area. If that left a decent prospect without an academy place because his 'area' was particularly strong that year, then another academy could sign them on the agreement of his home area.

- On leaving the academy, players are able to sign with any club as a free agent. No draft, I don't think it works in a British context.

- Academies' funding - RFL would use the funds they currently give to the licenced academies, plus either an increased share of TV money (clubs to take a reduction, but those currently with licences would no longer be spending money on academies) or clubs pay a fee to the academies upon signing a player they have trained.

Thank you. Please chase me to reply tomorrow, its interesting this

[Magic Superbeetle]

19 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

I'd be in favour of RLF run regional academies. I can't speak for people you are questioning, but I'd see it working like this:

- Academies run by the RFL instead of clubs - This means there is no 'favouring' some clubs by having academy licences and funding and wage cap deductions when other clubs don't.

- Regional basis - Est Yorks, Central Yorks, Wst York, Est Lancs, Wst Lancs, Northern (based around Carlisle/Penrith to cater for Cumbria & North East), South of England, Midlands. With the RFL now only being directly responsible for England this doesn't include Wales, etc but I'd be happy to see a Wales academy in if WRL wanted to.

 - Eight academies ensures that the number of players who typically currently get taken on as pro/semi-pros would get a place, but would reduce the numbers taken out of the community game to make up numbers with no prospect of making it professionally, thereby helping to sustain the community game as well and improving standards within the academies overall.

- Academies to play each other home and away once - 14 matches. This year academies played 13 regular season matches each.

- RFL to employ the coaches, etc.

- Each academy assigned a geographic boundary to their area. They can take on players currently living, playing or being educated in their area. If that left a decent prospect without an academy place because his 'area' was particularly strong that year, then another academy could sign them on the agreement of his home area.

- On leaving the academy, players are able to sign with any club as a free agent. No draft, I don't think it works in a British context.

- Academies' funding - RFL would use the funds they currently give to the licenced academies, plus either an increased share of TV money (clubs to take a reduction, but those currently with licences would no longer be spending money on academies) or clubs pay a fee to the academies upon signing a player they have trained.

- the RFL isn’t favouring clubs by awarding elite licenses. It’s not like the RFL said there are only 10 licenses and they’ll go to who we choose. All clubs have the option to run an academy in conjunction with a college, and meeting Sport England standards leads to additional funding.

- it fundamentally misses the point that there are some academies which spend more on development than they receive from central funding. Obviously disrupted by Covid, but prior to that the Saints club would take their academy over to Australia for a series every other year. Not only is this a huge draw for players but also helps them develop and continue to improve beyond just a basic academy set up.

- lots of the top academies get access to training facilities and coaching that the first team get, which wouldn’t be easily replicated in out of team academy set ups. Similarly teams set their teams up in the academy in a similar way to the first team playing (particularly obvious with Wigan) and this helps ease young players in to first grade making transition easier and improving them overall.

- there’s lots of examples of kids playing first grade before completing the academy. Holding the top players back by playing for a non affiliated academy only hurts our development of elite players. There was a suggestion that they would be responsible until 23 - imagine how much damage that would do to someone like Welsby.

- it puts increased pressure on teams signing journeymen as they don’t have an academy to fall back on when injuries occur. Saints would have struggled massively without Bennison stepping to the team this year for example.

Overall taking academies away from the teams would most likely lead to a more even distribution of talent, but would irrevocably harm the development of our most elite junior talent. I’m just never going to be convinced the benefit of doing this over doing more to encourage teams to invest further in their own academy set ups (which is all too often is an after thought to many of these teams).

[DEANO]

Nobody is promoted yet. If batley do the unthinkable and beat leigh they wouldn’t want to go up. Does that mean Toulouse are safe. Just asking

[Barley Mow]

1 minute ago, Magic Superbeetle said:

- the RFL isn’t favouring clubs by awarding elite licenses. It’s not like the RFL said there are only 10 licenses and they’ll go to who we choose. All clubs have the option to run an academy in conjunction with a college, and meeting Sport England standards leads to additional funding.

- it fundamentally misses the point that there are some academies which spend more on development than they receive from central funding. Obviously disrupted by Covid, but prior to that the Saints club would take their academy over to Australia for a series every other year. Not only is this a huge draw for players but also helps them develop and continue to improve beyond just a basic academy set up.

- lots of the top academies get access to training facilities and coaching that the first team get, which wouldn’t be easily replicated in out of team academy set ups. Similarly teams set their teams up in the academy in a similar way to the first team playing (particularly obvious with Wigan) and this helps ease young players in to first grade making transition easier and improving them overall.

- there’s lots of examples of kids playing first grade before completing the academy. Holding the top players back by playing for a non affiliated academy only hurts our development of elite players. There was a suggestion that they would be responsible until 23 - imagine how much damage that would do to someone like Welsby.

- it puts increased pressure on teams signing journeymen as they don’t have an academy to fall back on when injuries occur. Saints would have struggled massively without Bennison stepping to the team this year for example.

Overall taking academies away from the teams would most likely lead to a more even distribution of talent, but would irrevocably harm the development of our most elite junior talent. I’m just never going to be convinced the benefit of doing this over doing more to encourage teams to invest further in their own academy set ups (which is all too often is an after thought to many of these teams).

I'm not saying that there are no advantages to club run academies and I agree with some of your points.

On a few of your specifics:

Yes, any club can run a non-elite academy but the gap between the elite and non-elite academies is so great that I don't think they should be given the same name - the non-elite versions are essentially sixth form college teams with a link up with a club - players aren't selected to attend those colleges because of their RL ability, they are classed as being part of the 'academy' because they are attending a certain educational establishment and want to play (essentially recreational) RL.

The RFL obviously use a set of criteria to decide which clubs should be allowed to run elite academies and on that basis you could argue that the favouring of them is justified, but as long as we have wage cap deductions for academy trained players and only some clubs are granted licences for elite academies, there isn't a level playing field.

I would hope that, being centrally run, the academies would get access to facilities and coaching that the England team get and that it would be easier to arrange tours, etc for the pick of the crop across the 8 academies to tour as England at age group level for example. This should benefit the elite of the elite at the academies.

It might be possible to have some sort of loan arrangement for the better players in the academy as they reach the end of their time there - especially if they have, for example, agreed to sign a contract with a club for the following season.

I defiantly wouldn't want players to be in the academies until 23. 18 sounds about right to me.

As I say, I recognise there are pros and cons to each system, but personally favour regional academies for the reasons I set out.

[LeeF]

On 23/09/2022 at 20:40, dboy said:

Is this the same RFL that everyone says can't run a ###### up in a brewery?

That RFL?

No the RFL that is corrupt and manipulates the result of every match by both the refereeing appointments and the disciplinary. That RFL!!

[LeeF]

42 minutes ago, DEANO said:

Nobody is promoted yet. If batley do the unthinkable and beat leigh they wouldn’t want to go up. Does that mean Toulouse are safe. Just asking

Wouldn’t they?

[Tommygilf]

34 minutes ago, LeeF said:

Wouldn’t they?

It would potentially cripple their club to go FT, other examples would be a warning too.

[LeeF]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

It would potentially cripple their club to go FT, other examples would be a warning too.

Would it? Have a budget and stick to it?

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, LeeF said:

Would it? Have a budget and stick to it?

If only it was so simple...

Get rid of 90% of your squad for 1 year, get battered all year, have to go back to PT the following year -that's  if you can even afford the full FT season without financial worries.

[Magic Superbeetle]

1 hour ago, Barley Mow said:

I'm not saying that there are no advantages to club run academies and I agree with some of your points.

On a few of your specifics:

Yes, any club can run a non-elite academy but the gap between the elite and non-elite academies is so great that I don't think they should be given the same name - the non-elite versions are essentially sixth form college teams with a link up with a club - players aren't selected to attend those colleges because of their RL ability, they are classed as being part of the 'academy' because they are attending a certain educational establishment and want to play (essentially recreational) RL.

The RFL obviously use a set of criteria to decide which clubs should be allowed to run elite academies and on that basis you could argue that the favouring of them is justified, but as long as we have wage cap deductions for academy trained players and only some clubs are granted licences for elite academies, there isn't a level playing field.

I would hope that, being centrally run, the academies would get access to facilities and coaching that the England team get and that it would be easier to arrange tours, etc for the pick of the crop across the 8 academies to tour as England at age group level for example. This should benefit the elite of the elite at the academies.

It might be possible to have some sort of loan arrangement for the better players in the academy as they reach the end of their time there - especially if they have, for example, agreed to sign a contract with a club for the following season.

I defiantly wouldn't want players to be in the academies until 23. 18 sounds about right to me.

As I say, I recognise there are pros and cons to each system, but personally favour regional academies for the reasons I set out.

How clubs choose to interact with the colleges is on them and how much time and effort they put into the college relationship. Saints, despite being an “elite” academy still has ties to St.Helens College and use it as a network to build the academy model around - we have a set number of places in the college to give to academy players, and the college will support their training schedule. Wigan I believe have taken it a step further and effectively set up their own college to have full integration (which for those interested is also the model most football clubs have). Yes the quality of the opposition is very different between the elite academy league and non elite league, but that shouldn’t be a blocking factor for clubs (especially as reserves is now a thing to help bridge the gap in quality) and allows any club who wants to to demonstrate their commitment to development. The clubs that kicked off about the elite funding very much gave the impression that it was a convenient excuse for them not to bother at all, rather than being frustrated by the situation.

Correct me if I’m wrong but England RL use St.George’s Park right? It’s not owned by the RFL, so getting access for 10-15 teams worth of academy players consistently would be incredibly costly. Further it will make a lot of junior players lives significantly harder having to commute across country for training as opposed to a local team. Again without a team infrastructure, accommodation becomes a lot more scarce which makes life  for players from outside the heartlands more difficult again (local families took Grace and Wellington in when they first joined the saints academy for example).

As for loans - who then decides who gets a player on loan? Surely the RFL choosing superstar X goes to Saints rather than Hull is far more actively showing favouritism rather than the current system?

I have considered that you could compromise on the “loan” system by instead having all junior contracts held by the RFL, allowing them to be standardised, to stop teams paying juniors “overs” (relative to junior salaries) to hoard talent, but I think this would ultimately only further entrench the status Quo, as outbidding the likes of Saints/Wigan/Leeds would be currently the only way for some teams to sign on promising youngsters. 
 

we do effectively have the localised system up until the age of 16 with the town team system anyway (or I’m woefully out of touch these days!) and I just don’t see how the RFL taking another age group benefits compared to the loss of development in our elite junior players as outlined.

[headtackle]

On 22/09/2022 at 11:16, David Shepherd said:

As someone else has said.  Academies should be taken off the clubs and be centrally run on a regional basis by the RFL. 

Academies should stay with the clubs but with as part of the season a regional representative tournament to test the lads at a higher level

[DimmestStar]

10 clubs were awarded elite academy licences for the 6 year period 2022-27, Catalans, Huddersfield, Hull FC, Leeds, London Broncos, Newcastle Thunder, St Helens, Wakefield, Warrington and Wigan. This is now 11 with the addition of Hull KR.

Castleford & Bradford have probationary licences until 2023.

I would have thought that if there are any new licences to be awarded first in the queue would be Cas and Bradford, certainly they would be aggrieved if they were passed by for a newly promoted club.

 

[Barley Mow]

4 hours ago, Magic Superbeetle said:

How clubs choose to interact with the colleges is on them and how much time and effort they put into the college relationship. Saints, despite being an “elite” academy still has ties to St.Helens College and use it as a network to build the academy model around - we have a set number of places in the college to give to academy players, and the college will support their training schedule. Wigan I believe have taken it a step further and effectively set up their own college to have full integration (which for those interested is also the model most football clubs have). Yes the quality of the opposition is very different between the elite academy league and non elite league, but that shouldn’t be a blocking factor for clubs (especially as reserves is now a thing to help bridge the gap in quality) and allows any club who wants to to demonstrate their commitment to development. The clubs that kicked off about the elite funding very much gave the impression that it was a convenient excuse for them not to bother at all, rather than being frustrated by the situation.

Correct me if I’m wrong but England RL use St.George’s Park right? It’s not owned by the RFL, so getting access for 10-15 teams worth of academy players consistently would be incredibly costly. Further it will make a lot of junior players lives significantly harder having to commute across country for training as opposed to a local team. Again without a team infrastructure, accommodation becomes a lot more scarce which makes life  for players from outside the heartlands more difficult again (local families took Grace and Wellington in when they first joined the saints academy for example).

As for loans - who then decides who gets a player on loan? Surely the RFL choosing superstar X goes to Saints rather than Hull is far more actively showing favouritism rather than the current system?

I have considered that you could compromise on the “loan” system by instead having all junior contracts held by the RFL, allowing them to be standardised, to stop teams paying juniors “overs” (relative to junior salaries) to hoard talent, but I think this would ultimately only further entrench the status Quo, as outbidding the likes of Saints/Wigan/Leeds would be currently the only way for some teams to sign on promising youngsters. 
 

we do effectively have the localised system up until the age of 16 with the town team system anyway (or I’m woefully out of touch these days!) and I just don’t see how the RFL taking another age group benefits compared to the loss of development in our elite junior players as outlined.

As I said in my previous post, I really don't think that the college linked academies are at all comparable to elite academies - they are more akin to community/foundation outreach work and if they weren't named 'academy' I don't think they would generally be discussed in the same thread as elite academies.

On your point about England RL using St George's Park, I know they certainly have in the past, I'm not sure if they still do or if it's a regular thing. I would imagine the RL national team playing/training set up being co-located with one of the more central regional academy locations.

We hear complaints at the moment about juniors being 'poached' and travelling across the country to Saints, Wigan and Leeds academies rather than going to more local ones, so I don't think your argument about travelling stacks up.

Thinking about locations for my 8 suggestions:

- W Lancs would serve the area including Widnes, St Helens, Wigan & Warrington so not a big travel area.

- E Lancs, the area surrounding Manchester

- W Yorks, Keighley to Huddersfield

- C Yorks, Leeds, Heavy Woollen, Wakefield district

- E Yorks, East Yorkshire (with York and Doncaster)

That would cover the core M62 area plus take the few from the periphery (Preston, Blackpool, Blackburn, Cheshire, N Yorks, Sheffield, etc) - no one here would be significantly further from an academy than now.

- Northern - people in the NE would be further away than now, but Newcastle's academy is currently the weakest and I think combining it with Cumbria (bringing an academy closer to the players sourced from there) would make sense.

- South of England, effectively taking over London Bronco's patch

- Midlands, filling the gap between the northern and London academies.

The other things you mentioned seem to be details that could be worked out.

Again, to reiterate, I can see there are some benefits that exist with club based academies, but would favour a centrally run regional set up. As with so many internet discussions, I can't see either of us convincing the other of our case here!

Edited September 25, 2022 by Barley Mow

[Harry Stottle]

Great debate @Barley Mowand @Magic Superbeetleplenty food for thought in both arguments.

I was the OP of this thread, my club was one that applied for academy status and was refused even though it was well prepared for with all facilities and people put in place and £400K put aside to finance it, what galls me is the number of local lads hoovered up by the "big three" that surrounds us, and then gaining a financial advantage for doing so in the SC run league system.

[Barley Mow]

17 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Great debate @Barley Mowand @Magic Superbeetleplenty food for thought in both arguments.

I was the OP of this thread, my club was one that applied for academy status and was refused even though it was well prepared for with all facilities and people put in place and £400K put aside to finance it, what galls me is the number of local lads hoovered up by the "big three" that surrounds us, and then gaining a financial advantage for doing so in the SC run league system.

If the RFL are to select which clubs are able to run elite academies, then there shouldn't be any financial or playing advantage for those clubs over the rest based on that decision - therefore we'd have to stop RFL funding of those academies and get rid of the salary cap benefits for club trained players.

Alternatively we could get rid of the inequity between clubs in the same division by to saying elite academies are for all Super League clubs and nobody else. That raises two issues though:

1. What happens when teams are promoted/relegated? Academies with staff and players can't easily be moved from one club to another.

2. We would lose geographical spread, with no academy in the UK outside of Yorks and Lancs.

[MattSantos]

9 hours ago, Barley Mow said:

As I said in my previous post, I really don't think that the college linked academies are at all comparable to elite academies - they are more akin to community/foundation outreach work and if they weren't named 'academy' I don't think they would generally be discussed in the same thread as elite academies.

On your point about England RL using St George's Park, I know they certainly have in the past, I'm not sure if they still do or if it's a regular thing. I would imagine the RL national team playing/training set up being co-located with one of the more central regional academy locations.

We hear complaints at the moment about juniors being 'poached' and travelling across the country to Saints, Wigan and Leeds academies rather than going to more local ones, so I don't think your argument about travelling stacks up.

Thinking about locations for my 8 suggestions:

- W Lancs would serve the area including Widnes, St Helens, Wigan & Warrington so not a big travel area.

- E Lancs, the area surrounding Manchester

- W Yorks, Keighley to Huddersfield

- C Yorks, Leeds, Heavy Woollen, Wakefield district

- E Yorks, East Yorkshire (with York and Doncaster)

That would cover the core M62 area plus take the few from the periphery (Preston, Blackpool, Blackburn, Cheshire, N Yorks, Sheffield, etc) - no one here would be significantly further from an academy than now.

- Northern - people in the NE would be further away than now, but Newcastle's academy is currently the weakest and I think combining it with Cumbria (bringing an academy closer to the players sourced from there) would make sense.

- South of England, effectively taking over London Bronco's patch

- Midlands, filling the gap between the northern and London academies.

The other things you mentioned seem to be details that could be worked out.

Again, to reiterate, I can see there are some benefits that exist with club based academies, but would favour a centrally run regional set up. As with so many internet discussions, I can't see either of us convincing the other of our case here!

I don't understand why you would want to dilute a pool.

Take C Yorks. There are a hell of a lot of quality players who wouldnt make this squad, simply because they're arent enough places. What do those players do then? Scrap heap at 16?

Club based academies should allow clubs to become more competitive in a salary cap era, take that away and you take away the ability for a Cas, Wakey, Huddersfield et al to be better by promoting from within rather than spending on outside, non UK talent.

 

[MattSantos]

Quick ask, is there any other sport, particularly in a landscape & context similar to the UK that has a regional top down approach to youth development?

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

Quick ask, is there any other sport, particularly in a landscape & context similar to the UK that has a regional top down approach to youth development?

I suspect there are a few that have clubs in top flights based on regions/areas fulfilling that capacity.

[Barley Mow]

28 minutes ago, MattSantos said:

I don't understand why you would want to dilute a pool.

Take C Yorks. There are a hell of a lot of quality players who wouldnt make this squad, simply because they're arent enough places. What do those players do then? Scrap heap at 16?

Club based academies should allow clubs to become more competitive in a salary cap era, take that away and you take away the ability for a Cas, Wakey, Huddersfield et al to be better by promoting from within rather than spending on outside, non UK talent.

 

So if you take central Yorkshire - that area currently has three academies. As I see it (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) each of those academies will produce around 3 players each year who go into the senior squad. Maybe a few more than that will go to other clubs as pro or (more likely semi-pro). So around 7 or 8 total who make it each season.

To get those 7 or 8, the clubs have to be able to run a squad for the academy of around 30 players. Although there will be some that are borderline and may or may not make it professionally, there will be kids going into the elite academies at the moment who the coaches know have next to no chance of making it professionally - but they need the numbers to allow the future stars to get a game. Those numbers are then multiplied across all academies.

A lot of the lads who don't make it get put off the sport and don't go back to the community game at all after leaving their academies.

Regional academies would mean that only those with a real chance of succeeding would be taken on. Hopefully that would mean more of the rest stay within the community game, but it would also increase the playing standard of the academy competition.

If there were a bumper crop of quality prospects in central Yorks one year and not enough places for them all, then someone not taken on there could be offered to neighbouring area academies.

On your second point, a regional academy system would give all clubs an equal opportunity of signing the best young players - on leaving the academy, every player would be a free agent and any club could approach them.

By contrast, at the moment the RFL decides which clubs can have an elite academy and are therefore worthy to have the advantage of being more competitive in under the salary cap with the ability to be better by promoting from within. Then they provide funding for them to have those advantages, at the expense of those clubs who weren't considered worthy!

[MattSantos]

46 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I suspect there are a few that have clubs in top flights based on regions/areas fulfilling that capacity.

But thats not what i asked, you intimated yourself that they're run by clubs.

Are there any structures where the governing bodies appoint coaches and pay for everything in place of the clubs managing talent? The answer will be no as it's a crazy thought experiment that ultimately doesnt serve a purpose.