Junior development

[JM2010]

For me the best way to spread the game, improve standards in the professional game and be successful on the international stage is to increase the amount of juniors playing rugby league.

How active are the professional clubs in their local areas, supporting existing community clubs, helping set up new clubs and getting into schools?

I assume Wigan, Warrington, St Helens and Leeds are the best at this but I could be wrong

[JonM]

Possibly a few errors in the below, but if you take the England team from the weekend, there's more from Huddersfield junior clubs than St. Helens, Leeds or Warrington (obviously not statistically significant with such small numbers). Also 8 of the 16 locally produced players played at junior clubs in towns whose clubs were outside SL this season.

Jack Welsby - Shevington Sharks

Tommy Makinson - Hindley, Halton Farnworth Hornets, Wigan St. Judes

Toby King - Meltham

Harry Newman - Newsome Panthers

Tom Johnstone - Stanningley

Mikey Lewis - West Hull

Harry Smith - Halton Farnworth Hornets

Tom Burgess - Dewsbury Moor

Daryl Clark - Fryston

Matty Lees - Rochdale Mayfield

John Bateman - Bradford Dudley Hill

Elliott Whitehead - West Bowling

Victor Radley - Australia

Danny Walker - Rylands, Crosfields

Morgan Knowles - Barrow Island

Chris Hill - New Springs Lions

Mike McKeeken - West London Sharks

[ELBOWSEYE]

I maybe wrong but don't Penrith have more junior clubs than most of SL combined. I have lost touch with junior rugby but Warrington seems more involved than when I worked in junior schools and amateur clubs in the late 80s and 90s,were they did very little. 

[fighting irish]

1 hour ago, JM2010 said:

For me the best way to spread the game, improve standards in the professional game and be successful on the international stage is to increase the amount of juniors playing rugby league.

How active are the professional clubs in their local areas, supporting existing community clubs, helping set up new clubs and getting into schools?

I assume Wigan, Warrington, St Helens and Leeds are the best at this but I could be wrong

I don't want to argue the details of what the professional clubs are doing (or not) but I just want to repeat my belief, and fondest hope, that Barla ought to/will become involved in this. Not on a club by club basis but as a National administrative body (much like the Welsh RL are trying to do).

I've asked before but not got an answer from the forum but why aren't they?

When we set up our club Maurice Oldroyd and Tom Keaveney, travelled to Wales to meet us.

Is there some collective resentment, towards the RFL and the game as a whole, since the Sports Council judgement that governance of the game belonged with the RFL thereby emasculating BARLA?

If that's not the case, then what is it?

Where are our enthusiasts, our evangelists, our missionaries from amongst the amateur ranks?

If Jamaica, USA, Greece and a clutch of African countries can get it going why can't we do it in the English (and Welsh) Counties? 

[Damien]

1 hour ago, JonM said:

Possibly a few errors in the below, but if you take the England team from the weekend, there's more from Huddersfield junior clubs than St. Helens, Leeds or Warrington (obviously not statistically significant with such small numbers). Also 8 of the 16 locally produced players played at junior clubs in towns whose clubs were outside SL this season.

Jack Welsby - Shevington Sharks

Tommy Makinson - Hindley, Halton Farnworth Hornets, Wigan St. Judes

Toby King - Meltham

Harry Newman - Newsome Panthers

Tom Johnstone - Stanningley

Mikey Lewis - West Hull

Harry Smith - Halton Farnworth Hornets

Tom Burgess - Dewsbury Moor

Daryl Clark - Fryston

Matty Lees - Rochdale Mayfield

John Bateman - Bradford Dudley Hill

Elliott Whitehead - West Bowling

Victor Radley - Australia

Danny Walker - Rylands, Crosfields

Morgan Knowles - Barrow Island

Chris Hill - New Springs Lions

Mike McKeeken - West London Sharks

How many Huddersfield is there? I can only see 1 but wouldn't be too au fait with their junior clubs. I know there's 3 from Wigan.

[The Future is League]

1 hour ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

I maybe wrong but don't Penrith have more junior clubs than most of SL combined. I have lost touch with junior rugby but Warrington seems more involved than when I worked in junior schools and amateur clubs in the late 80s and 90s,were they did very little. 

According to this there are 24 junior clubs feeding into the Penrith Panthers, and each of the clubs with have age groups so we can safely say that equates to hundreds of juniors being in the Penrith systems

https://panthersjuniors.com/our-clubs

[JM2010]

8 minutes ago, Damien said:

How many Huddersfield is there? I can only see 1 but wouldn't be too au fait with their junior clubs. I know there's 3 from Wigan.

Toby King and Harry Newman are from Huddersfield clubs and Tom Burgess is from a Dewsbury club which is in Kirklees 

[JonM]

6 minutes ago, Damien said:

How many Huddersfield is there? I can only see 1 but wouldn't be too au fait with their junior clubs. I know there's 3 from Wigan.

King and Newman I think. I guess my point was not so much to single out specific towns - probably unusual to have an England team with no-one from Leigh, Oldham, Wakefield or West Cumbria for example. It's more that lots of places produce players and it's not enough just for the top SL clubs to encourage junior clubs in their own catchment areas - it needs to be much wider.

I'm sure everyone agrees with the original point that more and better junior clubs is a good thing. I was pretty gobsmacked by my ex club having 500+ boys and girls playing.

[Damien]

6 minutes ago, JonM said:

King and Newman I think. I guess my point was not so much to single out specific towns - probably unusual to have an England team with no-one from Leigh, Oldham, Wakefield or West Cumbria for example. It's more that lots of places produce players and it's not enough just for the top SL clubs to encourage junior clubs in their own catchment areas - it needs to be much wider.

I'm sure everyone agrees with the original point that more and better junior clubs is a good thing. I was pretty gobsmacked by my ex club having 500+ boys and girls playing.

Yeah its all very disproportionate and frankly it is pretty amazing that we are as competitive as we are at both club and international level. A very small number of areas provide an amazing amount of talent.

[The Blues Ox]

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. That might work as a way of levelling up but as per your Wigan, Leeds, Hudds type teams who are notorious for it would be dead against it.

[Lowdesert]

19 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. That might work as a way of levelling up but as per your Wigan, Leeds, Hudds type teams who are notorious for it would be dead against it.

Education might be the key.  By that I mean improving the standard of education available to a young player through pro clubs.  I say this based on quite a few instances I know of (one a relative) of young persons opting for a better standard of education over staying at the pro club for a lesser qualification (for them) and the chance to play pro RL.

There has been some improvement in options but not being involved now I am unsure of factual Club offerings.

[JonM]

26 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. 

Mikey Lewis got cut when the two Hull academies were merged. Danny Walker came through Widnes academy which is no more. Quite a chunk of the team who did not come through the academy of a big SL club.

[paul hicks]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

How many Huddersfield is there? I can only see 1 but wouldn't be too au fait with their junior clubs. I know there's 3 from Wigan.

toby king and harry newman would be the two players from the hudderfield area clubs

[paul hicks]

2 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. That might work as a way of levelling up but as per your Wigan, Leeds, Hudds type teams who are notorious for it would be dead against it.

the thing against performance academies is who pays for them. both Leeds and Huddersfield put a lot of time and effort into junior clubs and reap the rewards. so i guess my question t you is why would those clubs and others put time, effort and money into junior development if they had no more to gain from it than clubs that make not much effort in the first place.

please don't tell me the RFL would provide the money and coaching staff as they seem to be skint all the time.

Edited October 24, 2023 by paul hicks

[The Future is League]

All Super League clubs must be given the opportunity to have their own academies and i mean all club's, and if a club doesn't want or can't afford an academy that shouldn't be in Super League, and only clubs who are running academies should be allowed to be promoted to Super League.

[JM2010]

I agree that all SL clubs should have an academy. They also need to be doing a lot of development work to produce players for their academy 

[daz39]

3 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. That might work as a way of levelling up but as per your Wigan, Leeds, Hudds type teams who are notorious for it would be dead against it.

Why lump Huddersfield in with Leeds and Wigan? they've just announced 37 new scholarship players each for next year, that's over 2 teams each, Huddersfield have 21 so a tad unfair.

[paul hicks]

32 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

I agree that all SL clubs should have an academy. They also need to be doing a lot of development work to produce players for their academy 

and yet people complain when leeds, st helens, wigan and Huddersfield to name but four clubs who take it seriously hoover up the talent they have helped to produce

[Hello]

3 hours ago, The Blues Ox said:

Im still amazed that pro teams are just allowed to sign up nearly every junior who has looked at a ball at popular amateur clubs from the age of about 12 instead of looking at performance acadamies and then trying to force some sort of even spread of talent. That might work as a way of levelling up but as per your Wigan, Leeds, Hudds type teams who are notorious for it would be dead against it.

It's the same in all sports Blues Ox - money talks. The hope would be/is to get more teams talking

Edited October 24, 2023 by Hello

[The Future is League]

12 minutes ago, paul hicks said:

and yet people complain when leeds, st helens, wigan and Huddersfield to name but four clubs who take it seriously hoover up the talent they have helped to produce

If all Super League clubs had academies and clubs with ambitions to play in Super League had academies there wouldn't be a big problem, if there is one at all

[Daft old hooker]

While ever we have a top down approach with all the resources at the top of the game the grassroots will continue to suffer but if I’m honest I don’t think it will ever change.

[JM2010]

4 minutes ago, Daft old hooker said:

While ever we have a top down approach with all the resources at the top of the game the grassroots will continue to suffer but if I’m honest I don’t think it will ever change.

If the RFL and clubs can increase the amount of juniors playing the game then the quality and quantity of players coming through will improve and the community game will be in good health 

[The Blues Ox]

1 hour ago, paul hicks said:

the thing against performance academies is who pays for them. both Leeds and Huddersfield put a lot of time and effort into junior clubs and reap the rewards. so i guess my question t you is why would those clubs and others put time, effort and money into junior development if they had no more to gain from it than clubs that make not much effort in the first place.

please don't tell me the RFL would provide the money and coaching staff as they seem to be skint all the time.

Simple answer would be reduce each teams central funding to fund the academies. The problem then goes on to how to distribute the players as you would have to have a full restructure and some fresh ideas if they were to go down a draft type route. The result would be a better competition at the top of the game in my opinion but there is almost a zero chance that teams would go for it. 

52 minutes ago, daz39 said:

Why lump Huddersfield in with Leeds and Wigan? they've just announced 37 new scholarship players each for next year, that's over 2 teams each, Huddersfield have 21 so a tad unfair.

Huddersfield in there just because of my experience of which clubs players in my area tend to go to. Those numbers for Leeds and Wigan are ridiculous though and if people do not see that as a problem then the game really is in a bad place.

[Magic XIII]

7 hours ago, JM2010 said:

For me the best way to spread the game, improve standards in the professional game and be successful on the international stage is to increase the amount of juniors playing rugby league.

How active are the professional clubs in their local areas, supporting existing community clubs, helping set up new clubs and getting into schools?

I assume Wigan, Warrington, St Helens and Leeds are the best at this but I could be wrong

More importantly how active are they in non local areas, tapping into the nationwide potential - I am sure they realise that lads can be outstanding rugby league players even though they aren't born on the M62

[paul hicks]

35 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

If all Super League clubs had academies and clubs with ambitions to play in Super League had academies there wouldn't be a big problem, if there is one at all

indeed but lets face it half of them cant afford it