David Hughes

[Coggo]

If there's no professional pathway in London, we'll lose players to union.

Instead of joining Warrington from London Broncos, for example, Oli Leyland of Medway would probably be playing decent level union for a club like Canterbury for a few hundred quid a game.

Union pays players a long way down the scale, more so than league.

[ATLANTISMAN]

1 hour ago, Click said:

 

Really sad and as i said before 80% of marketing decisions are made in London and the Home Counties everything down the toilet

 

[RP London]

1 hour ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

The Broncos Juniors usually started at someone like Skolars, Hemel, Greenwich or South London. Without their junior development there were no players for the Broncos pathways to develop.

And when the DOs were pulled in the 00s look what started to happen. Without money trickling down the players dont then come through so well. Thats on the RFL (and to an extent the senior team not investing but mostly on the RFL). 

London as a place has so much going for it but it has to be invested in by the game and the game will benefit, but if there is no investment then it will be just a "millstone" and those from heartlands will just see it as pointless. 

[The Future is League]

9 minutes ago, Coggo said:

If there's no professional pathway in London, we'll lose players to union.

Instead of joining Warrington from London Broncos, for example, Oli Leyland of Medway would probably be playing decent level union for a club like Canterbury for a few hundred quid a game.

Union pays players a long way down the scale, more so than league.

Hence the reason we need at the very least a semi pro club in London or 2.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

TBH you need more than that. One of the big issues at Oxford was local(ish) lads were usually on around £100 appearance money. A local union club £1k per appearance.

If the full pathway doesn't exist, people with a realistic chance of making decent money are more likely to play union. You simple can't play both for long, seasons conflict and your body needs a rest.

That was one of the main reasons a lot of community clubs have gone e.g. Gosport. Their players ran out of steam after three or so years continuous rugby.

 

[Archie Gordon]

10 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

Hence the reason we need at the very least a semi pro club in London or 2.

Wales seems to manage without a semi-pro club.

I think the immediate thing to save in London is the talent pathway. A Lions Development programme costs <£50k pa. A full RFL-licenced scholarship/academy costs £300-400k pa. The former is the minimum required. It could well be in the interests of a SL club to take it on.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

A pathway with strong links to a SL club would be of more long term value than one aligned to London Whartevertheyarecalleds playing in the third tier. A complete pathway would be better but that ship has sailed.

Back to the old days of the joint Hemel / Skolars development side but this time pulling from across the south and midlands (Telford etc) and funded by either the RFL or a SL side seems the best bet now to me sadly.

[RP London]

19 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:

Wales seems to manage without a semi-pro club.

I think the immediate thing to save in London is the talent pathway. A Lions Development programme costs <£50k pa. A full RFL-licenced scholarship/academy costs £300-400k pa. The former is the minimum required. It could well be in the interests of a SL club to take it on.

I've always been of the belief that the RFL should have 12 key areas for development/expansion and they should give each SL club 1 of those areas to be responsible for in terms of creating a pathway through from junior development through to senior squads. That may well (probably would) mean a senior semi pro team some time into the development process. Therefore the SL clubs benefit from virgin territories that only they get to farm from and the RFL get controlled expansion of both junior development and potential semi pro clubs over time.. I get that it costs money but the benefit can outweigh it if people give it time.

This could include current areas that are doing it the hard way as well as complete virgin areas.. 

I know its a tough ask and would be diverting money away etc but it is also an area where money can be made its not just a pure cost centre it just needs some vision and not blinkered linear outlooks. 

[JonM]

1 hour ago, MonkeyGone said:

I've only ever seen him described as his son. Even by the club's social media.

He even mentions being David's son in interviews

[Impartial Observer]

2 hours ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

. However with the junior aspect of RL in decline here across the board, 

What make you say that, what numbers of juniors are playing this year compared to others?

 

[JonM]

London Broncos Ladies playing the National Championship Final against Leigh in Birmingham at the weekend.

[Archie Gordon]

51 minutes ago, Impartial Observer said:

What make you say that, what numbers of juniors are playing this year compared to others?

 

https://www.rugby-league.com/article/62956/paladin-sports-uk-london-junior-league-finals-day--

Numbers trending upwards again but quite a bit down on where it was during the late 2000s and 2010s.

[Ivarr the Boneless]

1 hour ago, Impartial Observer said:

What make you say that, what numbers of juniors are playing this year compared to others?

 

The decline in number of teams from when the likes of Greenwich, Elmbridge, South London, Skolars, Hemel and so on were running multiple teams. Pretty much the whole South London infrastructure, which use to rum large-scale junior festivals and teams under multiple identities has gone.

Plus the number of score that appear these days at the walkover score. I presume a fair number of them are walkovers.

[Archie Gordon]

24 minutes ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

...

Plus the number of score that appear these days at the walkover score. I presume a fair number of them are walkovers.

In 2024, there were 2 concessions out of 39 junior fixtures.

And for 1 of them, the conceding team still turned up and borrowed players from the home team.

Edited September 26 by Archie Gordon

[JM2010]

3 hours ago, RP London said:

I've always been of the belief that the RFL should have 12 key areas for development/expansion and they should give each SL club 1 of those areas to be responsible for in terms of creating a pathway through from junior development through to senior squads. That may well (probably would) mean a senior semi pro team some time into the development process. Therefore the SL clubs benefit from virgin territories that only they get to farm from and the RFL get controlled expansion of both junior development and potential semi pro clubs over time.. I get that it costs money but the benefit can outweigh it if people give it time.

This could include current areas that are doing it the hard way as well as complete virgin areas.. 

I know its a tough ask and would be diverting money away etc but it is also an area where money can be made its not just a pure cost centre it just needs some vision and not blinkered linear outlooks. 

I like this idea. League 1 clubs could be set up using a dual reg agreement with the SL club plus any juniors that come through as a result of the development work. This would allow them to be competitive from day 1 as well as setting up a more longer term players pathway.
The SL club could run a tier 3 academy with any promising players playing for the SL clubs academy on a dual reg with the tier 3 academy. 
The result of this could be a new player pool for SL with a pathway set up into SL and any juniors that don’t quite make the grade but of a good standard playing for their local League 1 club. 

[Eddie]

5 hours ago, Ivarr the Boneless said:

TBH you need more than that. One of the big issues at Oxford was local(ish) lads were usually on around £100 appearance money. A local union club £1k per appearance.

If the full pathway doesn't exist, people with a realistic chance of making decent money are more likely to play union. You simple can't play both for long, seasons conflict and your body needs a rest.

That was one of the main reasons a lot of community clubs have gone e.g. Gosport. Their players ran out of steam after three or so years continuous rugby.

 

Local Union clubs are paying a grand a game - is that right??

[The Future is League]

5 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

Wales seems to manage without a semi-pro club.

I think the immediate thing to save in London is the talent pathway. A Lions Development programme costs <£50k pa. A full RFL-licenced scholarship/academy costs £300-400k pa. The former is the minimum required. It could well be in the interests of a SL club to take it on.

I thought the North Wales crusaders were a semi professional Rugby League

[Ivarr the Boneless]

11 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Local Union clubs are paying a grand a game - is that right??

It was at the time. No idea now. The club concerned reasonably high up the pyramid and pulled four figure gates. A bit lower down a fair few lads seemed to be on around £200 - £300 but that was a level with very little travel.

[Archie Gordon]

7 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

I thought the North Wales crusaders were a semi professional Rugby League

Sorry, you're right. I really meant South Wales.

[Click]

14 hours ago, Archie Gordon said:

Sorry, you're right. I really meant South Wales.

How many SL level players have South Wales produced?

[JonM]

10 minutes ago, Click said:

How many SL level players have South Wales produced?

A few current ones, obviously rather more 5-10 years back. Gil Dudson came through the youth system at Celtic Crusaders. He's played well over 200 SL games.

Salford have an academy deal with Coleg y Cymoedd and have a couple of young players from Caerphilly area - Joe Coope-Franklin and Billy Walkley who have Salford first team squad numbers but been out on loan/DR in league 1 this year.

If you go back a couple of years, Ben & Rhys Evans were spotted by Warrington playing for Brynteg in the National Schools Cup. Rhodri Lloyd signed for Wigan from S. Wales Scorpions.

Edited September 27 by JonM

[Click]

1 hour ago, JonM said:

A few current ones, obviously rather more 5-10 years back. Gil Dudson came through the youth system at Celtic Crusaders. He's played well over 200 SL games.

Salford have an academy deal with Coleg y Cymoedd and have a couple of young players from Caerphilly area - Joe Coope-Franklin and Billy Walkley who have Salford first team squad numbers but been out on loan/DR in league 1 this year.

If you go back a couple of years, Ben & Rhys Evans were spotted by Warrington playing for Brynteg in the National Schools Cup. Rhodri Lloyd signed for Wigan from S. Wales Scorpions.

So in other words - They had to be picked up by a professional team to develop. Exactly what the Broncos were doing.

Who knows how many players have been missed due to no presence of a semi professional club now in the region.

[JonM]

1 minute ago, Click said:

So in other words - They had to be picked up by a professional team to develop. Exactly what the Broncos were doing.

Who knows how many players have been missed due to no presence of a semi professional club now in the region.

Bit of a circular argument there? You asked how many SL players South Wales had produced. There is no SL club in South Wales, so by definition any player that South Wales had produced must have moved to a professional club as an adult. 

Salford have been running their academy in collaboration with Wales RL since 2020 with Stuart Wilkinson and Paul Rowley going down there regularly. Each year since, 2 or 3 players have moved North to link up with Salford and attend university in the NW and there's been 7 players offered contracts. It's perfectly possible to provide a pathway without a local semi-pro club. 

[Click]

20 minutes ago, JonM said:

Bit of a circular argument there? You asked how many SL players South Wales had produced. There is no SL club in South Wales, so by definition any player that South Wales had produced must have moved to a professional club as an adult. 

Salford have been running their academy in collaboration with Wales RL since 2020 with Stuart Wilkinson and Paul Rowley going down there regularly. Each year since, 2 or 3 players have moved North to link up with Salford and attend university in the NW and there's been 7 players offered contracts. It's perfectly possible to provide a pathway without a local semi-pro club. 

Well, the original point was that "Wales seem to manage without a semi-professional club" - The amount of players you have named would seem to suggest they aren't managing that well without having at least a semi-professional club as part of a players potential pathway.

 

[OriginalMrC]

Wales do have a semi professional club BTW