THERE’S a lot happening today (Monday, November 24).
Sticking to the football first, the draw is being made at the Rugby Football League’s headquarters in Manchester for the first two rounds of the 2026 Betfred Challenge Cup.
Thirty-four amateur teams will be in the hat, and I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure how they have been chosen.
One or two selections are definitely murky (they occasionally are, which brings me back to my longstanding preference for such as BARLA County Cup winners to qualify, a system that is better, to my mind, than one of invitation).
And it did seem, speaking to one or two people last week, that those clubs who had not registered to the Rugby Football League’s ‘National Community Rugby League’ initiative were therefore excluded.
Whatever the truth of that, the best of luck to the 34 sides, and their coaches and players, who are embarking on the Wembley trail.
Later today the NCL’s management group will hold a meeting with member clubs regarding the ongoing debate surrounding the RFL’s NCRL initiative, under which teams in the bottom two of the Conference’s four divisions will find themselves playing in regional leagues next year.
And, also tonight, Martin Coyd OBE will arrive in his father’s home county of Cumbria from his home in Kent to engage with clubs and administrators face to face, in his role as Community Board chair, over a range of issues, including the NCRL.
He will be in the Barrow area on Thursday for similar talks – stressing that on both occasions his focus will be on listening.
Meanwhile, the missive received in the middle of last week from the RFL regarding the Youth, Junior and Primary webinar held seven days earlier contained little (if anything) to which most of us would object, even if some old-timers’ eyebrows will be raised by the reminder that, during the off-season, contact training will not be allowed until 2026 arrives, and that ‘friendlies’ cannot be played until February.
That might be an age thing. Not so, I reckon, poor touchline behaviour (perhaps a fairly recent blight, certainly when compared to the immediate post-Second World War era) which the RFL are fully addressing along with rising cases of indiscipline and the loss of 25 percent of players each year (could those issues be related, I wonder?).
Given England’s scuttling in the recent Ashes series, the RFL has touched on the size and quality of the talent pool, with the obvious reflection that more and better players are needed although, in the coaching section, I didn’t see any concerns that young players might just possibly be over-coached (a recurring theme among people I chat to) and that talented kids can sometimes have their skills squeezed out of them (how common a reflex is the mantra “don’t try that again” when a youngster attempts something a little bit different or daring?).
I wholeheartedly agree with the view that training and playing at the younger age groups should be fun, and that it can be counterproductive when coaches try to create a winning environment, a sentiment with which Paul Anderson, the head of England pathways (male) agrees.
I can see, too, how multi-team events or festivals can work well as there’s inevitably less focus on particular matches, while the general aim of increasing player numbers is to be lauded.
I can, too, see the merit in coaches focusing on specific age bands rather than following the same group from, say, age seven to age 17.
People with more experience of youth and junior Rugby League than I have may beg to differ, but it seems to me that the skill sets needed to coach infants are very different to those necessary for people who are perhaps, in many ways, adults.
It was timely, perhaps (in fact you couldn’t make it up) that less than 24 hours after the RFL’s email, an event was held at Headingley at which the RFL, not for the first time by any stretch, set a lead for other sports to follow.
World Children’s Day was marked by the RFL signing a new Play Their Way pledge (Play Their Way had established links with the RFL and Leeds Rhinos Foundation back in June 2024) which includes a commitment to training and supporting coaches in child-first coaching.
Child-first coaching incidentally, is described as “a research-based approach that prioritises the fundamental rights of all children and young people in sport and activity, regardless of their age, gender, background or ability, putting a strong emphasis on supporting children’s voice, choice, and journey when it comes to their sporting experiences and development and encouraging coaches to listen to children and adapt their sessions based on their needs”.
It’s certainly a good fit with Rugby League and it was fitting that Jamie Jones-Buchanan and current England star Keara Bennett were in attendance alongside children’s Rugby League coaches from Yorkshire, the north-west and the Midlands.
It’s a vivid example of how what can seem to be overload (last week’s release by the RFL spread over 29 pages, after all) can have real and telling practical results and you can’t blame the RFL’s interim chief executive Abi Ekoku for saying: “We are proud to be the first sport in the UK to sign the Play Their Way pledge and excited about the opportunity it presents for our game.
“We’ve already worked on some brilliant collaborations with Play Their Way over the last 18 months, but this partnership now fully embeds child-first coaching into our coaching philosophy and delivery.
“This is also about future-proofing Rugby League and driving innovation. If we are going to get children to try our sport and love it enough to stay in it, we need fun environments and provide support to coaches wanting to embrace and deliver a child-first approach that puts enjoyment at the heart of children’s experiences of playing Rugby League.”
Much food for thought, then, although I had to smile when I read, in the RFL’s summary of the Youth webinar, the phrase “volunteers feel over-burdened” only a page after the RFL implored “please ensure your coaching teams and volunteers are aware of and adhere to these timelines”.
But that can’t take away from the overall theme, which is “to give all youth and junior players more opportunity, more variety, more responsibility and action to feed their potential, empower their character, and grow a life-long attachment for the game we all love, giving every child the opportunity to thrive.” Hats off to that.
Wales, meanwhile, goes its own way and, regardless of results, seems to get so much right.
There’s plenty going on this weekend, incidentally, with Wales Students meeting a Valleys X111 on Friday at Pen-y-Graig and a series of East versus West matches taking place on Saturday at Merthyr Tydfil.
And there was plenty going on last week, including in Leeds where I was fortunate enough to be at the fifth annual reunion of the Leeds and District League, which was again held at the palatial Irish Centre and which raises funds for the local grassroots game.
There were three more richly-deserving inductees into the hall of fame.
The late Colin Cooper (who, with his wife Una and Garry Schofield’s mum Jean did so much for the Hunslet Parkside club in particular) was a posthumous recipient (all three are sadly no longer with us) and his son Steve collected the award from Oulton’s Cliff Furness.
John Neal was another recipient, for his sterling work in the area over many years for the district itself and clubs such as Bisons, Yew Tree and various amateur incarnations of Hunslet.
And there was a rightly-emotional presentation to Dave Mawson – Hunslet ARLFC’s chair – who paid fittingly heartfelt tribute to his wife Judy, who sadly passed away recently.
Loz Baker (one of several very hardworking committeemen, alongside such as Mick Appleyard, Steve Boothroyd, Glenn Davies, Sam Horner and Bernard Shooman, who will be 90 tomorrow) conducted an entertaining question-and-answer session with two fine Leeds players of yesteryear in Francis Cummins and Graham Eccles.
Cummins was, of course, a class act in the threequarters and is these days a grand coach with Hull FC Academy.
And Eccles is actually a near-contemporary of mine. He was a member of the crack Market District Under 19 team of the late 1960s while I played for the Under 17s (the apt word for us sounds a bit like crack but is very different…) and I vividly remember being in absolute awe of him as a player, particularly in defence where he simply blocked up the middle of the pitch, leaving free-scoring opponents such as St Helens’ John Mantle repeatedly frustrated.
Eccles was most definitely the kind of rock upon which leading teams are invariably built.