It's a terrible situation for young RL players to be involved in. It's terrible for the championship clubs too who somehow have to finance this sham of a cobbled together competition. I had a discussion last year with an esteemed youth development manager
( no names mentioned ) who said his club were considering not giving contracts to their kids in future due to the lack of fixtures available at reserves/academy level nowadays. Let's say you're in a comp where you only get 16 or 18 fixtures per season & player A, B or C has to misss half a dozen games for whatever reasons, maybe study time, injury or whatever & he fails to get selected for another half a dozen games in that season he might play the remainder of games in that season, let's say half a dozen games for arguements sake. How on earth is a player at any level supposed to develop under game situations, not stamina or fitness or gameplan or video work etc etc ? It's diabolical. The lads when signing a contract give up their right to play amateur or junior rugby league because they are then owned by their pro club. The suggestion to me was not to contract the kids to allow them to play away from their pro club, let's say with Siddal U23's or the U18's while not selected at their pro club. The trouble then would be, some SL or rival championship club would tempt their lad away.
If only the RFL would listen to people who know the game inside out the game on the whole would be a more attractive & competetive sport.
