Juniors, Senior, Grandees and REAL future. : Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:45 pm  

This seasons U16 and (mix of u15s) are really enjoying their RL, they're coming together nicely as a "team" and as a set of mates. Six of the team that played so very very well at the stoop 2 weeks ago against Greenwich (basically Blackheath RFU and surrounding decent union clubs and schools with many Kent and Surrey players) had never touched a rugby ball before March this year. Six of this squad made origin at u16 and u15 - Macani, Sutherland,Tawanda at 16s. Cary, Kunoishi and Reed made u15 origin.
Joe Mbu and Mike have got them nicely together and playing 100% for the team, themselves and the Skolars.
A really happy bunch of lads with potential.
So why no first team influence and suggestion of cross coaching/training to improve and integrate.
Why no scholarship for say 10 boys or so at this age group at least, why no club grandees watching the games, why no first team management watching the games (take out Joe here) then looking to coach better play?.

The path way could be so much smoother, why do Skolars have to wait for quins' not quite made it boys, to play infrequently in Skolars championship teams and so on. At least struggling at the bottom with your own home bred really local boys would be better? Maybe not?

As a rugby league club in London, Skolars can provide the best overall player pathway, for one reason alone, 90% of boys that play for the Skolars have little or not much of a union background, so their pathway can generally stay a league one.
Everywhere else apart from maybe Medway and Hemel can quite easily be classed as teams made up solidly of union boys who play league for fun in the summer, these players life pathways are quite simply decent union club, county, A levels, university rugby, then back to top class union or very decent union clubs.

We're missing a trick here........and while we're missing a trick so is LondonRL in putting so much time and effort into union boys that will never progress in true league ranks?

Anyway food for thought?

Re: Juniors, Senior, Grandees and REAL future. : Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:48 am  

A brilliant post. You should get this on the Quins board.

Re: Juniors, Senior, Grandees and REAL future. : Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:12 pm  

Great post. At last some good news from North London.
Maybe you should get the fixture list to the skolars website, as there is diddly squat about the Under 16s on there. That might help get more people to watch, whether they be "grandees" or just fans.
Send the skolars site administrator some match reports. They might get into the skolars' ezine (those have been short on the ground recently)

Re: Juniors, Senior, Grandees and REAL future. : Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:09 pm  

Thanks for the kind words - i have been relaying my thoughts recently in league conversations with people i know who care passionetey about the game and boys welfare. I'm sure that at some point my initial lobbying will gain some momentum and hopefully make all those involved whether from a rugby, rugby league, londonRL, RFL perspective will see sense in perhaps readjusting there current strategies. If not then i fear all we are doing is prepping a couple of boys each year to break into the quins ranks. And considering that at the moment from the union side of players playing RL at junior level, i can guarantee that there will be more than two who will play premiership, championship or in the top four divisions as a whole on better money than those boys that end up playing at quins. So again are we really delivering LEAGUE players - to my mind we are not. The reliance is far too heavily weighted on clubs and coaches who want to be seen to be associated with an initial good set of ball/core skilled players, whose prior rugby background initially makes them head and shoulders above say those that are just starting to enjoy rugby league with little or no skills.

Regarding fixture lists for u16s and other levels - the fixtures arent even on the London RL site and the results are at least two weeks behind. I dare say if the fixtures were published at the "home" of the competiton then at least all the other clubs could cut and paste into there own sites......