...is to compete with football and encourage some rich arab oil sheikhs or Russian oligarchs to invest in SL clubs and pay vastly inflated salaries, thus attracting more potential young talent into having a go in the junior leagues.

The solution to beating the Aussies is to steadily grow the sport at all levels, thereby increasing the player pool. Also increased growth would increase the media exposure, raise salaries and improve the attractiveness of a rugby league playing career.

At the same time though there has to be a huge improvement in the too often poor quality of youth and junior coaching.

So who's going to invest the money for those ideals and improvements ?

The RFL initially, then the areas themselves. That's the whole point of growth, it's supposed to be self-sustaining.

As for the improvements in coaching, well it would probably require a bit more investment from the RFL in monitoring coaches after they've passed their course but there are some things that can be done in just changing rules, regulations and sweeping aside the corrupt systems, people and committees that currently blight the amateur game.

For instance, at certain age levels introduce extra points for a try scored with more passes, thereby encouraging teams to pass the ball.
Or finally start to punish clubs who consistently have abusive spectators/coaches/players.

The RFL has been making some hefty profits of late. I think that a lot of that cash would be best used investing in improving the game at the grassroots to encourage more to play the game all over the country and give them better coaching.

I doubt that they're rolling in it though. Wasn't it only a couple of years ago that they announced that they'd finally paid off the debt that the 2000 world cup had cost them?

But what happened to the mega money they got from Sport England, £20+M comes to mind spread over a number of years.
But I seem to recall that being reduced or lost due to a lower than predicted level of active participation.

A combination of an end to the "my club first and foremost" culture that sees representative rugby reduced to an afterthought, an increase in junior participation (hopefully the shift to summer will help in this regard) and earlier access to the best coaches for elite young players,

It's no use giving a talented kid a couple of days coaching at a service area camp if he then goes back to two nights a week from a well meaning but ultimately clueless volunteer at his club.

The key thing is that the RFL is generally clueless, and struggles to organise the mens teams games in the summer conference / early challenge cup games.

I agree that we should put a focus on junior, but I can't see the RFL being able to do it effectively

IMO we have tried too hard to try and beat the Aussies at their own game. For most of my time the Aussies always seemed to produce bigger, fitter physical specimens who, with certain notable exceptions, played a robotic style with few errors. Whilst we used to produce the cleverer ball players with individual skills and an abundance of great half backs and tough forwards that gave as good as they got and who collectively on their day could occassionally beat the Aussies as they were not used to coping with these sort of skills.

We now seem to be second best in the handling department, have no great half backs and no enforcers in the pack and never can beat the Aussies. Until we once again produce these typical British style players we will continue to be the just the bridesmaid.

The bridemaid in our own country, and usually only struggling to obtain the rank of Usher down under

Find a 6, 7 and 9 who can pass and kick the ball quickly and accurately and make the right decisions.
I'd go back to the old rule whereby if the dummy half is tackled in possession then it's a handover (or scrum)

The single biggest issue is the level of high quality pe in primary schools (key stage 1 & 2). The fundamentals (physical literacy skills not sport specific) at this age are criminally over looked with children not reaching their maximum physical potential in the early long term athlete development phase. After this point, you can coach all you like and they'll still never reach that potential.

Sport in this country is always funded through justifying health agendas etc and not for it's own sake. You can't fully address the adult provision and elite provision til this is improved.

The other big one is the number of uneducated parents coaching at junior clubs, of course their time is appreciated unfortunately the quality is very rarely what's needed- like trying to run hook, line and sinkers before the can simply run on to a ball with a good catch.

Theres no magical solution.

Continue to bring young players through, continue to try and improve super league and improve the intensity.

Reducing the number of teams would be handy, but would reduce income for clubs.

The biggest step we could take to being able to match australia is to get a blueprint of their coaching structures from the very young right up until the professional game, and replicate it over here. 'It's obvious they have a better nursery.'

If we implemented that over here would see the benefits within 5-10 years.

Seth makes an excllent point regarding the physical conditioning of kids in relation to general sporting activity from a young age. Primary schools, in my somewhat limited experience, seem to think that going outside for a run in summer, and dancing around the school hall in your pants in winter is all that PE constitutes.

One his second point, and onethat has been raised by many others regarding coaching, my eldest son is currently playing for the local amateur team, and the standard of coaching is so disappointing that I am seriously considering taking the RFL coaching badges myself at my own cost so I can legitimately get involved to try to raise the bar.

Whilst the two issues above remain, anything else we try to do is metaphorically "sticking a plaster on a broken arm".

Why don't the highly profitable RFL look at subsiding professional coaches at amateur clubs that run junior teams. Surely this would be money well spent?

The only solution is Super league been a competition that equals that of the NRL in terms of competition and intensity. That is the only way of developing the same skill sets for unlocking defenses.

Don't agree with any of this coaching at junior level or what you do in PE at school. Are young players are perfectly matching up to the Aussies at the same age, and quite often beat them. The problem comes with the next step after this, not the steps they made before it. Our young players skill sets are better than most NRL young players.

I love our competition, but how do we get it to be more competitive whilst still managing to keep the best british players in this country and our game.

We need to increase the cap to a level that will allow us to keep the best british players (hopefully the new rules may solve this), and somehow we need to subsidise the lesser teams to get them to the sufficient quality (although this could be better by using the franchises better and going outside the heartlands to subsidise).

If we can improve competition and intensity on a weekly basis, then the players individual improvement will happen as a result.

I can certainly see the argument behind the fewer fixtures argument. Leeds were able to peak at the right time this season by playing within themsleves during the majority of the season, meaning for the important matches they were in much better state.

If you reduce the number of games then I think players would be a bit fresher.

However, we would have to find some way of filling the revenue gap, otherwise clubs will die, as will the player pool

You're right to point out that we do compete and win at academy level but I think you're missing out an important reason why that doesn't translate into senior rugby.

The fact is that because the Aussies have a better junior set up from primary school age they produce far more top athletes than we do.

It's always been that case that there are a lot of young players who simply don't make the transition from academy to seniors, but the sheer numbers the Aussies produce cushions the effect. That means they have more talented players to choose from at a higher level.

I agree with you that clubs need help to improve their systems and we need to spread the game to target more people.
That will help us produce more players and cushion the effect of players being lost to the game in their late teens.

I'm not too sure how raising the salary cap will help except for the odd individual but it might. I'd be careful not to put all the cash in this area as I think it won't get to the heart of the problem.

I'd be prepared to bet that BARLA or whoever runs the amateur game would have something to say (negatively) about this.

I don't agree with this they produce better athletes than we do.

Take Rugby out of the question, how many top athletes have Australia had compared to the UK?

The issue isn't the schooling of kids as athletes, it's putting their skill sets for the game of rugby into the right environment when the next step comes. And from that matching the new required body conditioning (athletisism) to the competition.

The competitive nature of the NRL means these youngsters have no choice but to produce the goods almost immediately when they make that next step. By contrast a lot of equally talented kids in the british game have only had to go through the motions to cement a spot in out teams, despite been the equivalent or even better than their NRL equivalent at a younger age.

The reason the Aussies have a bigger pool of juniors is not because they are better from a younger age, but because Rugby League is a major sport in Australia, unlike the UK where a kid could make a choice to opt for one of 20 or 30 sports.

Having worked in rugby league and sport development for over 10 years, the schools issue is the big one. Yes a small pool of natural talent rises to the top, though even these athletes do not reach their true potential. Long Term Athlete Development principles indicate periods of 'trainability', and these are more often than not overlooked. I coach in primary schools all the way from year 1 to year 6, the number of yr 6 pupils who are so poorly coordinated and cannot run, turn and balance correctly is astounding. It is fascinating the development that can be implemented over the Fundamentals stage, the difference is huge.

Yes, as I said earlier the cream rises to the top, but the talent pool can be much wider and the cream much better.

This isn't just my opinion as a sport development professional, it's echoed across the industry. Primary teachers are given a pitiful amount of pe training and these are the potential young athletes most important years.

I think you're spot on there, Seth. I haven't studied it that closely but I can certainly back up what you say with plenty of examples of kids at our training sessions who, as you say, are poorly co-ordinated and basically cannot run, and with even more kids - that they can run but have little turn or balance or side-stepping ability whatsoever.

Watching Greg Inglis the other week, the way he runs appears far more natural and athletic than any English player I've seen. Even the pretty quick ones like Carney, Calderwood, Hall, Briscoe etc there's loads of effort going in but its not as fluent or natural. And just off the top of my head I can recall Scott Donald & Darren Albert who were also far more natural athletes than any British player I can remember seeing play.

So why does the UK produce more top level athletes than Australia taking rugby league out the question?

It may well be an issue generally in comparison to the US, China, Russia, but it isn't the reason rugby league is behind the Aussies.

I don't know how you reach that conclusion? Yes GB finished above aus on the Beijing Olympic table owing greatly to swimming (an early specialisation sport) sailing, rowing and cycling but this was a first for a looooong time (if ever!) Add to that rugby union , tennis (usually), swimming, cricket, AFL and that the uk is far more heavily populated. And if you mean track and field events, both produced just 4 medalists in 2008.