Wakefield receive financial penalties for playing at B.V. maybe those clubs who refuse to have a reserve team should face a similar penalty?

So what would happen of most clubs decided to stop running academies?


Regarding reserves, as another poster put, yes a young player going out on loan to a championship/L1 club will benefit them so much more than playing a reserve game. But that's for those who are ready and developed at 19.

The reserve game isn't designed to be a high level necessarily. It's to allow those who are too old to play academy, to continue playing rugby. Not everyone is physically developed like an Oledzki, Burgess etc at 19.

Also some of those who the club does deem good enough but then have no where to play get shipped from pillar to post. Jordan Lilley played for about 4 clubs last year. How is that good for a young kid? Watch an interview when he signs with us. He'd fallen out of love with RL. This is a kid who probably lived, breathed RL since 5. Yet he wanted to walk away together. Whether he's good enough is irrelevant. He's probably found his level with us. But its about trying to keep as many in the game at possible. Making a decision on players at 19 is farcical IMO

No clubs have expressed such a thing so pointless question because it won’t happen.



You make it sound like the whole of RL has made a decision on a 19 year old, they haven’t, one club has and the player can and do move on to another.club.

Lilley did seem to fall out of love with the game. Can we guarantee that wouldn’t happen if he spent the next few years playing in Leeds’ reserves hoping for the odd game or two a season playing against mostly kids before being let go a few years later rather than move on now? Keeping plenty of players on (many who clearly won’t be good enough for the club’s 1st team) to have enough to fulfill fixtures just to have a look at one or two in the hope they show more is just selfishness by the clubs.

Wigan had to hastily arrange a reserves fixture last year to get Manfredi some game time to shake off the rust, because he can't play in the U19s. The gap between 16 year olds and 19 year olds is massive, but they're lumped into 1 team together because of the lack of reserve teams. Yes, Dual Reg & Loans are options, but this relies on having good relationships with other clubs. There's no point sending out a 20 year old kid you're looking at as your next ball handling loose forward if the DR team wants to play them as a 3rd prop.

Just rebrand the u19s to the reserve league, and allow a certain number of overage players to play.
We barely have enough players in the player pool to fill the competitions we have. Having a reserve league would just dilute the quality of the u19s and championship clubs.

I can deny you it, 20 plus years of talking bollox about a new stadium thats no closer yet to even having a spade stuck in the ground does not constitute doing something about it.

Going on teams running a reserve side and teams that say they want to - Wakey, Hull, Halifax, Bradford, Wigan, Saints, Warrington, do the following fixture list (using Wigan as an example)

- Wakey (a)
- Wire (h)
- Bradford (a)
- Hull (h)
- Bye
- Saints (a)
- Halifax (h)
- Wakey (h)
- Wire (a)
- Bradford (h)
- Hull (a)
- Bye
- Saints (h)
- Halifax (a)

Repeat over for 24 games over the year, that’s plenty as you probably won’t want any over Easter as your 1st team squad is usually stretched over that period. Easy, stop making complaints it’s not doable if all teams aren’t running a reserve team.

What you say would be fine, other than Wigan, Warrington and St Helens have said that they'd like to run a reserves team, but because of the lack of other teams they won't be (at least that's how I've read it).

Another poster questioned how a reserves team could be run on £30k. The realistic answer to that is that you probably can't run both reserve and academy teams and have a budget like that. I'm not privy to the numbers, but the Fax reserve team is basically an academy team that's not restricted by age limits. Most players will be on low appearance wages or already signed on for the club on a 1st team contract. The £30k (last I heard was £25k for Fax) will mainly be for the logistics of running the team and other incidentals (coach travel, playing kit etc.).

But I’ve just shown their isn’t a lack of teams to make a full fixture list out of it, they’ll know which teams are running a team and know which want to do from previous SL owners meetings, why can’t these clubs come up with the fixture list I just did?

Why can it only apparently work if you play all other 11 SL clubs home and away once which seems to be what people want with mandatory reserve sides.

If all 12 SL clubs have reserve sides where does that leave the likes of Halifax and Bradford? Not included at the top table as SL clubs can just mirror the reserve fixtures with their 1st team fixtures?

For me it would be great to get a large proportion of SL teams playing a reserve team, it doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme if some don't. But I know Hull have signed extra players to have a squad big enough to run a reserves and when they agreed to come back apparently they were told, as we were, that there was going to be a proper set of fixtures and more teams committing to it and the opposites happened. If the teams like Wigan, Wire & Saints who seem up for reserves committed this season, it would have been at least a good number of games for players that aren't going to make the 1st team and 1st-year players to get game time & thus serve its purpose.

If Wigan, Warrington and Saints join the party then you're right that it makes a viable round robin for everyone. The problem is that those three teams "appear" to be retracting their support for the concept, which leaves the remaining 4 clubs in a pickle.

Didn't realise you were part of the Club or the Trust that has spent god knows how many hours over the years trying to get a stadium sorted. Yeah, you must be spot on though, no one at the Club or those people that have helped have done anything at all, just pretending & talking bollox. If only Wakefield had a Council half as willing to help the City's sports teams (or in Wakefield's case to just get a developer to fulfill his S106 promise after being gifted greenbelt land to build a Community stadium and other facilities as well as warehousing) as much as Leeds City Council hey.

Why don't you go and ask one of your fellow Leeds supporters 'Inflatable Armadillo' how much time and effort he's put in just personally these past 6/7 years as part of and now Head of the Community Trust?

Before that, was it Trinity talking bollox about building a sports Village in Thornes park for a year or more, to then pull the plug, no that was WMDC. Or the idea of building one at the top of Queens Drive/ Dewsbury Road, no that was WMDC again. Even since Newmarket the Council has yet come up with a cunning plan to build a stadium around the back of Peacock estate, no seriously.

Belle Vue ranks close to the bottom of the grounds I'd like to watch a game of RL, It's a close call between Belle Vue and Odsal.

For what it's worth, Leeds City Council hasn't put any finance into the development work at Headingley.

The council has underwritten an investment vehicle to support Yorkshire CCC, (who haven't got a pot to i and would have lost Test status due to not being able to fund their share of the joint stand), but the work at Headingley is being funded by the club's own reserves and private financing.

So mods what has this to do with the topic?

Double standard as ever where Wakefield are concerned

Does it even shock you?

Nope

Notice Hetherington has chimed in with his two pence worth. Complete utter b*llocks from the man as usual, claiming "Leeds' academy is their reserve team".
That's all well and good Gary until they are too old to play in your academy setup? So what then?
They are either lost to the game or shipped out to Featherstone, Bradford and whoever else will have them.

This constant “they’re lost to the game” line is the real b*llocks. I’d love to know how many players people think stop playing altogether if they don’t make it at their original SL club, don’t think it’s anywhere near the number people like to think.

You say they’re shipped out to a Featherstone or Bradford dismissively but what’s wrong with players going to these clubs with an increased chance of first team rugby and every opportunity to work their way to a SL club someday.....Hill, Gale, Walmsley have all starred lower down and ended up in SL and the national team.

Leeds have this off season seen a couple of lads move to Featherstone, if they’ve got the potential to be stars with a few more years under them then what’s the problem, surely helps the Championship to have talented youngsters playing in it? Or is it all about SL and some clubs wanting to stockpile their youngsters for themselves for fear of letting one slip through their fingers. Like mentioned previously Leeds have seen the likes of Gale, Mulhern and Foster leave and go onto to do well ELSEWHERE, that’s something Leeds aren’t afraid to do, the other clubs self interests stops them prepared to do the same. One of those young lads who have made the move to Featherstone may well end up starting for one of our rivals in years to come but that’s only because we’re prepared to let them go and develop elsewhere without fear of potential backlash later down the line.

I'm sorry, but what part of it is ? Leeds' record on youth development stands up against any else in the league.

"Spouting " is going to the press and shouting "[url=http://www.totalrl.com/hull-and-wakefield-criticise-super-league-clubs-approach-to-reserves/you shouldn't be allowed to do things unless you agree with me[/url"

Its only the same as Printer saying its utter B****cks to say players are lost to the game. Ateotd if no one can produce any sort of evidence to back up either claim then its all just speculation based on anecdotal evidence at best.

Agree, but this "players are lost to the game" line gets trotted out as it if were gospel, and the only evidence that people can offer to support it is a comment from Jamie Peacock that was made in the context of the structures that he grew up in at the time.

Do people honestly believe that there are people working in call centres or factories across the north who can say "I would have been an England international if only Leeds had a reserve team"?

For a club chairman to start dictating that clubs "shouldn't be able to do something" based on nothing more than them not agreeing with him on how to address a very nuanced issue is, in my view "spouting rubbish".

Wouldn't the players benefit more staying in a FT environment with better coaches and better facilities, than moving to Featherstone? Presuming the reserve league provided them with a stern enough challenge game wise?

For some, they may prefer to leave the protection of the nest and move to a Championship club - move out of their comfort zone, that options remains open to them.

I believe Warrington are pushing for Academy to be changed from U19 to U18, with 19y/o's moving in to the reserve's.

i live in the Wakefield met, and they have decimated the surrounding towns and asset striped all local facilities, so i no al about Wakefield council, but if Wakefield 20 years ago had self financed there new ground or stadium development, like Leeds, it would be done now, but instead wakefield fans cry about Leeds not running a reserve team, like thats the biggest woes of the game.

like luke Briscoe, not good enough for super league to old for academy, went to fev for 2 years layered well learned is trade now back in super league with a 3 year deal, if it was not for dual reg, he would have been languishing in reserves then drifted out of the game.
for the record i have always been a fan of reserve grade specially the under 23 model, but if a player cannot get a start in league one or championship at 20-23 years old and is only playing reserves, then he will probably never going to make it as a pro player and certainly not a super league player.