There is a lot of talk on here regards 12 or 14 teams, promotion and relegation, licencing, North American cubs and French clubs joining super league.
What we seem to have forgotten is the good old virtues that gave local amateurs and trialists an opportunity to show there talents in good old reserve team fixtures.
There is only 5 teams out of the whole of 3 divisions putting out reserve sides this season.
Keighley Cougars, Halifax RL and Wigan Warriors remaining from 2017 and being joined by new entrants Wakefield Trinity and Leigh Centurions.
Keighley and Halifax will get murdered by the likes of, Wakefield Leigh and Wigan but yet they still put out a teams.
Every team in all 3 divisions should be made to field a team so these hammering won't take place as these sort of results don't do any team any good.
It's so easy now for top teams to just dual reg and send players out on a Sunday to teams which can also give lower teams false league positions depending on players available to them.
It should be compulsory for every team which is a stepping stone between amature and professional sport.

It's very disappointing that we've withdrawn our reserve team. But with the likes of Jonah Cunningham, Wellington and Ricky Bailey all leaving it did look like the writing was on the wall.

Fax reserves did have a couple of big losses last season (62-6 and 30-4 against St Helens and Wigan), but also had a narrow 1-point win against St Helens and a similar 1-point loss against Warrington. It does depend to a degree how many 1st team SL players are being given a run out as opposed to genuine reserves, but Fax reserves were competitive in most of the games they played (albeit the number played was disappointingly low).

5 players moved up from the reserves to the 1st team squad at the end of 2016, and 3 more have followed for next season, quite probably with more to come.

Fax don't normally charge for admittance to reserve grade games, but usually just ask for a "bucket" donation to help support the team. The rest of the cash required to run the team is largely provided by supporters club fund-raising initiatives.

The biggest problem over the last couple of years has been finding games to play, with clubs having to arrange their own fixtures. A proper reserve league structure across the top two divisions would be massively beneficial for the game in the UK, and (imo) reap far more dividends than the current spasmodic attempts at "expansion".

Btw, I say top two divisions, as I think it should be optional for Championship 1 teams.

I am very proud of my club for finally putting out an A team. It was made very clear to the Board that the fans wanted this and they have responded.

Some clubs have excuses for not doing this, we'd be one tbh because we are not a wealthy club.

Leeds, Hull, Saints in particular have absolutely no excuse and should hang their heads in shame.

I know the Leeds intelligencia will be on here making excuses but there are none.

Well done Wigan a club that is much maligned but does more to promote UK players than Saints, Leeds, Hull and Cas combined.

I'm surprised Warrington have pulled out, as we were strong advocates of it - I know the hierarchy were very frustrated about the lack of fixtures available to them, often having weeks between fixtures I believe?

most |Leeds fans are in favor of A team rugby, not a fan of dual reg myself, would prefer academy to be under 18 and reserves under 21 with 3-5 overage players allowed, i have nothing against loaning players out for first team experience as well.

oh and to say wigan do more than leeds cas hull combined to promote uk player, really don't no where your getting your facts from, doubt any club does as much as Leeds has done for last 20 years to produce young talent, Cas pretty good as well, i will give you hull.

What`s the justification to say Leeds haven`t done much to promote UK players? Really am baffled by that

As a Leeds supporter, I too would prefer us to run an A team, but the club's approach seems to be different. Leeds would rather its young players be playing first team rugby somewhere rather than lower-grade rugby elsewhere.

Even before we scrapped our reserve team, we were regularly loaning out big batches of players (London was a common destination) and the reserve team was largely made up of U19s, with the odd "first teamer coming back from injury" thrown in.

Some might say that there are "no excuses" for not running an A team but what ultimately matters are results and, at Leeds at least, those results haven't been too shabby over the years.

Dual reg is an absolute farce and I hate that my club uses it. As said, it can cause some spurious results in accordance with player availability. What is wrong with loans?

And bring back a proper reserve structure to grow and develop players at the right level

Because they are not running an A team. I'm a firm believer that not all players mature at the same rate and thus U19's is to low a cut off point. This is especially relevant in Leeds case because they hoover up so much of the best young talent. To me they owe it to these players to offer them another platform.

I don't think Dual Reg is it whilst very few Championship clubs can offer a player the Coaching they need to progress.

A lot of Aussies especially forwards don't break into the first team til there early to mid 20's by which time many English players have been on the scrap heap for years.

The lack of A team or under 21's RL is costing our game dear especially at International level.

I'd agree with your point about players developing late, but to extend that to "Leeds don't care about player development" is stretching it in my opinion.

I don't think the decision not to run an A-Grade team is a financial one. The club never took reserve team rugby seriously when it was in place, instead prefering to blood players into first team rugby in the levels below Super League. Leeds players regularly turned out for Bramley, Hunslet and were often loaned out to clubs like London and the reserve team was a way for the better U19s players to get more game time, rather than those on the fringes of the first team.

Like I said, I think there are good reasons why Leeds should run a reserve team and the point about late developing players is a fair one, but it can't be denied that Leeds have made more than their fair share of a contribution to the talent pool over the years.

i bet there aren't many if any teams that have more British produced players either playing for or playing at other clubs that have come through there system, a bet for every player at Leeds that makes it to the first team there are 2-3 who end up playing in super league or championship at another.

What talent have hull fc not brought through then?

We had a reserve team for the last two seasons but unfortunately games were cancelled at short notice and no other fixtures available so reluctantly the club have chose not to carry on until something is set in stone by the rfl

i was not bashing Hull, but clearly Leeds and Castleford have produced more players than HUll do, hull have signed how many from Cas over last few years 4 i can think of straight away.
Hull have a shared academy with rovers, not knocking it but its a fact, and what talent have they brought through. sorry but struggling, there is hardly a player in the Hull first team that they have produced, they are obsessed with pacific island players, particularly outside backs. so who have they produced in last 5 years.

We were sending you 3 or 4 players every week to play in your reserve team last year also

In reality very few players in a Super League reserves team would have a chance of breaking into the first team. it makes sense to me for it to be an age restricted side, say under 23, with 5 overage players allowed.

14 out of our current squad born in hull or come through our reserves and have played superleague games over the last 2 seasons

shaul, logan, (unlucky with injuries last season), abdul, hadley(year on loan at wakey), masi, fash and others all with plenty of games under their belts.... try doing a bit of research

we also had the likes of ben crooks, tom lineham who were backs too!

not to mention players who our neighbours signed from us, plus cas have signed fc players in the past, one named above

But Wigan struggled to fulfill fixtures last year even given the limited fixtures the reserves have because an ever increasing feature of present SL is team having large injury lists. If reserves were scheduled to play every/most weeks you'd end up with an even bigger injury list and struggling even more to fulfill fixtures.

Before patting yourselves on the back at Wakefield let's see if they make it work first.

I think you’ll find that the majority of Leeds supporters would gladly welcome the return of an A Team at Headingley.
You’ll find that it’s our current administration who are against the idea.

Wakey should be the club to hang there head in Shane, Saints and Hull have had a reserves team for the last two years, unfortunately there wasn't enough teams for meaning fixtures as Wakey etc
couldn't be bothered to run a reserve side, if they and others had them we would both still have teams. Last year we hardly had any fixtures as there were very few sides to play.

So well done on your reserve side, it's possible two years too late.

Hopefully the RFL will support the idea of the reserves and insist on all SL clubs having them.

At least do some research, in the last 4 years we have signed no players from Cas. We have plenty of Hull born players in our side who play regular in Shaul, Houghton, Bowden, Green, Washbrook and Hadley.

Fash and Turgut probably played about 20 games each last year, along with Downs and Masi played a few as well, debut for Litten as well last year. I'd expect a few of those plus Abdul to play plenty of games this year.

I would say that Radford and Hull are one of the better sides at bringing players through, last year was an excellent example.

Not a fan of the joint academy though, but the results of it has worked is yet to be seen, I'm hoping we go back to separate academies.

The RFL doesn't insist on these sorts of things, as far as I can tell - it just puts it to a vote of SL clubs and then takes the blame. The clubs call the shots or block them.

Maybe it should become a compulsory part of the rugby league structure.
Like someone said in a earlier post SL and Championship sides plus C1 teams if they would like to.
I'm pretty sure it could be a very strong competition.
If Keighley and Halifax can do it surely all the others can.
Even if players don't make it at the top level the divisions would become stronger and who knows some lads who develope late could end up going onto bigger and better things.

That's a bit strong - but equally, we shouldn't crow about it now we've managed to do it 2 years after the fact.

As I understood it, the RFL allowed SL clubs to vote on it and many, ourselves included, voted against, presumably to save money; in my view, allowing clubs to decide for themselves was a grave error - it's too important for the future of the game, and we all know the dangers of a binary referendum...

As far as I'm concerned, running an A team should be a requirement of SL membership, and if that means spending less on the 1st team, so be it.