Professionalism has changed things massively too. Part timers can't compete with players who train fulltime, meaning you're going to have a cut off point where players below NRL level are earning a full time salary (so they don't have to worry about going to work when they should be training/recovering/resting).
Then it just comes down to how many non-NRL top 17 players the game can afford to be paying a full time salary. Too few of these and you don't produce or maintain enough first graders to fill the gaps as they appear.
Anyway, there is a certain percentage and certain class of player that is happy to play and train part time for next to nothing. Once upon a time this included the top players in the game, but has gradually given way to full time professionalism for even the 25th-30th (or lower) best player at each club.
As for the development of young players, the NRL can force most contracted players under the age of 20 out of full time training by such edicts as 'no work, no study, no play', but sooner or later most of them will need to begin training full time if they are to be any hope of improving enough to make it in the NRL. So how do they pay the bills? If they're not getting paid full time (understandable if they're not helping put bums on seats in first grade) they will eventually need to focus on their day jobs.
So the question comes down to how long should non-NRL players stick at rugby league before their chances of signing an NRL contract disappear? Should the NRL or the clubs provide any financial assistance during this time, considering these players contribute nothing to the generation of revenue for the NRL or the clubs?
In my opinion, in a perfect world, anyone good enough to get picked in a second tier comp (NSW/QLD Cup) -- but not good enough for an NRL club's top 30 -- would be entitled to a liveable salary (maybe $80k) to enable them to train full time and provide depth to the NRL clubs. But that's a f**king lot of money, and this isn't a perfect world.
