Im intrigued by this statement about Canberra and its Queenbeyan Blues LC
Because in Townsville or Auckland they dont seem to have a issue
It's not that the Raiders can't afford their own NSW cup team, it's that they don't see the benefits of paying for their own when they can get all those benefits for a quarter of the investment by simply linking up with a independent NSW cup club (such as the Mounties).
No other Rugby League club in the ACT/Queanbeyan can afford to run their own NSW cup club, and there simply isn't enough interest in lower grade RL in the ACT for anybody to invest in starting a new club for the NSW cup, so Canberra doesn't have one.
But if the NRL give the new Platinum League the push it deserves and try and get it the prestige and interest that it deserves then I can see a handful of consortiums from Canberra, Queanbeyan and maybe Goulburn throwing their hats in the ring to get a license (like the Vikings did both times the NRC was announced) .
A team underwritten by the nrl based in wagga makes most sense to me.
For a team to be sustainable long term it'll need the money from Canberra/Queanbeyan businesses, and Canberra/Queanbeyan businesses won't be interested unless it's based in Canberra/Queanbeyan.
I'm not sure how they are zoning the teams for the Platinum league but realistically if they make a southern NSW/ACT zone or whatever they want to call it, then Canberra is the closest you're going to get to a middle point in that region, or at least a middle point with a population large enough to sustain a club anyway.
I recall the raiders whinging that they had to fund u16, u18 NYC NSW cup and nrl squads. The poor buggers having develop players and they had the balls to say they would cut back their investment if the nfl didnt change the transfer system. I hope it all ends with the ARL responsible for all grassroots.
They weren't complaining about how much it cost, they were complaining that they were investing millions per-player to get juniors from roughly under 15s-16s to NRL standard only for another club who spends f##k all on junior development (like yours, coincidentally) to come in just as the Raiders stand to reap the rewards for their investment and offer ridiculous money to the player (mind you, most of which is off the cap in third parties that a club like yours' has a unfair advantage to compared to mine, for a whole multitude of reasons that we won't get into here) and they leave and then the Raiders have invested in a weapon that is going to be used against them.
What the Raiders are complaining about is not how much it costs, it's that there is no incentives to develop juniors for an NRL club, but there're plenty of incentives to simply keep all your money in the bank and then poach all the best players that you can from clubs that do develop juniors.
And considering that developing juniors is better for the game then not developing juniors it makes no god damn sense that there're no incentives for developing juniors.
Besides the Raiders made good on their promise and have cut back on junior funding and started poaching players, and as you can see we've started steadily rising up the ladder since we started doing that, which is nice, but it's a bloody shame that we've been forced to take that route to success when for so many years we tried so hard to do the right thing and give back to the game by developing juniors but the NRL refused to make it viable for teams to do that, and the game's worse for the loss.
But now with the NRL taking over junior development none of that matters anymore.
