What's wrong with our junior development atm? nothing so why change it
Are you f##king kidding!
Junior development in NSW and the ACT at the moment is a patch work of different systems all overlapping each other and fighting each other for the same outcome.
Take Canberra and the surrounding regions (the area and juniors system I'm most familiar with) if you're in Canberra, Queanbeyan , Cooma, Crookwell or Goulburn you've got a straight run from under 6's all the way up to first grade and into the NRL through the Raiders if you're good enough.
However go down to Batemans Bay (or anywhere else on the South Coast and into the Riverina) and once you get to under 16's there's no clear way forward, either you get spotted by the Raiders, Dragons or Cutters when one of their scouts comes to check the local scene about once every year or so and they funnel you into their develop system from there, or you have no choice but to move to Canberra, Wollongong or Sydney and play in the competitions there where you are more visible to the NRL clubs.
Go South of Cooma or west of Yass and it's even murkier, if you are in Albury, Wagga, Orange, Dubbo, etc, etc, then there really is no clear way into the NRL, and there's certainly no way to do it without moving to either Canberra, Sydney or Wollongong by the time you're about 14-16 years of age.
A standard form of junior development run by the NRL and all working together would be a massive improvement on what we have now.
Id argue this would do MORE for the community level RL...
Rather than being "a shittier version of that team i like", these clubs would have the chance to establish identities as suburban teams, reminiscent of NSWRL in the 1970s.
People want the NRL to be this suburban connection, but it is delusional to believe it will continue. These teams, on the other hand, can become that romantisised image of the suburban ground on the Sunday arvo the NRL clubs cannot be.
Exactly.
Some people here are so Sydney-centric that they don't realise that not everything revolves around a handful of suburban teams from Syndey.
Do you know what it would do for the image of RL in NSW/ACT if a kid from Cooma could play for the Colts from the age of 5 until either the day he retires from RL or until the point that he is spotted as a potential NRL player and is funneled into a club that is a motley representation of his geographic area.
It'd be massive, it'd make kids from Cowra see the Cowra Magpies as a legitimate stepping stone towards the NRL and a club to be supremely proud to play for, instead of a small town club that they play for until they grow up or move to the big smoke to take their shot at going professional, and the new NSW platinum league (though I think that is a terrible name) teams have the potential to become like what the NSWRL clubs were back in the 50's, 60's and 70's or what the collage football teams are in America but on a state wide scale.
Richo wants to remove the NRL brands from.NSW
Something that will be met with major backlash
Because it can only be dine by removing todays NSW Cup brands as well
He has had this brain storm for 20 years as it has SL War style mentality all over it
Why?
I see why it'd be necessary to remove the NRL brands for his plan to work, but I see no reason why in theory the Jets, Bears, Cutters, Roos, etc, etc could not still exist within this new format.
I can understand why it may not be possible for all the brands to remain at NSWcup level though, as bloke from Canberra and surrounds aren't likely to accept the Cutters as representatives if we were to be zoned with them, at which point either another more representative brand would have to be found or a new one created.
