With the NRL looking at a draft system to distribute their young players more evenly, are we about to be left behind by them again? The NRL have been a forward thinking and progressive competition, growing their business and making tough decisions to move them forward. They have led the way in sports science, in a cap which allows marquee players and third party investment, and now a rookie draft moving towards the more successful American model, while we are still wedded and returning to, the 19th century European model. Our Salary cap has barely changed (in principle) for over a decade, we couldn’t even get agreement for a marquee allowance or the home-grown discount which was proposed months ago. When we ask ourselves why we don’t get billion dollar TV contracts, why we don’t have high participation, why we cannot compete on the field with the Australians, its because they say and do things like this [iDoyle also said that a salary cap review panel would be established to conduct an annual review of the salary cap. "Every year we will do a review of what is working, what is not working and what can be changed," Doyle said. "It will be looking both short term and long term. That panel will be put in place and they will be constantly looking at what is happening externally, what is happening in our own system and how we can continue to evolve that."[/i Read more: www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... z2wt7MKJAa And we don’t, We aim for stability at best, forgetting that stability isn’t growth, its stagnation. .

With the NRL looking at a draft system to distribute their young players more evenly, are we about to be left behind by them again? The NRL have been a forward thinking and progressive competition, growing their business and making tough decisions to move them forward. They have led the way in sports science, in a cap which allows marquee players and third party investment, and now a rookie draft moving towards the more successful American model, while we are still wedded and returning to, the 19th century European model. Our Salary cap has barely changed (in principle) for over a decade, we couldn’t even get agreement for a marquee allowance or the home-grown discount which was proposed months ago. When we ask ourselves why we don’t get billion dollar TV contracts, why we don’t have high participation, why we cannot compete on the field with the Australians, its because they say and do things like this [iDoyle also said that a salary cap review panel would be established to conduct an annual review of the salary cap. "Every year we will do a review of what is working, what is not working and what can be changed," Doyle said. "It will be looking both short term and long term. That panel will be put in place and they will be constantly looking at what is happening externally, what is happening in our own system and how we can continue to evolve that."[/i Read more: www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... z2wt7MKJAa And we don’t, We aim for stability at best, forgetting that stability isn’t growth, its stagnation. .

No no no.

A draft system does not work with P&R, it only works so well in the NFL because of their well established franchise system and College Football Leage.

A draft system also results in 'tanking' where teams with nothing to play for lose to get a better draft pick.

Lets stick to the best of British sport, excitement at both ends of the table.

It works in many other sports, not just the NFL, but I do agree it is incompatible with pretty much any form of P+R

it can, but there are ways and means of mitigating that.
We have tried that for a long time, and it is evidenced time and time and time again, people don’t want to watch a team which is struggling against relegation. There may be one or two fixtures that get a boost from it, however many many more attendances go down because of it.

I think this would be a good idea but not in the style of the NFL.

I think 3 draft rounds would be sufficient each year.

With the RFL allocating funds/or cap space to the developing club for each player selected say 100k round 1 75k round 2 and 50k round 3.

Plus the draft club buyout the remained of the players contract and must offer an improved one.

So the developing clubs benefit as well as the draft club.

Any player who has less than say 20 sl appearances can join the draft.

So this could include championship players as well as RU players.

would never happen because leeds/wigan/saints etc would never allow it...and why should they? they pay good money and have worked hard for decades to create those conveyor belts, good on em. Its up to the rest of us to try and emulate that

If that Valley Commando brings in a draft I'll have a word.

Who funds player development under a SL draft system?

To be independent it would have to be run and administered by the RFL, as we don't have an independent college system to develop players like the NFL do.

How do we manage those young players who are on the fringe of first team? They need some first team exposure but most weeks need a lower standard?

At what age would the draft happen?

How would it interact with amateur clubs?

I just don't think it would work here without totally scrapping everything bar SL and starting again. Even then we would still need a reserves comp or feeder clubs to properly develop players. And the funding wouldn't be provided at a decent enoug level.

As a London Broncos fan I can assure I am finding it really hard to contain my current levels of excitement

The ' release ' will be orgasmic when it comes

it would be needed to,be centrally funded, I actually think that would be a good thing and an opportunity to increase overall funding,

The draft would happen between 18 and 23, players would put themselves forward for it.

The feeder clubs would be the lower leagues and I'm not sure it would have all that much impact on the lower leagues

A draft only works in The USA because the franchises are not responsible for the production of youth talent. The draft takes players from the university system, who are mainly on sports scolarships. The systems are not in competition with each other. We cannot ask the likes of Wigan and Leeds to subsidise less prolific clubs. We may as well create a whole new level of rugby, taking responsibility for youth development away from the clubs totally.I am sure that several clubs would be in favour as they have have nothing to lose.

Personally, I'd argue that a "draft" would be worse for addressing our talent pool issues than the current system.

As things stand, we have the best clubs, with the best youth infrastructure, sweeping up the cream of the talent. At these clubs, the players get the best coaching, in the best facilities, and the best academic support (should they not reach their on-field potential). These clubs also have a good record on blooding that talent.

What a draft system is effectively proposing is to send the pick of the talent to inferior clubs, with inferior youth coaching, inferior facilities and inferior academic support. This, in turn, harms their career development. These clubs have also, historically, had poor records when it comes to exposing young talent to first team rugby.

Leeds, St Helens and Wigan don't have the best young players because the best young players only play for Stanningley, St Pats or Blackbrook; they have the best young players because the actively go out, find them, and train them in suitable facilities. Any SL club could do that if it had the inclination to do so.

As it stands, the better, proactive clubs get to keep the better players. Eventually, some of that talent trickles down to other clubs (so in effect, those clubs are investing in players for others to see the return); one of the successes, you could argue, of the salary cap.

I don't see how sending this year's BARLA player of the year to London Broncos is good for the player, the national team, or the Super League as a product.