No, they're playing RU. We'll find them in that sport. Unless they want to play RL but don't want to play RU, in which case we'll find them in RL. Getting development officers out will give them a chance to play.







Perhaps that just shows how hard a sport it is to learn.

If we want to give them that opportunity though, it's going to be through community development officers and junior clubs, not through sending scouts to trampolining competitions.





So we need to get more development officers out there.





But they are not, and they never will be. Money is money and can be used for anything. Any money we invest in one thing is money no longer available to be invested elsewhere.







We could stop doing that. Although there are many that feel Australia are ahead of us and we need to keep an eye on what they're up to.

All you seem to be arguing is that sending scouts out to different sports to identify talent and increasing development officers are mutually exclusive. They clearly arent.



And money isnt money, it comes from different places and has differing responsibilities, we are getting £30m from sport england that can solely be used for increasing participation, it cant be used for anything else. There is no issue with the RFL spending that £30m on increasing participation and clubs spending maybe £30k a year on scouting and training a few players who havent tried RL before but the have the inherent athletic ability to be able to.



in which case we should be sending young coaches out there, not scouts, or CEO's to sign players/

So where is the money coming from to send the scouts, and why do you think it's more worthwhile there than in community coaches?





Which is the source that can be send on scouting, but can't be sent on coaching?





I agree. Well, coach coaches might be more effective than the coaches themselves, as would bringing better coaches here to teach our coaches.

By the time a kid is identified as an elite athlete at one particular sport (whether that be athletics, football, gymnastics or whatever) it's usually because they've made the decision to pursue that particular sport ahead of all others and devote their free time to it.



Turning up to say the English schools athletics championships and asking the 400m winner whether he's ever fancied playing rugby league is going to be an exercise in futility. He's already picked his sport and his event and will be devoting all his time to being the best at it he can possibly be.



For what it costs in time and money to do that sort of targeted scouting you can probably get 100 kids in a school somewhere playing the game and take your chances that one of those goes on to play the sport at the top level.

Question.



If the whole problem is playing numbers. Why hasnt the English soccer team got to more than one major final in its entire history, and why hasnt it got to more than a couple semi-finals in its entire history?

Think you'd need to go to some soccer forum to ask them.

I suspect you'd issues such as number of non-English players at the top level (which is a far greater problem for that sport than it is in RL) club power, junior focus on winning rather than coaching, winter seasons and available training facilities not conducive to skills training.

I don't know enough about their elite player pathways to comment on that aspect. I give anecdotal evidence (Villa, Cov and Birmingham U18s teams used to run trial matches next to where we coached the RL RPDC this year) that even at U18 level, the pro club squads are dominated by foreign players.

Anyway, besides the point, it's a sport I'm not interested in.

Bingo. And just think how many kids a junior development officer costing <£30K a year can get around to. Thousands. Then on top of that, part of their role is typically coaching coaches and helping amateur clubs, something else people seem to be crying out for.

See Richie's point below.



Also, according to Sport England figures in July 2009 approximately 3m adults in the England participated in football (indoor or outdoor) once a month. Not sure, but I'd be surprised if that's a higher figure than say Brazil or even some other European countries

England has more prof players to pick from than NZ, alot more. Quantity is not the issue, its quality that's the problem.

How do junior numbers compare?

That's because England has significantly more professional clubs than New Zealand, which has a grand total of one.



How do the numbers of people participating in rugby league stack up?

The Clubs would be the ones expected to pay for it.



We are probably extracting all we can from those already playing RL in the heartlands. Yes we could likely train them better but common sense tells us that we will pick up a huge percentage of those with the inherent talent to play RL, who are already playing RL in the heartlands. It also tells us, as does the evidence, that we arent picking up a large percentage of those with the inherent talent to play RL who arent playing RL and arent in the heartland.





The clubs,



certainly.