NCL met last night - accepted an application from West Bank I believe and also agreed to take their A sides to summer. Did they state any view on whether they'd have their own A team comp or whether they'd integrate into a wider league...?

A teams are apparently forming their own leagues. It makes sense to some extent if they pool travel and play other second teams if that's the plan. My gut feeling though is the RFL will have a half d idea around that which won't work and the 2nd teams will end up being pooled into tier 4.

My thought is that the 13 or so a teams in Nwc would guarantee the critical mass for a new summer comp. Quality varies of course...Crosfields were very poor when they came to us in Div 5 and obviously Easts and Miners are vey good - but that quality could encourage Div 1 and 2 sides from NwC to switch

At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.

At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.

Quote thestatman="thestatman"At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.'" That's a reassuring post. I spoke with a NCL secretary yesterday and they were keen on the A team format being seperate because they saw it as a way of recruiting to the A team as they felt players had a tendency to go off to other first teams instead. I'd still hope that your A sides came to summer and the competition itself became stronger overall with a few top end NWC sides making the move.

Quote thestatman="thestatman"At Thatto Heath we're are keeping our options very much open. Having just finished 4th in Division 1 and fulfilled all of our fixtures we have some very real concerns about the playing standards and commitments of some of the other NCL A teams. We have committed to giving the A team league a go for this short transition season as there was nothing else on the table and time was pressing. It may prove to be a success but it is our gut feeling is it will not provide us with a consistently good standard of competition that our A team lads have earned the right to play at with their success over the past few seasons. I know that Leigh East have a few reservations too www.totalrl.com/forums/index.php ... try2283271 - see post 9 & 10. Hopefully by March 2012 there will be a good base of the current NWC sides from the upper divisions as well as some of the stronger sides from the current RLC to make this proposed RFL run Tier 4 competition strong and competitive.'" That's a reassuring post. I spoke with a NCL secretary yesterday and they were keen on the A team format being seperate because they saw it as a way of recruiting to the A team as they felt players had a tendency to go off to other first teams instead. I'd still hope that your A sides came to summer and the competition itself became stronger overall with a few top end NWC sides making the move.

That is exactly the mentality that we are trying to avoid. Our A team was our NWC 1st team and we had ambitions of getting them into the NWC Premier as this would lessen the gap between the NCL team and NWC team - and the results of this have been seen on the field with the NCL Team. We don't want to recruit players to play soley for our A team, we want them to be able to make the step up to play in the NCL team too - this is reflected in the fact that we have just appointed the BARLA GB Assistant Coach as Head Coach of our A Team. We have a real fear that all the hard work in moving up the league could be destoryed if we end up playing only 3 or 4 competitive games per season and is something we will strive to avoid at all costs.



The only problem having a second team of this standard is that it means there aren't the playing opportunities for some of the lads who come down and aren't the best players or lads that come through the youth set-up that struggle to make the jump up to the high standard straight away. That is why we tried to get a third team off the ground last year and is something that we will certainly be looking to establish more sucessfully in the future.

Have you looked at the Summer merit league for something like this?

Yeah that would be the likely course to take if we've got sufficent and sustainable number.

would be useful if a merit type comp was run May to August still

It will pal I've had it confirmed, its still got a role for union players etc who fancy a crack at it in summer.

we've more and more union lads training every week and the Club Captain of one of the local union sides trained on Wedbnesday night with us...we never really targetted them but they're becoming keen. Most will go back to Union but the odd one might stick with league in September. Next year the merit league could be a really good option if more fancy it we could try and plan it in.

Update on whats going on: www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 26772.html

Update on whats going on: www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 26772.html