I well remember the days when Rugby players honed their skills in the fifteen aside game before converting to league. Back then there was little choice if they wanted to get paid to play.
These days Rugby is professional and needs to match the efforts of the competing codes if it is to remain a force.
The NRL has it's under 20 competition that is churning out top class players every year. They receive top class coaching while playing in top class company. Every NRL side has players coming out of that competition and some of them are now forcing there way into representative teams.
A national competition allows this to happen and gives talented players many more opportunities than they are currently receiving in Rugby.
How many potentially great Rugby players are being lost to the NRL because of this lack of opportunity when they can be picked up by any of the sixteen clubs in the NRL.
Until they can produce something similar, they will need to continue to outlay very big bucks to buy in talent to remain competitive.
