Terry O'Connor on the impact academy licences will have on the community game

As a sport, rugby league classes itself as a community game and we hang our hat on that. However, I feel the recent announcement around the awarding of elite academy licences for the next six years has let down the communities of those clubs which missed out.

Not only that, I feel they've let youngsters down, they've let families down and it was a really sad day when the announcement came through that 10 teams had been awarded elite academy status, but of those which applied, four teams in Super League - Hull Kingston Rovers, Castleford Tigers, Leigh Centurions and Salford Red Devils were not successful and neither were Bradford Bulls.

It seems crazy to me that you can have an elite competition like Super League with 12 elite teams, but we don't think we've got 12 elite academies, and are only going to award licenses for eight.

So, where do the four other teams now get their players from? All the ex-players I talk to want academies and a reserve-grade competition, but they don't want any of that to the detriment of the community game.

There is another issue I see here too, because every year the community game has all of these players picked for scholarship at 14 years old.

If the RFL are saying the talent pool isn't big enough to have 12 academies in the heartlands, the governing body and Super League need to have a look at how they go around recruiting kids at 13 and 14.

On average, these clubs pick up roughly 20 players a year. I've seen it when I've been involved at amateur clubs where the kids who don't get picked up at 14, think they're not good enough and they leave the game altogether. The drop-off in the community game at that age is massive.

Then at U16 level, you have got kids on scholarships taking the decision not to play in amateur games if they've got commitments coming up with their academy because they don't want to risk getting injured and jeopardising their chance of earning a professional contract.

Personally, I would scrap all of that, stop clubs signing players from the community game before the age of 16 when everyone has levelled out. Then I'd go back to the system of junior players representing their combined town teams, and not being able to go outside of their town.

I had the opportunity to play for my town team in Widnes at the age of 11 and I loved it. I've still got my jersey in a frame at home from when I played for them because it was the first time I was told I was any good at something in rugby.

So, if a Super League club like Wigan, Warrington or St Helens want to sign little Johnny Smith from Widnes, that's fine - but you can do it only when he is 16. That would help the talent pool because kids wouldn't be packing it in at 14 thinking they haven't got a chance of making it professionally.

From those players who sign at 14, a significant proportion of those then get released two years later at 16 when those clubs have made a big play for them - and they very rarely go back to the amateur game.

Players like myself, Barrie McDermott, Paul Anderson and Darren Fleary only signed professional terms at 19. We wanted to stay amateur because we wanted to play with the BARLA national team and we were lucky enough to all go on to represent Great Britain at the same time.

It has been a really sad weekend when you've seen parents on social media sharing pictures of children crying because their scholarship at a club like Hull Kingston Rovers has fallen down due to them not being granted an elite academy license.

Let's not forget either that Rovers' head of youth John Bastian was previously at Bradford where two of the hottest properties in rugby league at the minute, James Bentley and Jake Trueman, came through the system there.

You just have to look back at the likes of Stuart Fielden, Leon Pryce and Jamie Peacock who came through at the Bulls. More recently, Adam O'Brien, Alex Mellor, Matty Storton, Ethan Ryan, John Bateman and Elliot Whitehead all came through there too.

Now, all of a sudden, there is an issue and a problem with the talent pool. I'm not saying not getting scholarships is the only issue around players dropping out of the sport as teenagers, but that is one of them and it affects up to U18s and open age level because kids will not return to the amateur game.

In Hull, in 2018, there were 1,500 players registered up to U18. Today, there are 2,150 - a growth of 42 per cent at that level. There has been a growth, but now it has been deemed there is not enough talent in the area for both Rovers and Hull FC to have elite academies?

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It is worth noting that from 2016 to 2019 the two Hull clubs ran a join academy team, but it was decided they needed their own identities. Now the identity of the youth system at Rovers has been damaged because of the licencing decision.

I think it's a really sad day in a sport where we depend so much on the community and youngsters coming to their game with their families, and how some of those currently involved at clubs like Hull KR, Bradford and Castleford Tigers are now going to feel excluded from it.

As a game as a whole - not just the RFL - we really need to closely examine how we want to look. My own honest opinion, along with people in the game both present and former who I respect, is this decision will not grow the game going forward.