SEDGLEY TIGERS

This has been re-enforced with the recent arrival of Mark Jennings the England under 20s outside centre to Park Lane from Sale Sharks shows how both the player and the club can benefit.

This is not a one way street with currently 4 of Tigers Senior Colts; Conor McGrath, Oliver Parkinson, Sam Peet, and Tom Whitton at various levels of the Sharks or should I say Jets structured pathways.

But are the principles of the dual registration at senior level working and is it right?

Dual Registration: Rugby’s version of Marmite, you either love it or you loathe it. But, like a typical Gemini, so I am told, I can see the merits in both sides of the argument.

DR was brought in by the RFU to complement the existing loan system and help cut through the red tape associated with England Academy players going back-and-forth between clubs.

In the past an Academy player would have to be de-registered by his parent club and then re-registered with the receiving club, a process that would then have to be repeated should the player be called back to cover for injuries and the like.

Allowing more freedom of movement has cut down on a lot of the administrative hassle, and therefore encouraged clubs to take part in the player-sharing process.

This had to be done given the lack of game-time English academy players were getting at their Premiership clubs, either through the fact that they were not yet ready for top flight rugby, or a foreign player was standing in their way, or through conservative thinking from a coach - where age is put before ability as a barometer of selection.

Like all relatively new initiatives it has had its teething problems and the rules have occasionally been manipulated, particularly in the first year where the integrity of the Championship was called into question because no limit was set on the numbers of DR players a club could play in any one game.

That now stands at a maximum of six England Academy players under the age of 24 on 1st September 2011.

But there is no doubting that DR has succeeded in exposing previously green academy players to a man’s world where results matter. Their presence has also helped drive up playing standards and the pace of the product on the pitch.

The RFU and Premiership Rugby are proud of the scheme, rightly citing the examples of Dan Cole, Billy Twelvetrees and Owen Farrell as players within the current England Senior and Saxon squads to have benefitted from going out on loan to Bedford, in the case of all three, and with Nottingham in the case of the first two.

Players like the Gloucester quartet of Charlie Sharples, Henry Trinder, Jonny May and Freddie Burns would no doubt also argue their game understanding, deemed good enough for representative recognition by England, moved on immeasurably from time spent on loan at Moseley, one of the first pioneers of DR.

And prop Joe Marler may still have question marks placed against his scrummaging at the highest level, but just think where would have been in his development path had he not packed down in the National Leagues for Worthing and Esher before breaking through at Harlequins?

Most Championship clubs have now got in on the act, with strong partnership agreements existing between Esher and Harlequins, Bedford and Saracens, London Welsh and London Irish and now, controversially, Bristol and Bath and Leeds and Sale.

Many people think it is wrong that two Championship clubs, i.e. Bristol and Leeds, should receive a further leg up when, as the argument goes, they have RFU-funded Academies and should be producing and playing youngsters of their own.

Getting regular game-time at Leeds will no doubt help the careers of Ian Thornley and Tommy Bell in the long run, and also boost the Yorkshire club’s promotion prospects at the same time.

But is that fair on Leeds’ rivals – or fair for the homegrown players they have replaced, who could now be kicking their heels at a weekend or loaned out to a club at a lower level? That debate is currently taking place in the corridors of power.

You cannot mention DR without mentioning Nottingham, who, like Moseley, embraced the scheme wholeheartedly when it was first introduced: some would argue out of financial necessity as well as in the interests of player development.

Even Nottingham will admit that they overcooked the reliance on DR players from Leicester, which, it could be reasoned, affected the culture of their threadbare squad – something that Stuart Lancaster, one of the driving forces behind DR, often speaks about as being hugely important for a team whatever the level they’re operating at.

Fortunately for Nottingham their dark financial days appear to be behind them and the squad there is now very much their own again. But that’s not to say it’s not right for others to benefit from an idea that says, ‘balls to bureaucracy, let’s give it as go.’

So what is your view have your say here in comments box below.

All the best

ST