And so it has begun.
Leigh Centurions have announced the first dual contract players in club history with Warrington trio Matty Blythe, Lee Mitchell and Tyrone McCarthy joining St Helens Jacob Emmitt on double deals. All four players are just 21 and hopefully have long careers in front of them. I hope they are a success for Leigh. The players have the right sort of pedigree to succeed and over the next couple of days I'll research their first team careers to date and post them here.
Widnes last week announced the dual contract signings of Shaun Ainscough and Liam Farrell from Wigan and it would be fair to say in Ainscough, he made an instant impact with two tries at Batley
Now I admit to not knowing how this system would work in Rugby League so I did the done thing and asked the question of their media department.
They obliged by saying there was a press release being done which would explain things so here is the said statement which arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago which I was asked to keep under wraps until Thursday.
Clubs strengthened by dual registration
Clubs in both the Engage Super League and The Co-operative Championships are to benefit from the new dual registration system which has been introduced for the 2010 season.
Dual registration refers to an arrangement between clubs whereby a player continues to be registered to his current Super League club and is also registered to play for a club in The Co-operative Championship or Championship One.
BJ Mather, the RFL’s Head of Player Development, explains: “The purpose of the RFL’s new dual registration system is to provide a flexible development pathway for young Super League players who might not be quite ready to make the step up to Super League first team duties on a permanent basis.
“We were of the view that, for such players, there may be an opportunity for his Super League club to enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement with a Championship or Championship One club with a view to giving the player quality first team experience in a manner that will hopefully prove cost-effective for the Championships club.”
The dual registration system is aimed at young Super League players who are thought to be not quite ready to make the step up to ‘week in, week out’ Super League first team duties but for whom first team match experience is likely to be beneficial for their development.
Only Engage Super League players can be dual registered and the receiving club must be a club in the Championships, meaning that Super League to Super League club dual registrations are not available.
The player must be under 23 on August 31 in the year preceding the season in which the proposed dual registration will apply so for 2010, players who were not yet 23 on August 31, 2009 can be dual registered.
A dual registered player will be eligible to play and train with both clubs in a format agreed between the clubs, subject to registration, salary cap and competition eligibility rules.
The player is restricted to playing in one fixture per scheduled round of fixtures in any given week and would not be eligible to play in a Championships fixture on a Thursday and for his Super League club at the weekend.
The new ‘dual registration’ system is intended to complement the existing player loan system.
The current limit on the number of players a receiving club can utilise will also apply to ‘dual registered’ players. Therefore a receiving club will be limited to a total of four loaned and/or dual registered players, and no more than three loaned and/or dual registered players from the same club.
The list of players that are currently dual registered includes Luke May and Lamont Bryan, who are on the books of Harlequins RL and London Skolars; Richard Lopag, who is dual registered with Castleford and Gateshead; and Michael Coady, who is with Leeds Rhinos and Featherstone.
A dual registration system has been ongoing in Rugby Union's domestic competition for the last three years. During my time covering Union for Channel M, I regularly saw players from Sale Sharks and Leeds Carnegie take the field for Sedgley Park and Manchester Rugby Union Club. This has helped players like Dan Birchall and Chris Leck of Sale gain plenty of first team experience at levels higher than the equivilent reserve competition. This is an obvious benefit to the player, while the parent club can observe how that player is progressing.
The following snippet from an article in the Birmingham Post talks about Union Championship side Moseley and their link up with Gloucester. Out of interest Gloucester is the current club of former Bradford Bulls winger Lesley Vainikolo and a previous club of Henry Paul.
This is the third season Moseley have been providing the light of competitive rugby to the mushrooming talent down the M5 and there have been some beauties.
While the loan arrangement between the clubs never really settled into anything reliable, the dual-registration system – in which promising academy players are effectively leased by Moseley has done wonders for the junior partner.
Dan Norton and Jack Adams were the cutting edge with which the Red and Blacks scythed through Exeter and Leeds en route to Twickenham glory last term. And Charlie Sharples used his tutelage at Billesley to break into the Cherry and Whites’ first team where he is now a permanent fixture. He scored some fantastically good tries on the way too.
Others, including Henry Trinder and Jordi Pasqualin, have done sufficiently well to threaten the starting XV while some, like Dave Lewis and Jack Forster – now at Sale – merely needed to polish their talents in the second tier before confirming their status as heirs apparent.
But the process wasn’t as initially smooth as it is now. It was after a season of uncertainty over the availability of Forster and players like Dan Tuohy that Ian Smith made the decision to wrap a pack in Moseley’s Red and Black but to decorate the backs with Gloucester glitter.
Once that strategic shift had been made in the summer of 2008 the relationship settled and became much more workable.
Tristan Roberts, Norton and Adams became regulars in the three-quarters while Smith retained control over his forwards as contracted players Nathan Williams, Adam Caves, Terry Sigley, Aly Muldowney and Richard Stott built the platform on which the National Trophy victory was constructed.
The ribbons on the cup were red and black but in the cause of accuracy one of them might have been tipped with a flash of Cherry.
Because since the agreement became formal two years ago, more than a dozen Kingsholm kids have seen action with the Birmingham outfit.
The first generation of Adams, Norton, Sharples and Lewis have moved on to higher things, arguably in Norton and Adams’ cases and the second, Roberts, Dan Williams and Trinder, are still in a process of determining in which direction their careers will go.
The latest intake includes Simpson-Daniel, Jonny May and Shaun Knight and looks to be as potent as anything that has come through already.
All that makes dual registration sound a really good thing and there are benefits but as Widnes have found there is another side to the system - the unavailability of players.
Chris Dean was brought from St Helens and looked in good touch in the Vikings 50-6 win over Gateshead, however, injury to the Saints big centre signing Sia Soliola means Dean is back at Knowsley Road for the next few weeks at least - which don't get me wrong, provides a great opportunity for the young fellow.
The system seems better than the old loan agreement where after a player had done a set month they could be recalled at any time by the parent club unless a longer loan agreement was signed. Leigh in particular lost out on Tom Hemingway last season after he was recalled by Huddersfield, played a game and never saw first team action again. Had it been dual-reg, Hemingway would have been free to return to Leigh and the Centurions wouldn't have had to worry about the signing deadline.
I like what Ian Millward said about the issue though: "It can be a bit hit and miss in the fact that you can have four players but they may never play for you, or you might get four and they play week in, week out."
It has pluses and minuses I guess we'll see how it develops but one thing is for sure, with the rules the RFL have implemented mean that we won't see what has happened in Union where up to 12 players have been brought in on dual contract agreements. People may be worried about becoming feeder clubs but for me this is more like introducing foster clubs.
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