Flanagan fury

Rangers chairman hits out at Oldham’s move to enter team in National Youth League
RUGBY: TERRY Flanagan has blasted Oldham’s controversial plan to enter a team into the Gillette National Youth League next year, describing it as a “real body blow” for the amateur game in the town.

The Saddleworth Rangers chairman, formerly of Oldham RL and Great Britain fame, says Oldham’s move — which comes as the Whitebank Stadium club joins the RFL’s new post-16 scholarship scheme for Co-operative Championship clubs — will damage an amateur scene already struggling for numbers.

Rangers are set to compete directly against Oldham when the National Youth League restarts in March as a summer competition.

Waterhead dropped out of that competition two years ago and have not yet made a return. The Peach Road club have a team in the North-West Counties set-up, as do Oldham St Anne’s, but finding sufficient players to even field a full side is a big struggle for all clubs at a time when so many are leaving the game.

Oldham’s goal, backed by the RFL, is to bring on board players rejected by Super League clubs at 16 and to keep them in the professional game.

But Flanagan expresses a widespread fear across the amateur sides that the new Oldham under-18s side — which has the aim of building a squad of 24 players by March — will serve to marginalise the local talent which is available, at great cost to the local scene.

“It is a struggle to get enough under-18s players to fill the three good local clubs with teams in that age group,” said Flanagan (pictured, inset).

“These players are the lifeblood of the first team, as they are the ones who make the progression from the under-18s to open age rugby.

“This move cuts right across that, and right across the whole amateur game.

“It is a real body-blow. I suspect it has not been thought through properly.

“Chris Hamilton (Oldham Roughyeds’ chairman) said last week that ‘everyone wins’. On the contrary, I believe that everyone’s a loser.

“The amateur game will be hit extremely badly, at all levels. The motivation to produce players will be severely dented.”

In recent times, Oldham’s reserves set-up has brought through players from the local game. Chris Clarke and Scott Mansfield arrived from St Anne’s and Saddleworth respectively and progressed through the ranks under reserves coach John Hough to claim professional contracts.

And the club have concentrated on trying to bring in more good local players ahead of next season, picking up promising young talents like Jack Bradbury, Alistair Williams, Ben Wood, Michael Diveney and Matthew Fogarty.

While Oldham’s homing in on promising players up to now has generally been received without complaint, the setting-up of an under-18s side in direct competition with equivalent amateur teams is a step too far as Flanagan — and his colleagues at Waterhead and St Anne’s — is concerned.

The situation will be discussed at the next meeting of the Oldham Amateur League, on Wednesday, December 15.