Austin Healey makes some excellent points in the telegraph. And boy his words resonate with so many clubs around the North . We all know plenty of tatty run down s***holes that fly through the leagues......
"What you really want is an amateur scene where the money goes to coaches and into the infrastructure of clubs rather than into the back-pocket of players.
Let’s be quite frank, those players are going to need another job anyway. If there are a couple of people in your team who are bankers and lawyers, they probably are not going to be fussed about a couple of hundred quid.
Often you will go to community clubs that pay their players and the facilities will be dull and rusty. There are others that have invested in other channels, rather than bringing in an Austin Healey for 25 grand over 10 games, and look shinier for it.
You have to remember that a lot of these clubs have really good businessmen involved with them doing it for free. I like that element of it, to a certain extent. But, when the game went professional, I did always say that money would do its best to kill rugby."
I'd post the link but it's behind a pay wall...