What we need is a professional u20s comp, this is by far the most essential thing to keep talent in our game. Why? Well if you're talented 18 year old playing rugby, what option do you have next year, only the best pick up professional contracts out of school. The NRL can offer you a professional contract in the NYC straight away, that's much more enticing than playing colts for nothing for the next 2 years. Same problem in NZ as mentioned. We lose way too many to league because there's no pro contracts out of school for rugby players.
I like this idea.
Set the limit to $40k per season though.
What i'd like to see set up as our 3rd tier is pretty simple.
Scrap this national academy shit, and put the money from that split evenly between all 5 teams to set up their own academy. Everyone's done it already anyway.
So, we have 5 academy sides who train with their respective squads. Then, after Super rugby finishes, you select a 22 of the best from each cities club comp, and form a 10 team comp to play after club/Super rugby finishes. An academy, and Club XV from each city going at it would be fantastic.
Set the whole thing very cheaply, IE play it on club grounds so you have no stadium fees. There would be enough of a crowd at each game to play the match day stuff, and i'd wager a good chunk of the travel expenses as well.
Out of this, we get: academy sides, plus club players/Super rugby players who haven't made the Wallabies, playing in a semi-professional comp that is a step up from club rugby. Club players get their chance, Academy sides get continued gametime, and fringe Wallabies are not stuck playing club rugby in Sydney.
Everyone wins, and the whole thing would be very cheap to run, with set up times very limited. The whole thing could be up and running by next year.