While derbies dominated Super League last weekend, a little bit of history was being made in, of all places, north Kent. Despite the prospect of getting home at 3am, a hearty bunch of Castleford supporters made the trip to the Kuflink Stadium in the south-east corner of England for their match against London Broncos. A raucous group clad in Tex Hoy-themed Hawaiian shirts waved inflatable bananas throughout their 34-20 win. Those who watched on Sky saw bunches of Kent folk cheering on Super League players reared by local junior clubs such as Medway Dragons, Bromley Bengals and Invicta Panthers.

While their home in Wimbledon is reseeded, the Broncos have gone on an annual summer day out to Ebbsfleet United, a shabby-chic venue where dock cranes on the Thames estuary dot the horizon and Eurostar trains fly past the car park. Kent last hosted a Cas game 40 years ago, when they visited Maidstone for a Challenge Cup tie against flash-in-the-pan club Kent Invicta. More recently, the county has become a source of talent for a sport spreading its roots across England.

Every week, the Broncos field at least 10 players raised outside rugby league heartlands. With 16 players from the south or Midlands, Cas and London Broncos could have set a record for the top tier match with the widest spread of English players in the code’s history, although only 11 took the field. Super League players usually come from Pontefract, Kells or Billinge, not Stamford Hill or Richmond, Rochester and Leicester. The Broncos’ three try scorers hail from Northampton, Milton Keynes and Sidcup.

Super League’s English players are more geographically diverse than ever. Alongside hundreds of Yorkshiremen, Lancastrians and Cumbrians, the league features a dozen or so Londoners, players from Kent, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Tyneside, as well as more from the Midlands than any time since the 1970s.

Why does it matter? Because having a greater spread of clubs, players, fans and viewers attracts much-needed investment. The growth in the player pool – albeit leaving a featherweight footprint – is almost entirely down to the presence of London Broncos and the south-east’s community clubs. Around 15 years ago, Super League’s biggest clubs started signing London’s young stars – Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook went to St Helens, Tony Clubb and Dan Sarginson to Wigan.

Players raised by London Rugby League are now spread throughout the sport. Thanks to the Broncos and its junior clubs, this season there is at least one player from 23 of the 39 historic English counties, and half the clubs in Super League and the Championship have a southerner in their ranks. Newcastle Knights and Newcastle Thunder have players introduced to the game by Croydon Hurricanes; Halifax could field a half-back pairing from Essex and Middlesex; Barrow include three Londoners; and you can hear Home Counties accents in dressing rooms from Whitehaven to Widnes. The England squad contains players developed by West London Sharks and Medway Dragons, and NRL clubs have players honed in Croydon, Hemel Hempstead and Greenwich.

With bottom club Broncos destined for relegation, more southern talent will leave in September. The Broncos head coach and director of rugby, Mike Eccles, wants the sport to do more for the south east. “We need joined-up thinking about a strong London,” he says. “Put in some sort of safeguarding around that player pool so we can bear fruit, like we used to. Louie played 100 games before he left, Clubby 150, Sargy around 60. Now we’re losing players who have played 30 games – or no games.”

Last year’s Championship young player of the year – Bill Leyland from Maidstone – has been the first to jump ship, leaving for Hull KR having not played a minute this season due to injury. “I won’t fall out with someone who has signed elsewhere if it’s done the right way,” says Eccles. “I create a relationship with players and I’m pleased for them, but certainly it has a subconscious impact. It doesn’t help with the insecurities. It’s really hard to bring it back when you know players are going to leave.”

An exasperated Eccles says the sport risks cutting off the south’s talent pipeline. “We’ve pumped so much money into an academy to produce players who get cherry-picked. It’s soul-destroying. We were in tears when we lost Lewis Bienek and Kai Pearce-Paul – and it goes on and on. The only way we’re going to grow is if we can retain our players. We need some support with that. Our players wouldn’t be playing the game if it wasn’t for us, that’s a fundamental difference. London needs a permanent spot in Super League.”

Despite his club benefitting from the Broncos’ production line, Castleford coach Craig Lingard disagrees: “We need a strong London team as there are a lot of people playing the game there. But London aren’t a development club any more. They’ve been going for 40 or 50 years, so there’s responsibility on the club.”

Developing players follows a pretty simple formula: get enough kids playing for long enough, mentor and nurture them, and talent will emerge, regardless of their postcode or cultural scaffolding. But young players need local professional environments to push to the next level.
Not long ago the Broncos could loan promising youngsters to League 1 clubs in Haringey, Oxford, Hemel and Cheltenham. Nearly all of the Broncos academy products now in Super League gained crucial experience in these clubs, but they have all gone. Unless the RFL gives Bedford Tigers a place in League 1 in September, there will be no southern stepping stone for future professionals.

The supply of schoolboy talent is also at risk. The pandemic has proved fatal for grassroots rugby league in many regions, with community clubs disappearing across the country since Covid. St Albans Centurions, founded in 1996, are the latest on the brink of collapse; the north-east senior competition has folded, as has the south-west.

Two years after claiming London was a priority area for them, IMG have done nothing for the region. With no IMG points for player production, the Broncos closed their elite academy last winter. “There were eyebrows raised but you want the owner to keep pouring quarter of a million pounds into an academy that’s not safeguarded?” asks Eccles. “It’s wrong.”

Perhaps other clubs will pick up the development baton in the south. With no professional union presence, Kent has the potential to be an important growth area. “It’s important that we look at where rugby league is strong and where it’s producing players – and Kent is,” says Eccles. “Seeing Ollie Leyland [Broncos’ half-back from Maidstone] out there is inspirational for local kids.”

There is hope. Junior activity is booming in the Midlands. And there are regular feelgood stories emanating from an array of clubs, from Eastern Rhinos in Colchester to Yarm Wolves in North Yorkshire. Perhaps the brand new clubs of Staffordshire Quantums and Deeping Ducks will produce Super League stars of the future. Why not?