EXCLUSIVE: Billy Slater warns of 'danger' in potential return of national youth competition

Rugby league Hall of Fame legends Billy Slater and Cameron Smith have cautioned against the return of the National Youth Competition.

Reports last week suggested the Australian Rugby League Commission is considering bringing back a form of the NYC, which started in 2008 but was disbanded in 2017.

The national under 20s league gave aspiring professional players the chance to represent an NRL club at a lower level, and theoretically create a clearer path to the top competition.

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The governing body would also be hoping a national youth league helps deepen the talent pool, particularly with NRL expansion on the horizon and existing fears there is not enough quality nationwide to support more teams.

Bulldogs football boss Phil Gould is pushing for the NYC return and last week said it was "stupid" it was ever scrapped. He revealed on Wide World of Sports' Six Tackles with Gus podcast he petitioned for it to remain in 2017 when the governing body axed it.

But Slater holds a different view.

"This is a tricky one... a part of me loves the National Youth Competition, I love seeing the young players play," he told Nine's The Billy Slater Podcast.

"You get an understanding of who's coming through and who's going to play first grade... that is the good part about it.

"When it is under 20s they are all 18 years old anyway, they are all younger than that. By the time they get to 20 if they are going to go on they are probably playing first grade.

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"The danger with it is when you're an 18-year-old kid, and you're still developing, you're coming in and playing in the Broncos jersey or Roosters jersey, you are on television, the perception is that you're an NRL player.

"And that's not their fault. There was like three per cent, or four per cent of players who played in the under 20s competition went on to be in the full-time squad of an NRL team.

"So there's 96 per cent of young guys who have that perception of they didn't make it. There's a danger in that feeling of failing. So we do have to be careful of putting our young players up on a pedestal too early.

"When they're young and they've just come out of school, and they may not make it to the NRL, we've just got to be careful with those kids."

Slater's former Storm and Maroons teammate Smith is also against the idea of a national youth competition.

"I must admit I didn't think (under) 20s was the right competition to have as like a national comp below the NRL," Smith said on SEN's The Captain's Run.

"I look back on the days where I was a young fella watching the NRL as a national competition and they had the reserve grade comp, the true reserve grade comp, so it was actually the players who were next in line to play first grade.

"So you go there as a curtain raiser game and you'd be watching guys who are on the fringe of playing first grade and they became regulars in your memory… and you watch their progression from reserve grade up into first grade."

The NRL or ARLC is yet to confirm whether a return of the NYC is on the agenda.