Bath Rugby academy manager Frank Butler and his coaching staff are gearing up for a sea-change in the way the club's highly successful player development conveyor belt will have to operate when the RFU's newly-signed agreement with England's 12 Guinness Premiership clubs comes into force next summer.

That will see current academy licences, which are currently jointly funded by Twickenham and Sport England, run out to be replaced by a system completely funded by the RFU offering bigger financial rewards for clubs developing players who are selected for England's under 18, under 20, Saxons and senior elite player squads.

"Given our success over the last few years - as a club Bath Rugby has had between 14 and 17 players in various England squads - we should carve ourselves a decent slice of the available funding," said Butler.

"We will be cutting that academy squad, which currently runs at around 30 players aged between 15 and 21, to just 20, which will give us more time to help each player develop areas of their game specific to their needs and their positions."

Every summer, 55-year-old Cornishman Butler, who captained his county under 15s in 1967-68 and played his senior rugby with Cambourne until he retired in 1986, has to recruit top young talent for Bath's academy programme.

Potential stars are spotted by a massive network of contacts throughout the South West, ranging from club junior coaches to school teachers, and referred to Butler and former Bath and England players John Palmer and Martin Haag.

The best are weeded out by an exhaustive process which, eventually, sees the academy coaching staff go out and watch youngsters in action before the cream are invited to spend six weeks of the summer training full-time at The Rec.

"From that batch of players, we weed out those we believe have the raw talent, basic skills, athleticism and, more importantly now than ever before, the physical attributes to become Premiership and, possibly England, players," said Butler.

"Then we talk to the players and their parents to find out where the boys' ambitions lie. Some want to combine life in the academy with academic study and some will put university or college on hold to try their hand at full-time rugby straight away.

"It's almost a scientific process but there's a degree of crystal-ball gazing in it all as well because we're talking very much about potential, but we're lucky to be in the heart of a rugby-mad area where hosts of junior clubs and schools are producing talented players all the time."

The last major change in the way Bath's academy programme operates was instigated in 2003 when the visionary Jack Rowell, the driving force behind Bath's still unmatched dominance of the English club game through the 1980s and 1990s, returned to The Rec as director of rugby.

Butler explained: "Jack said he wanted the academy to produce four graduates a year - players who at 21 would be ready for Premiership rugby - and, two years later, we streamlined the academy in terms of player numbers, stopped running age-group sides and left that side to Bath Minis, who take players from six to 11, and Bath Youth Rugby, who run a programme for 12 to 18-year-olds.

"Streamlining the academy the way we did in 2005 backfired on us a bit because we created a hiatus for a year or so where we had very few players ready to step up from the academy to the first-team squad.

"Now, that balance has been re-dressed with lads like Laurence Ovens, Aaron Jarvis, Tom Cheeseman, Ryan Davis, Nick Abendanon, Mike Myerscough, Jack Cuthbert, Chris Goodman and Matt Banahan all coming through from the academy in the last couple of seasons.

"Guys who join the academy stay with the academy until they are 21, which means Cuthbert and Banahan, who made their first-team breakthroughs this season are still on the academy books."

Bath Rugby's academy no longer operates as a team structure - it fields no team directly in matches but players are farmed out to clubs all over the West Country and beyond, from Leinster, in the case of England Under 20 fly-half Luke Cozens, to Oldfield, in the cases of teenage fly-half Freddie Burns and front-rower Sean Lilley.

"The make-up of the academy's playing personnel is dictated by the outcome of discussions with the club's senior coaching staff aimed at anticipating the club's likely needs in terms of which positions it needs to fill in the team in the future - forwards or backs, props or back-rowers, fly-halves, scrum-halves, full- backs or wingers," said Butler.

"That's one reason why continuity at the top of the club's coaching structure is so important to the way the academy operates and recruits new talent."

In comparison with other Premiership clubs, Bath run a tight academy ship with a high success rate when it comes to developing Premiership talent with some 45 per cent of the current senior squad at Bath - around 20 players including current 2007 England World Cup quintet Matt Stevens, Lee Mears, Steve Borthwick, Olly Barkley and Nick Abendanon all started out at Bath in the academy set-up.

"We'd like to get that 45 per cent figure up to 50 per cent in the future but we have to be aware that, on the whole, Premiership academies around the country are probably a bit over successful when it comes to producing potential Premiership players when there are only 600 full-time playing jobs to go round in English rugby's top divisions," added Butler.

"Over the past four years, this club alone has produced 15 players who have progressed into our own 1st XV squad, nine who are playing for other Premiership clubs and another 16 who are plying their trade in National 1, which is quite a record."

At national level, Butler is firmly behind the new agreement between the RFU and Premiership clubs about the way forward for the game and the development of new talent and he believes the new structure will improve the flow of new, young talent into the Premiership and up through England's age-group and senior squads.

"I believe the RFU has the right people at the top of the player development pyramid and clubs like Bath, where one of our main aims has always been to produce not just future Bath players but future England players, will continue to produce talented stars of the future," he said.

"The new structure is a big step forward for English rugby and, if it is put into place and operated correctly, there will be no excuses if England are not right up there with the best in the world again in 2011 and 2015.

"The way we look at it, if we bring a 15-year-old fly-half into the academy at Bath next summer, he has to have the potential to be kicking England to a World Cup victory by 2015. That's quite a responsibility but it's a terrific challenge for everybody associated with the academy programme here at Bath."