St George Illawarra captain Mark Gasnier has called on the Dragons to create a clearer pathway for the club's fringe first-graders trying to make their way back into the top team.

Premier League was scrapped by the NRL last year in favour of a national youth competition for players aged below 20.

It means that players over 20 and not in the club's top 17 on any given week must ply their trade elsewhere to stay match-fit.

St George Illawarra are the only NRL team without a designated feeder team in either the new NSW Cup, which replaced Premier League, or in the Queensland Cup.

Fringe Dragons players have played for numerous Carlton League sides, for Shellharbour in the third-tier Jim Beam Cup or, in the case of Wendell Sailor this weekend, with the Burleigh Bears in the Queensland Cup.

Gasnier pointed to the situation of dropped winger Sailor, who will play for his third team since joining the club when he lines up for the Bears against Ipswich this Saturday.

Sailor played three games for the Shellharbour Marlins before making his first appearance for the Dragons and now must make the trip north to maintain his comeback.

"For guys over 20 it makes it a bit harder because there's not that strong competition just under first grade," Gasnier said.

Gasnier believes players need to compete at the toughest possible level while not in the top team so they are ready for the physicality of the NRL.

"It makes that step up that little bit more harder and a lot of the fringe first-graders are finding it really hard, especially around Origin time.

"(They need) those proper hit-outs to match the speed and intensity (of the NRL)," he said.

"The tougher the better. You've got to try and get it as close to what Premier League was as possible.

"Maybe in the long-term, or short-term future more so, there needs to be a resolution there that clubs put a team into a tough competition."