They should have really had some kids in place at 14 - 16 year old so they should be brining some in by now IMO

you only have to look at Ryan Hall who was a late comer.

My comment was just based on his rugby skills, for the record imo he should not even be playing in Super League.

I agree with the argument that they shouldn't be a holiday home for Origin Test players or a haven from UK Immigration officials but at the same time, it does French players no good to subject them to first team rugby if they clearly aren't ready for it. Whilst you could argue that they have given debuts to four Aussies this year, in the past four years they have introduced some clearly talented French players to regular pro RL.

I couldn't make a strong judgement on what the strength of the playing pool in the French game is outside the Catalans first 18 other than from what I've seen in the French national team, and that wasn't pretty.

I suppose the difficulty is that there isn't a pro structure in the French domestic game. Given that French clubs are often found wanting in the early stages of the Challenge Cup, the pro talent pool evidently needs to expand. We now have two French clubs in that position, which is a positive step.

As I said, this is a club that, whilst it has roots going back much longer, is essentially four years old. The structures that were in place at Les Catalans pre-Super League will be a world away from what they are now. It isn't going to start producing a "production line" of talent straight away.

It's not that easy though is it. Pre, Super League, the club was largely semi-pro. The things that work in semi-pro sport very rarely work in the same way once you become full-time. You can't just go full-time and "switch on" a youth development programme that immediately starts bringing kids through.

Despite this however, the Dragons have still given pro debuts to Cyril Stacul, Dimitri Pelo, Thomas Bosc, Sébastien Raguin, Grégory Mounis, Jean-Philippe Baile, Cyril Gossard, Vincent Duport, Julien Touxagas, Florian Quintilla, Rémi Casty, Frédéric Vaccari, Mathieu Griffi, Younes Khattabi - and that's just the ones that I can be bothered to look up. Look at that list and tell me how many club-grown players Wakefield, Salford or Huddersfield have given debuts to in the last four seasons.

There is no such thing as a "production line" of talent. Clubs will go through periods where the youth coming out of the system just isn't good enough. Leeds supporters who were watching the club pre-2003 will know full-well that our club had a reliance on expensive Aussies before we actually got a group of excellent young players who were clearly good enough to form the basis of a champion team. To say that Catalans or Celtic should be able to just turn up with a team full of local players is just fanciful.

I can't disagree with any of that and I know very little about the French game but I still find it dissapointing nonetheless that this season they appear to have gone backwards in that particular department.

The core of the team is still Greenshields, Mogg, McGuire and Bird with only Bosc from france chipping in IMO

all of which would walk in any SL team and be able to carry average to good players.

Greenshields - Super League dream team 2008
Bell - Won the NRL grand final in 2008
Mogg - Played 2 times for Queensland in 2006, Super League dream team 2007
Perry - Won the 2006 NRL grand final
McGuire - Won the 2006 NRL grand final, played 2 times for Queensland in 2005
Croker - Won the 2000 World Cup, won the 1994 NSWRL grand final, played 5 times for Austalia in 2000, played 5 times for New South Wales from 1993 - 2001
Carlaw - Won 2 NRL grand finals in 2000 and 2006, played 6 times for Australia from 2001 - 2003, played 13 times for Queensland from 2001 - 2007
Ryles - Played 12 times for Australia from 2001 - 2005, played 15 times for New South Wales from 2001 - 2007
Bird - Playes 2 times for Australia from 2007 - 2008, played 4 times for New South Wales from 2007 - 2008

Hardly 'scrap heap' Aussies, eh ?

Only 6 of them played last night (Greenshields, Mogg, McGuire, Carlaw, Ryles and Bird).
3 of which have now qualified for France (Greenshields, Mogg and McGuire).
Kane and Andrew Bentley have lived in France for 14 years (Kane is a French international, Andrew hasn't played all season).

Surprising then that we won.
Totally agree about Bird, without the court case there's no doubt he wouldn't be within 10,000 miles of Superleague.

Not really.

We will play against brilliant individuals that will cause us problems all the time. Doesn't mean we can't beat the teams they play for.

With the exception of Peacock we couldnt handle the forwards either, Mogg was sublime and his standing up of Senior on three occasions was sublime, Bird is a world class player wasted in SL, he needs to exit stage right and get back to the NRL.

When his NRL ban expires no doubt he will be.

helmuth you flipping suck. I'm the poker wiz round here. I doubt you can even spell poker

maybe there aren't any coming through!

Hellmuth you plank

I remember the days we used to send our convicts to Australia.

Now they are sending us theres!

Tim Smith has gone home
HH played all his junior rugby with Wigan and also England academy, hth.

No you don't.

I do.

Ellery Hanley springs to mind here.

And if you include drink driving as a criminal act Garry Schofield could be another.

He's clearly older than his forum persona indicates.

On the Bird "wife beater" point. Isn't she still with him?

Yup.

and defended him in court

Maybe she had no choice, it was either that of the wet t-towel again!!

I remember talking to Foti whilst the LL were in St Esteve, he was saying that registration in the youth teams at St Esteve were 3 times what they were the year before. If that trend continues then it's a matter of time until we start to see more players emerging from the Catalan system.

It'd be interesting to see what the youth set ups of Carcassonne etc are like compared to the Pre SL presence in the region.

So had some of the players on the OP's list



But was born in Auckland. Again, you can make arguments for some of those Catalans players not to be considered "overseas".