Bad trip?

That's the truth.

I'm glad you're not in charge. "We did our best, but the other boys were too good." Do you not think it might be an idea to look at why they were too good and how we might start getting to that standard? Or perhaps we should maintain the status quo here and hope everyone else gets worse, somehow.

In my opinion I hope the RFL keep there eyes from that other sport who struggle to beat our convict cousins, that cricketing mob


"Central Contracts" from the ECB means players leaving county bases where they have developed their playing game

Is having an elite squad the first stepping stones to something like this?

I doubt it. Although something similar to the Rugby Onion system where clubs have to release their international players for an agreed part of the season wouldn't be so bad.

In truth though, I think it's the youth development arm of this set-up that have the key job over the next 5 years. No harm in getting other things in place now, but for them to work we really need to have the right players to plug into it. Wingers and centres are probably the most important place to start I think.

I hate to imagine the fuss though

"We pay the wages" etc etc

Where players spend half the year playing for their country and therefore missing the domestic season, central contracts are necessary. Where the internationals are a tag on at the end of the season the contracts are not necessary. Ideas on how to improve the SL standard and therefore performance of the players is a first required step.

This should include how to make games and the SAL more competitive without dumbing down the performance of the top clubs and if it is possible to create a serious competition above club level to allow players to perform in a competitive environment (ie Home nations/county of origin.)

It should aslo give recommendations as to what the RFL should be doing to improve performances at all levels of the game.

It's a repeating vision of fat, slow men in white being trampled into the dirt by bigger, faster more skillful men in green.

It's really blowing my mind man.

Australian Kids would rather go play rugby

English kids would rather go on the lash causing trouble

Aussie players do it at events organised by their clubs

Bureaucratic Nonsense that review if you ask me. The simple fact is that we didn't play well enough and therefore didn't deserve to get anywhere in the tournament.

I'm abit 50/50 on the whole about Englands world cup "disaster." The review at least shows that the RFL are wanting to get to the bottom of our failings and want to know how they can improve, which is to be creditted in some way I suppose. But for to Lewis to include statements such as "over half the squad agreed to be interviewed in the review" suggests that our "stars" are somewhat pandered to. For me if the RFL was interviewing they should have had the whole squad in and told them that had to give their individual feedback. None of this "would you ever be so kind as to be interviewed" sh*te. The World Cup could have been a great spectacle for English Rugby league. We could have gone away and competed; had our players reached their potential. We should be coming back either champions or as proud competitors who gave it there best and we're defeated. Instead we've come back as underperformers. The butt of jokes for southern hemisphere players. And didnt the pro ra-ra national media vultures love it.......Thank God Senior got his d*ck wet and had a few indiscretions, because I fear if not, there might have been more of a write up on the games. Which would not have been pleasent.

A coaches job is to get players to perform. Did they in the World Cup? Thats my answer about Smith's future as our International coach. Add to that the RFL's "We need a full time coach" / "Smith is continuing part time" U turn and you've got yourself a right web of contradiction. But then again Smith could only do so much and the players didn't do him any favours. In my opinion there are very few of the players that can return with there head held high.....

Thats all the negatives. Now for some positives. In terms of British talent the RFL are trying to reduce the number of foreign imports and its nice to see they have a strategy building over a few years. This will increase the number of English players in our competition and I think this can only be a good thing. With the inclusion of more clubs in SL this year and the Franchise system this means more players are playing at our top level also. Alll Good. So there is progress.

You can write reviews, blame player relations, blame the coach all day long. But it won't change anything about that World Cup. I think "Future" should be a word floating around redhall when mentioning England RL.....Lets hope its a good one.

We've been looking at the facts for over twenty years. The bottom line is the players are not good enough. The playing standards since the inception of Superleague have dropped.

1995
England,
Radlinski, Offiah, Connolly, Newlove, Robinson, SChofield, Edwards, Harrison,Jackson, Platt, Betts, Farrell, Clarke, Joynt, Goulding, Powell, Hanley, Sculthorpe etc

Wales,
Harris, Sullivan, Bateman, Gibbs, Devereux, Davies, Elliss, Skerrett, Cunningham, Young, Morriarty, Quennell, Ayres, Hall etc


And that was without thinking too hard there are probably six or more players that could be added to that list.
Compare those players to the ones we sent to Australia last year.

It's frightening how the standard has dropped.

Aye. This current England team has won more than that one.

How did we beat NZ 3-0 over a series just 12 months before?

There simply aren't enough English players playing at the tope level. There a simply too many imports.

current england team would stuff that one, imo. It's a different game now and the standards are higher. The '95 team probs has the bigger reputation players but thats because most of them played in the same team in an uncompetitive league. Nearly all teams have at least one star player who's potential england.... they should have more than 1 though.

If it's that simple explain again how New Zealand ever became World Champions in 2008?

I think the truth is the NRL system prepares players better than the SL does.

The solution - well sad to say there probably isn't one at the moment - short of forming this elite squad and have them relocate to Australia, find them a franchise and have themselves tested week in week out at that standard.

And no I don't see that happening either so basically we're stuffed unless the standard of SL improves fairly markedly. The RFL have the right idea with regards the number of imports clogging up the squads at present but the politicians, lawyers and self serving CEO's (and fans) are preventing them getting where they want to go quickly but hopefully they'll get there in the end.

Because they don't have as many foreign imports into their domestic competition as we do.

He'd have a major say in how the game in this country is developed through working with the administrators, the SL coaches, and the referees.

He'd make a plan of how to compete at International level and get the game working in a single direction to achieve that goal.

He won't be able to do that while working 6 days a week coaching a club side in SL.

Because half the NZ players withdrew from that tour.

Neither do we in our second tier comp. I think it might be a bit more complicated than you're making out here.

There are already many more English than New Zealand players playing 1st grade RL in the world it's just that the majority of the fewer do so at a higher level.

Do you think the SL coaches are concerned about the England RL team. Like most other sports in this country the clubs goals are at odds with those of the governing body. This is mainly due to the amounts of money at stake.

You're thinking that competitive equates to quality.

Both those 1995 teams (England and Wales) had far more quality players than the England side that went to Australia.

And the further down you go the worse it gets. The reserve and academy leagues are a joke.

I don't know how to solve it. We've had hours of discussion about it, but the bottom line is at this present time the vast majority of players are just not good enough.