Yeah, Australia is fortunate it doesn't have a binge-drinking culture......


ROFLMAO

as most are overseas coaches. no concern at all for England RL

I hate the end of season flogging of players who are already knackered

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

It starts with the referees. They dictate to the coaches (not the other way round) how the game is going to be played. If England are s[ihit[/ie the referees have had and will continue to have a large part to play in changing that.

Perhaps SL should be looking at three referees a game to catch up with the NRL.

How many imports play in the NZ top tier comp then?

No they didn't.

Most of those players cant touch the players of today.

Turning your argument over, the reason they looked quality at the time is because the rest of the competition was so poor.

No doubt they looked quality at the time, and were a pleasure to watch. But dont put down todays players, just because the majority of quality dont come from Wigan.

Really?

lets see what you think then?

For a change I agree with you to a large extent. Where it falls down is that we haven't produced a real international-level superstar in the Offiah/Robinson/Hanley mould for a while. Outside that I don't think the players of bygone days were generally any better.

The question is: How many English players are there to select from playing in the top tier at first grade level?

And the answer is: More than there are Kiwis on their side of the world.

The problem is the competitiveness and quality of the comps they play in.

To solve the problem you have to first sort the comps, it's too simple to say it's down to numbers.

You could have 20 English squads of 25 English players playing over here and we did do in the 70's when there was a complete overseas ban into this country. The upshot of that policy was the 1982 Kangaroo Tour and British RL has been playing catch up (and losing) ever since.

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

Radlinski > Wellens
Offiah > Gardner
Connolly > Gleason
Newlove > Senior
Robinson > Smith
Schofield 10x> McGuire
Edwards > Burrow


I'll leave the forwards to someone else

It's all relative. You've got to go back to the late sixties and early seventies before you find British players that had the Australians under control.

That set of backs (in their prime) would walk all over the current English backs as we speak today but the problem was they couldn't beat their Australian counterparts either. So nothing much has changed in that regard.

Neither Australia nor NZ have a full time coach didn't seem to effect their performances during the world cup.

I cannot understand the clamour for a full time coach.

Cricket is a completely different proposition - they play plenty of representative cricket with 5 day, 1 day 20/20 in RL they play 3/4 games a year what benefit would central contracts give?

The Aussies don't feel the need for central contracts and it doesn't seem to impeed the gap between them and us!!

Perhaps neither of them need a full time coach because their comps and structures produce a high number of true International quality players already. Our system alas does not.

The English game needs someone to direct the way the game is played and refereed over here. It doesn't need to be the matchday England coach but it needs to be someone fulltime overseeing as a director of coaching. He could also be the national coach but it isn't absolutely necessary.

The Kiwis and the Aussies are very reliant on the first/second generation players that originate from the polynesian islands especially NZ. So not only do they have the pick of their own players they also have the pick of players from the likes of PNG, Tonga, Somoa look at the Somoan side in the WC and see how many ex Kiwis played - Solomona, Ali, Vagana etc.

Look at recent Aussie sides Kite, Tupou, Civenciva, Tonga, El Masri, Thiday, Folau etc all are of south sea origin, next will be Jennings who played for Tonga IIRC

What are the populations of those polynesian islands?

What percentage of their 'rugby' players choose to play the other rugby code, which (Australia apart) dominates the League game?

Even without these players would Australia struggle against England.

Part of the problem has always been when one star performer drops out the next in line is just as good.

I have mentioned this privately to a number of posters on here, the current superleague doesn't have the quality it had 4 or 5 years ago! as much as eddie and stevo would like to tell us that the quality is better, it is not! the performance of the national team proves this.

The games are a lot closer now, compared to 14 years ago, and as a competition it is a lot closer, but as far as quality goes, it is no where near the standard of 5 or 6 years ago. take the bradford team of 2003 or the leeds team of 2004, IMO, they would not have to get out of 2nd gear in this years superleague! A simple look at Huddersfield in 3rd place this year or Catalans in 3rd place last year shows this! Lets be honest, if leeds and saints had been kept apart in the draws this year, they would have played out both finals!

It is estimated that 2m play RL in PNG alone

Dissagree. Its a subjective opinion that can not be proved.

The game gets faster and faster each year. You might not as a spectator see it in motion, but it does. The athletisism (spelling) of these players is pushed on and on each year. We now have science brought into the equations.

Players from previous eras would not live with the players out there today. On Skill level yes, but not on athletisism.

These are good points in my view. You are comparing two totally different eras, so it's difficult, if not impossible, to make any convincing argument for one set of players being better than another.

I believe Offiah, Robinson and Hanley, for example, offered attributes lacking from any present English players, but I can't prove it.

I actually seriously doubt that there has been any variation in the natural talent, on average, between generations, so I find it hard to believe that coaching methods have actually declined to an extent that today's players are actually worse.

A more plausible explanation is that Australian player development has moved on faster than our own. That's probably what we need to catch up.

But those players playing today would have the benefits of the better training, etc so their athleticism would improve to be comparable to todays players.

And yet Adrian Lam and Marcus Bai aside how many have progressed to the top.

I think you've just help prove that sheer numbers playing a sport doesn't always translate into a top class International side without it can be married to a top class competitive structure designed to test the best against the best.

So you're saying that the backline of Wellens, Gardner, Gleeson, Senior, Smith, Pryce and Burrow is better than Radlinski, Offiah, Connolly, Newlove, Robinson, Schofield and Edwards.

You think the current backline is faster?

Name the good english players from those Bradford and Leeds teams.

Not that much between them if you take out Offiah and Robinson. Connolly was a superb club player but had a zero strike rate as an international centre - Powell was far superior at 3 for GB and Gleeson has a far beter try scoring record (in fact almost anyone has). Newlove played when he felt like it - certainly not the player he's always been cracked up to be and easily matched by Senior, Edwards was another average interantional. Radlinski had the same lack of penetration at international level that Wellens has.

Some talented individuals in there, along with some fairly ordinary ones.

I wonder which ones would have been able to express their skills to the same extent under present day SL coaches?