I was having this discussion with a friend at work yeasterday.

he thought that the standard this year has been a massive improvement. I disagree, From what I have seen the general standard has dropped or not improved. The odd team have come forward, but generally dont think we are improving or getting anywhere near to competing with NRL standards.

Eddie and stevo are always banging on about improving standard but I just dont see it.

Discuss.

I agree, i think the standard is falling. I dont think teams now are as good as they were 6/7/8 years ago.

And i think it will only get worse because of the SC. We will see a small decline as older Australian players are replaced with younger british ones. This will only be a short term decline and it will lead to a relative improvement in the future.

The bigger problem is the changes in the tax laws, the relative strength of the pound and Aussie dollar, and the likely increase in size and salary cap of the NRL along with the stagnation of the SL salary cap will lead to fewer top quality overseas players coming over. We will see more Brett Delany, Rhys Lovegrove type players, and fewer Ali Lauitiiti, and Brent Webb standard players.

Personally i think it is integral to the game that we look at the SC and make sure we can still attract elite athletes and elite players.

not for leeds no

Again?

Here's an off-the-wall idea...

The RFL set not only the salary cap for each club but also a cap for each player, every SL first team squad player would be paid the same amount.

Then,

Set the prize money for each competition at a rate where the players earnings could be doubled or trebled in a good year, and have the prize money for each competition solely for the players, so if the challenge cup is worth £250,000 to the winning team then that is split 17 ways between the squad picked for that game. Super league itself would have prize money allocated to the regular rounds finishing positions and then additional prize money for the play-offs, all of this would be handed to the players.

And an open invitation to any foreign player who thought he could play under those conditions.

The standard of super league hasn't improved this year. Some teams have maintained their status/quality whilst some others have slightly improved putting them on a more even playing field.

The NRL and rugby league in Australia and New Zealand are national sports and their coaching and player preparation is targeted as such. Hundreds of thousands of pounds is thrown in to the sport above what gets spent over here on professional and grass roots rugby which means there will always be a void in quality between northern and southern hemisphere.

Wow, that has to be the worst idea I have read on these forums for a while. I'm surprised at you

I don't think it has drastically changed either way. People are thinking too much into it.

I think its a winner.

The only thing it doesn't have is cake.

But we can factor that in later, as a tempter.

They could get a French fancy for every point they scored. Bonus

The standard of the SL sides in our competition is evening out no doubt

But sadly the standard is being watered down and not improving i'm afraid

We are still a million miles away from the standard of the NRL, Nothing much has changed since 1982 then there?

Too many average overseas players in our competition are restricting our junior development across all clubs, the only way we can improve this is to have a limit of 3 overseas players per club maximum, by this i mean that only 3 players are allowed at each club that cannot play for England/GB via any residency or ancestry loopholes or any other loopholes for that matter that our clubs chairmen seem only too keen to exploit

I'm encouraged by clubs such as Cas who are clearly giving it's junior talent a go in SL, would these players have got a go under the relegation system or would they have gone for the safe option of an NRL player that wasn't guaranteed a slot over there?

We often do well well against the Aussie's at schoolboy or academy levels but sadly these lads that serve us so well at this level are restricted in their pathway to first team footy by average overseas players that they are then caught up or even easily over-taken by the Nrl clubs willingness to give these kids a shot at first grade

The only issue there is that you can't restrict trade by limiting the number of overseas players a club is allowed to employ.

One potential idea to get around this, and I think it's used it Football and RU, is to limit the number that can play on matchday, but not the number that can be employed by the club. Now if you limit the number who can play to say 3 in the 17, then 14 have to be "Home Nations" qualified and we are getting somewhere.

We aren't "a million miles" away from the NRL either. If we were, they would regularly beat us by 70 points, we wouldn't even be competitive. If they are a million miles in front of us, how far behind is the French league in comparison to Super League? People seem to be desperate to slate Super League. It seems like its in a rugby league fans nature to criticize the Rugby League we watch on a week to week basis for a huge part of our lives. Bit sad really.

Its a salary cap era. Overall I think the standard is up. Most Leeds fans probably dont think so though because our standard has dropped. Either way, I can see 5 teams competing at the end of the season which is more than ever before so we cant be going that far wrong.

The standard has dropped over the last few years, admitting two further teams was a big factor
i think we are further behind the Australian team than we were when Farrell and Sculthorpe were playing and the Kiwis have overtaken both of us
the quotas are coming down which is good and i think a few chairman have realised that talented homemade players as a core of the team are cheaper than going out and buying a whole squad every few years, and that they will put more effort in for a team they are really connected to

The employment law issue is and always has been a complete red herring. Unless a club tells a player they cannot employ them because of a quota, how on earth would an Aussie sue them (or anyone else) for discrimmination? No player applies for a job like everyone else does - sending in a CV, have an interview etc. Unfortunately several clubs have threatened to use the quota issue against the RFL in order to get Aussies/Kiwis into their squads. It is the fault of the clubs acting in their short-term interests that we have so many average (or worse) overseas players in SL.

BTW RL is nowhere near a national sport in NZ.

What annoys me is that the kids that have come in to every team this year have, in general, been better than the Aussies that have been over or who they have replaced.

Did this conversation occur in a brewery?

No sadly it didnt but it occured 2 days ago now. not YESTERDAY!!!

This is like a Wigan thread from two years ago

Leeds quality of rugby has dropped a lot but overall SL is just the same

Just look at wigan/hudds/wire from a few years ago

Edited slightly, but an excellent plan Boss.

I think the overall standard has improved, but this has been mainly in terms of overall fitness rather than skill. The dominant Saints/Bulls/Wigan/Leeds teams prior to c. 2007 pretty much expected to win by a good 24 points if not a lot more unless they were playing one another.

We still have blow-outs now but on the whole I'd suggest that the average winning margin has dropped a lot. It is debatable whether or not this is considered a levelling-up or a levelling-down. Certainly there's a good argument that since the Saints whitewash year of 2006 the overall quality of the playing roster of the GF winning side has dropped, largely due to the effects of the salary cap. But this does create more intensity, going on the assumption that closer games are more intense. But why isn't this leading to improvements in the international team? It must come down to the skill factor.

It is interesting to see how teams are trying to combat the levelling effects of the salary cap. The Leeds strategy in 2007-2009 was focused on 'peaking at the right time', probably after the disappointments of 2005 and 2006 in which early season form could not be sustained. This relied on a self-belief that Leeds could be the best when it mattered but eventually they just gave themselves too much to do. The Wigan and Huddersfield strategies by contrast place more emphasis in quality coaching which has enabled the teams to perform to a level beyond the sum of their individual parts. However, this may not be the best recipe for long-term success given the lure of the NRL for Aussie coaches. And lastly there's Warrington - seem to be trying to replicate Leeds of 2004 without the same level of youth development (show me the Warrington developed versions of McGuire and Sinfield etc) and more emphasis on big money signings. If they don't make a bigger dent in the play-offs this year this approach will have to be seen as a failure.

Rolling around on the floor for twenty seconds per tackle as taken it's toll on the quality of the rugby as a spectacle. But the fitness of the players and the structure of games and clubs as a whole has improved.

I think the salary cap and more importantly the change in the reserves rules we had a few years ago has greatly improved the quality of the championship. There is definitely a much wider availability of quality UK players. This can only be good for the game as a whole.