It's not in absolute terms. But it's certainly a flood in relative ones. I can't think of any period in the last 25 years where we've had as many good kids coming through - [iacross the board[/i.

Wigan produced a few when they were offering over-the-odds wages to any kid who looked like being the goods. Ditto Saints (the Prescott/Cunningham generation) and Leeds (Burrow, Sinfield et al.). But we're talking islands in the wide, wide Pacific here.

As mentioned earlier, during the last ten years we've been able to field a decentish pack against Australia where we've had three or four good players and the rest bubble-wrap. Now we have a solid core of Peacock, Burgess, Ellis, Graham & Morley. Formerly they'd be guaranteed their places, but with Luke Burgess, Jamie Langley (who finally seems to have developed into the player who promised so much when he burst onto the RL scene), Joe Westerman, Paul Clough, Lee Mossop + a few others all set to have a big seasons there are no longer any cast-in-stone selections.

For ages we've struggled to field a THREAT-CARRYING halfback combination. All of a sudden we've got Eastmond & Tomkins. Even better we have Myler & Ratchford keeping them honest. And we haven't even mentioned established players such as Pryce, McGuire & Burrow. Who's to say they won't respond in the best way possible to being dropped? In the past they've walked into the international team and perhaps this hasn't helped their development.

No one will argue that during the last five years GB/England's backs have been not much more than abysmal. It's going to take time to resolve this issue. But, again, there are some good prospects in the pipeline. Goulding, Wheeler, Lomax, Lawrence (give him time), Hall (x2), Briscoe etc. will all develop into good players. Two or three may well become very good players.

If this doesn't raise a degree of optimism I don't know what will.

I've said this many times so it's not anti Saints.
I'm not convinced about Wheeler or Lomax (I do think Gaskell has the talent and pace) but people in the game who I respect rate them.

For the games sake I hope they come good, but the Aussies are still producing 5 for our 1. How we solve it I honestly don't know. I've spent hours deliberating with people including many Saints fans (and they know who they are on here) how we get close to them.

Last week I watched Wigan beat Leeds 54 - 0 at reserve U20 level.
That Wigan team was missing about ten players from their winning team last season. That league is not competitive enough to give the players a push.

To make matters worse the RFL have decide to make the U18 academy non competitive, who's bright idea was that?

Back on topic. Lee Smith fits in well with the Whinos 'cheap shot merchant' culture, same Dirty Leeds mould as Webb, Senior, Sinfield, Maguire, Bailey and Jones-Buchanan. They are welcome to him.

There's no point trying to compete with their production rate. It's impossible and any attempt to do so would be suicidal. But, thankfully, internationals are not won on production rates.

Brazil's player pool must be twenty times the size of Holland's, and no-one could argue the Dutch football league is the envy of the world. Yet Holland consistently produce an international team that is - at the very least - capable of COMPETING with Brazil's.

Foster's looks physically small, so it may take him a bit longer to progress to a first team player despite his talent. Hopefull that doesn't mean he won't though



What happened to that youg centre at Wigan that you rated - Thornley was it?

He's playing in the reserve U20 team doing o.k. but is another who I thought would have progressed quicker. However that may be because he is not part of the "accelerator" squad at Wigan and is only training part time as he is concentrating his efforts academically on his A levels this year.

Translation:

Boo Hoo those nasty leeds players have handed us our s for the past 3 years in the grand final. Its not fair, the tackle us and everything. Ill not rest until RL is a non contact sport. Oh and that nasty man Lee Smith was definatley offside, we'd have won otherwise. Boo Hoo.

But he was offside .....you got that point right amongst the rubbish at least

Thanks! It's great to have him back!

What about handing you your s for the past three years. That bit is also correct. Offside/Onside meh! we still would have won.

We have Donald and Senior both OOC this season (2010), IMO hes replacing Donald for next season.

Considering Smith has scored 4 tries against you in 3 grand final plsu a MOM......I'm not suprised you don't like him very much.

Yes but one of those was offside....apparently