What a mess it looks , the game in England is poor .worse every year , I can't see the light at the end if the tunnel ether ,

As I said in another thread, I'm enjoying the SKY games (Saints apart) this year more than I have for the past few seasons.

I think superleagues spark has gone , I will watch anybody on tv , but getting really bored lately same old

I enjoyed the Cas v Salford game a lot. Michael Shenton was tearing it up, oh how we could do with a strike centre like that. But the game in general was like a classic slapstick movie, no quality at all but very entertaining to watch.

I think personally the lack of quality in Super League is 100% down to the coaches and players. The intensity just isn't there. That is the big difference between SL and the NRL, the intensity over there is just leagues ahead of SL. You occassionally see a big game get up to that level over here, but they are few and far between. The clubs have to see that they are coasting and aim up, for the benefit of the product if nothing else. They have to realise it's about entertaining the fans, otherwise the money will dry up.

I was at the Warrington v Bradford game at the weekend and this was a classic mid season Super League game. Neither team had any line speed and there was no meaning to the tackling. The play the balls were so, so slow and you had players in the attacking line chatting to each other whilst all this was going on.

Is this indicative of a game without a 'first past the post' league?

I know the NRL operates it but we have considerable cultural differences AND they've been operating it for years longer. The fact a team has won from 5th gives teams that 'backup' feeling we'll be alright come the end of the season - I've seen Saints fans post just that.

Apart from the odd SL game when there is nothing else on Sky, I have pretty much stopped watching it and instead watch a number of NRL games on Premier Sports.

The standard of games, the refereeing and the commentary teams are streets ahead of SL and sadly this underlines the state of SL at the moment. If something isnt done soon to pick our game up, I can see it going even further to the dogs

I've been watching the NRL for two seasons now and frankly some games are utter rubbish. Some are decidedly average and some are utterly brilliant. I really don't buy the automatic 'NRL is better than SL' line at all. The NRL is a mixed bag just as the SL is but the worst of SL is worse than the worst of NRL. But IMO the best of SL is to the same standard as the best of NRL, bar a handful of players, most of whom play for Storm, the standard of which we cannot match. At the moment.

I've been watching too and the intensity on weekly basis lifts the NRL far above SL . James Graham has described it as like playing in a Saints v Wigan derby every week.

The slide in entertainment value for me coincided with the relaxing of the rules demanding tacklers get off the tackled player immediately. There's too much latitude allowed for wrestling on the floor, giving defensive lines too much time to regroup. As well as this, refs stopped taking defences back as far.

The result is that defences (especially the better teams') are too much on top. Attacking play as also become far more structured and, in most cases (including Saints) generally one-dimensional. I find games to be too much of an attritional biff-a-thon, with big blokes running at other big blokes. There's a lack of craft, a lack of

As an entertainment spectacle, I think the sport has gone several steps backwards

At Saints, we've suffered more than most, because our best periods of success have been built on the back of off-the-cuff rugby, catching defences cold & disorganised, using two of the greatest hookers of the modern to exploit this. The changes in the rules (or, at least, the interpretation of the rules) happened to coincide with the general decline in the quality of our team. Then we've got the issue of Langtree Park being rather soulless.

Overall, I've lost a huge amount of interest in both the game in general and Saints in particular.

I'm getting depressed

I take it on the chin same as the next man when wer not doing so good but I can't see a way saints can change it in the next few years , I hope there working over time to recruit some good players for the future , the young lads are doing us proud at the min

Who ever finished 1st goes straight to OT.
3rd plays 4th.
Winner plays 2nd.
Winner faces 1st at OT.

Simples.

Not a bad way of doing it at all.

Personally I think a total shake up of the system is required. I would dump the league format and go divisional, with cross divisional games to make up the numbers of games.

But with so much self interest in controlling the rules of SL, it will never happen and we will just get rules that benefit the majority.

No relegation benefits the majority, as does the salary cap, as does an expanded playoff structure.

The long term goal of increasing revenues across the league and expanding the league to take in a larger geographical area are negated.

Anyone suggesting expansion now, is just told we don't have the player depth. In a nation of nearly 65million we can't find 1000 pros to play RL.

Yet british cycling and rowing can take a man off the street (virtually) and make them gold medal winners. We are far to narrow in our recruitment for my liking and there must be 1000's of speedy people out there, who could be developed into wingers. 1000's of strong large build athletic types who could be turned into props. And 2nd rowers are a penny a dozen and could be picked up on street corners.

We choose to believe the myth that RL players are born and cannot be developed at a late stage. Personally I think it's twaddle and shows a lack of ambition. How many 100m runners where in the Olympics and how many pull down fantastic wages? How many RL clubs went out there to see if they could tempt a switch of codes?

The problem is that the team finishing top wouldn't have a game for three weeks

Aye. I liked the original 5-team system. A little complex, but rewarded finishing as high as possible in the league and produced big matches from week 1:

Week 1
1st gets week off
Qualifying semi: 2nd v 3rd
Elimination semi: 4th v 5th

Week 2
Qualifying final: 1st v winner of Qualifying semi (winner straight to GF)
2nd Elimination semi: Loser of Qualifying semi v Winner of Elimination semi

Week 3
Elimination final: Loser of Qualifying final v Winner of 2nd Elimination semi

Grand Final
Winner of Qualifying Final v Winner of Elimination Final

I hate the Club Call, think it's absolutely ridiculous. I much preferred it when only 6 teams made the play offs.

Club call will go soon. It was a fantastic idea by the RFL to be fair, adding the potential for some media hype and controversy. But the clubs have rejected the idea due to the potentially motivating factor not choosing the lowest rank brings.

But it would have been a great idea. Imagine if someone actually had the balls to pick their rival and clear them out pre-Old Trafford.

But he is hardly going to say its crap is he after making a life and career changing move to the NRL is he?

I think if you also listen to Aussie players who play or have played over here, they say (as Saints Fan says) that the bigger clubs in SL would be comfortably good enough to compete well in the NRL.
The same goes for what our returning players like Morley and Ellis say.

The problem is that the quality that applies to most of the NRL only applies to our top 4 or 6 - and currently excludes our team.

There have been 103 seasons of rugby league in Britain. In 71 of those seasons the winner of the top division was decided by a playoff.

He doesnt need to make things up, people with eyes and the right subscription can see the difference in quality. I'm quoting Mossop re the James Graham comment btw and I doubt he would give a friend looking for advice a bum steer.

I've spoken to Aussie players and coaches and I've been to fan forums at saints where this has been discussed and most of them say the same , we have [isome[/i quality players here and [isome[/i quality teams but we just dont have the overall quality to sustain the same intensity levels week on week that the NRL provides. Throw in SOO which then goes up a level in quality again.

The way the talent drain is taking shape here is going to lower the quality of the top teams too, as is already the case with Saints. Wigan are going that way , Leeds for all Hetherington's bluster will feel the pain soon enough when players want to chase the $ and more importantly want to prove themselves against the best, will he force players to stay (then they walk away for free) or take the Pollard route?

i apologise; I didn't realise that Graham and Mossop were friends.

Other than that, we seem to agree.

look at Saints over the last few weeks. Our modest opposition teams have had a sniff of blood because of our bad form and produced rugby good enough to beat us. If all teams have that extra bit of faith/confidence that they can win, then it means if a team turns up and has an off day, or don't prepare properly, they won't get away with it.

I see where your going but it sounds like a race to the bottom to me. Intensity should be created by teams adding quality not having it taken away

What I short f mean is that once a team gains a bit of extra confidence, anything can happen. Its happened to us because teams have seen we're weaker/crapper than usual. In the NRL, its perhaps happened over a more gradual time and because of different reasons (a fuller player pool), but I think it only takes a small shift in this to up the intensity level.

Quote ="Offside Monkey"look at Saints over the last few weeks. Our modest opposition teams have had a sniff of blood because of our bad form and produced rugby good enough to beat us. If all teams have that extra bit of faith/confidence that they can win, then it means if a team turns up and has an off day, or don't prepare properly, they won't get away with it.'" Listen from 15 mins sums up what they think of the majority of SL I shouldnt laugh but the comments on Widnes and Hock are amusing https://soundcloud.com/sportalcomau/nrl ... 13-round-8

Quote ="Offside Monkey"look at Saints over the last few weeks. Our modest opposition teams have had a sniff of blood because of our bad form and produced rugby good enough to beat us. If all teams have that extra bit of faith/confidence that they can win, then it means if a team turns up and has an off day, or don't prepare properly, they won't get away with it.'" Listen from 15 mins sums up what they think of the majority of SL I shouldnt laugh but the comments on Widnes and Hock are amusing https://soundcloud.com/sportalcomau/nrl ... 13-round-8