Its that kind of attitude that’s going to keep England where they are for years because rather than take on the problem we make excuses for it. No matter how many Australians and New Zealanders we’ll have playing over here we’ll always have class home grown players as well.

But some of you still insist that we cut the amount of Aussie influence on our isles claming that it’ll bring better players in. How much better where we than last years world cup match?

Not much by the looks of things. If we want to be the best we’ve got to learn from the best whenever that’s class players like Buderus coming in and helping certain Rhinos players in training or Michael Maguire coming in from Melbourne, a club that is the Leeds Rhinos of Australia.

We should scrap the over seas quota because its racist and gives us any old excuse to put any old grown player at the top tier of rugby league in this country in blind hope that it'll do England good.

and you started so well

Bloody hell damo, bar the last 20 minutes we were light years ahead of last years world cup escapades.

Rugby League is a eighty minute game. We looked like a good spirited French side tonight that dips away towards the end. The effort and class was they but we was outclassed by the Aussies just like last year. The thing this time is the best was save till last!

yes we dipped in the last 20 but crap happens mate. It's just one of those things, they've just got too many game breakers. You just have to take some positives from the game and build on them.

I agree Rugby League is an Eighty minute game and at the World Cup we were never in the game. At least this year, we were competitive for sixty minutes and really gave a reputable account of ourselves.

From the World Cup there were no positives, from an England point of view. This year we have seen a vast improvement and plenty of new talent making a name for themselves.

Take whatever positives you want from this series but it was still a more a less carbon copy defeat in the game that mattered. I’ll start believing the hype when we are competing in finals for years and coming close in them. If it carries on like it has been doing then here’s to another 20 years of Australian dominance.

A lot of good players in our England squad that are a match to some of the Australian squad but Australians have the better over all team and tonight showed. McGuire played well in last years world cup yet terrible in this years tournament. Form changes all the time it seems in England..

Exactly. Who actually thought we had the better team? Fair play to them, they gave it their all.

It starts alot deeper than that for me. Go back to about 6 years old and start teaching the kids how to pass and kick properly, switch to summer rugby and we might get somewhere.

Darren Lockyer coming over teaching Sam Tomkins how to be a half-back, while ironically taking his place at his club, will do very little to improve Englands fortunes.

when i started watching league in the 80's it was a winter game,but as the australian league was in off season we had their star players over for short stints..Lewis,Kenny,Sterling,Meninga etc.

Im sure youngers at the clubs where the above played will have learnt alot off them,and became better players. I don't have a problem with overseas players, providing they are real quality.

However since s.l we have overseas players here who either getting past it or unable to get a contract in oz, and in some cases no better than homegrown players.

Add to that the confusing federation-non federation trained players.kolpak.
european passports,parents-grandparents etc you can have a situation like at wakefield for example,who i think have about 8 or 9 who wouldnt represent england

Fucking moron.

Ok yes, throughout SL let's have 10 Aussies occupying the hooker positions, 18 Aussies at at prop, 12 at second row, 5 at loose, 8 at s/h, 9 at s/o, 14 on the wings, 8 at centre and 6 at full-back.

Yes, all those Aussies occupying all those key positions will bring England on a bucketload.

Can't wait.

All the Australians in SL currently are shocking, bar Greg Bird. The signings of over the hill players with no interest other than securing a pension like Buderus is one of many things causing our international anonymity.

Signing players like Inglis, Slater or Hayne should always be encouraged if it's possible to do it. Same with the like of Bird, Lyon or Johnson. But there are far, far too many players who are brought over who are too old.

In a nutshell.

Brian Carney is the only one of the sky commentary team who talks sense. He said that teams should have only 2 or 3 world class imports from either Australia or New Zealand and the rest should be eligible to play England or Great Britain.

For an overseas player to be successful (IMO) he has to be one of the best players in the team & one of the best players, in his position, in super league. At the moment this is not the case with too many imports.

Dallas Johnson's pretty good. Matt King was claimed to be good, he was an origin player and had just come fresh off a final win, he's not been as bad as has been made out, but he's not lived up to his reputation, either. Michael Monaghan is also good and he wasn't signed as an over-the-hill pension earner. But, other than that, you're probably right, despite some of SL's best players being Aussie's/overseas players, it's pretty clear that there are still too many mediocre players coming from overseas.

Agree. A maximum of 3 imports per team. One back, one half-back and one forward. At least then, British teams will be forced to produce at least one half-back.

No. Fewer.

Damo is obviously a Leeds fan who wants to increase the number of overseas players at his club.

Webb, Donald, Delaney, Leuluai, Buderus, Lauitiiti and Eastwood.
So much for grow your own at Leeds eh!

Leeds like Wigan produce more than enough home grown talent than the rest of super league put together. Every super league club will probably have an ex Leeds or Wigan academy player in it. Both are focus on producing home grown players more than any other super league team with St Helens only really catching up.

Can’t speak for Wigan but Leeds whilst Gary Hetherington is at the top will always have the perfect blend of the best talent in the local area along side class over sea’s players. Hence why we are at the top of the league. I do hope however that a local lad is good enough to take over the likes of Webb, Donald, Delaney, Leuluai, Buderus, Lauitiiti and Eastwood in the next few seasons rather than given the right because he’s local. That’s when we’ll start beating the Aussies.


Nothing shocking about the Australians who won a grand finals winners ring with Leeds this year. Again I must stress that home grown players must earn the right to over take these Australians rather than given the right.

How many are born in Leeds and not pinched from other town like Dewsburry,Batley,Drigglington and Cas and Wakie area.

Do you have any idea how long I've been resisting making that post?

It doesn’t matter its still an English club bringing English players through to the top level.

The biger the jug of milk the thicker the layer of cream on top!

yes your not playing the system properly if you sticked to your own service areas there would be more younsters playing every team giving them chance to delope instead of loosing from the game for good.

And how many SL chairmen will vote to reduce the overseas number to three per club?
Answer, four out of fourteen.
The rest won't because they haven't got the players to fill the vacated positions.
As one former CEO told me "The tail wags the dog in Super League".