Rucks in RU are getting a lot quicker where rucks in Superleague are getting slower, if the trend continues we won't see much time difference between the 2 codes.
.
We are also getting players from the attacking side joining in with the player with the ball to get a shove on to gain more metres, The referee has near enough lost all control in the ruck area, we quite often see 4 defenders and 2 attackers in the ruck area, the ball comes loose and it becomes a lottery whether its a strip, loose carry with quite a few "backward knock ons".

I think the main reason SL is light years behind the NRL is the lack of players in motion off the ball. I'm a now and then SL viewer, and watch nearly every NRL game. Now when I make the effort to stay up late / get up early and watch the SL - I can't get over how much slower everything in attack looks. So static at times.

I think SOL said it in his post-game interview after Wigan were thumped by Brisbane (who TBF started 2016 on fire) - something along the lines of: "They didn't do anything we haven't seen before, they just did it really well.". Brisbane were still in pre-season and playing in a British winter. Says it all for me.

Agree...I almost never watch union currently but did tune into a NZ club game on Sunday. I remember the bad old days of rucks and mauls in union but in this game as soon as the attacker hit the floor the ball was released to be picked up by a team mate and the attack continued almost instantly. Quite frankly it put our ruck and PTB to shame. We need a re think here. In fact I believe historicaly league never really solved the conversion from the RU / NU ruck to the Playing of the ball with the foot. The whole area of the PTB needs a re think, as does the awful "scrums" that blight our game.

The NRL is a hell of a lot more physical than SL as well. Hardaker, supposedly a strong defender looks as weak as water in defence for the Panthers. It took almost all year for Joe Burgess to be anything other than a liability returning kicks as well - and he's physically easily big enough.

One thing I don't think we give enough credit for though is that almost despite itself SL is producing good players. Not in enough quantities, but we seem capable of producing forwards and outside backs who are pretty good. When we look back at the supposed glory days its amazing just how reliant we were as a sport on union converts (particularly Wales) for so many of our best players. The loss of that source plus losses to union and NRL and a decline in NRL backs going to SL was always going to cause a fall in standards - I guess the only question is whether its a permanent fall or whether we can eventually produce enough quality youngsters to bring standards back up.

Oddly enough I do think we can produce enough quality kids, certainly on a numbers basis. Where we fail miserably though is in the creative positions. Right now Josh Hodgson is easily the best England-qualified halfback, and he doesn't even play there.

Oh, and I think the standard of SL coaches is dire. Which doesn't help.

Hi Smokey,

Which of our best players have we lost to RU and does anyone have a list of SL players who've moved to the NRL?

I'd say Eastmond would be a top player in SL, Myler might well have been though I accept we can't tell. I don't think Ashton was particularly that good.
Of course we've lost a few to the NRL, off the top of my head:
Graham
Hodgson
3x Burgess
Whitehead
Cooper

I think all those players would make SL a better competition. However I don't think it's the main factor as to why SL isn't as good as the NRL.

In my opinion we have to sort our clubs out. There's probably only about 5 or 6 clubs that are anywhere close to where they should be in terms of professionalism, structures and finances.

I've said it before on a few threads but I think we have to start becoming 1 sport rather than a collection of totally independent clubs. We need to start sharing best practice, facilities and resources.

Oh ffs !!

They don't need to be 'that good' even if they were the worst players in SL, they would be replaced by inferior players, bringing down the quality of the league. So we ignore the loss of Eden or McCarthy because they arent 'the best' we ignore Ashton and Joe Burgess, we will ignore Charnley and Sarginson, but we are losing players of SL quality and replacing them with players who arent. There are 10-15 players who have gone, thats the basis of a squad. That would make a massive difference.

Can never happen with P+R. Why are Wakefield going to help Hull KR become better when that could mean the end for Wakefield as a professional club?

Luckily you don't have to put up with him on the Hull FC board. He is a member of the resident cuddle club on there...

Or hull KR board

I wouldn't have P&R anyway but it would be things that would benefit all clubs, like Hull FC and Hull KR sharing an academy and presumably sharing academy facilities.

Cas, Wakefield and Fev could all share a state of the art training facility for instance. Or even better, a stadium. A third of the cost and much improved facilities.
That kind of thing could be replicated where relevant. Maybe with Salford, Swinton and Oldham? As would sharing best practice on off-field things like management and marketing.
Clubs joining together to boost amateur participation and quality for instance.
IIRC Kris Radlinski tried something like that (on the business side) and only a handful of clubs could be d to turn up. It's that kind of attitude we need to change in the clubs.

I'd also use incentives to get clubs to market RFL events. The Challenge Cup final for instance is only marketed through 2 of the 39 clubs. That could be changed very easily. Championship clubs can market the Magic Weekend, SL clubs can market the Big Bash etc etc.

Completely agree.

Take the club websites for instance. Each club has their own normal website with very similar content (news, teams, fixtures, results, history, etc etc, as well as a club shop site.

Instead of each club forking out £x grand to web designers, they club together to design a universal template they can each take away and use (the NRL do this).

[uReasons for a poor league?[/u

Too many fixtures that do not matter.
Too many fixtures where teams are merely going through the motions.
Summer Rugby ideology.
Lack of marketable world class star quality players (we haven't got any in Super League).
Increasingly poor standard of overseas recruits who are NRL reserve grade standard or worse.
Loss of our best and most influential players to the NRL.
Loss of our best and most influential players to RU.
Static Salary Cap that hasn't risen since 1999.
Lack of player movement between top SL clubs.
No transfer market, hence no excitement, little news, hence no publicity generated for the sport.
Reluctance of RFL and SL clubs to hold press conferences and invite sports journos along.
Only journos to get RL press passes are vetted by RFL (only uncritical 'Yes Men' from trade publications may apply).
League structures changing every five seasons, each one 'unprogressively' worse than the previous one...
... FPTP = Excellent system
... Top 5 play-off = Very Good System
... Top 6 play-off = Ok but should have stuck with Top 5
... Top 8 play-off and 14 SL clubs + franchising = Utter Crap
... 8 X 8 X 8 = Bonkers!



On top of that, there are costs associated with Super League since 1996.

Loss of proper international tours.
Kissing goodbye to Ashes Series against the Kangaroos.
Unique and marketable GB brand replaced with stupid England brand.
TV audiences ranging between 50k and 150k on Sky.
Irrelevant Sky schedule filler on Thursday evenings.
Now that Premier League fixtures are scheduled for Friday nights, SL to become even more irrelevant.
Little terrestrial TV coverage = audience losses in the millions.

The game is dying a slow death by a thousand cuts and it's all self-inflicted.

I no longer see a way back for a sport that has somehow managed to become far more irrelevant during the Super League era than it was before that.

What an achievement... NOT.

What's the cuddle club ? And who's in it ?

Hard to argue with William on the whole. I look forward to the international schedule more these days than the SL fare, and that itself is nothing like it used to be with the GB/Kangaroo tours.

Yep. Club websites, online ticketing services, online shops etc.

Someone will probably try (in vain, obviously)



I forgot to list the positives of Super League and summer rugby.

So, in the interests of balance, here goes...

England V Exiles (whoops!)
Magic Weekend (LOL)
Big Bash Weekend (Hmmmm)
Ironically, the most important fixtures are now played when weather is cold, wet and crap.

Erm... Ok, f*** it.

There aren't any positives.

Everyone always says the game is dying.

It's been slowly dying for a 100 hundred years. Before super league it was ''muddy pitches sh*t stadiums, no fans, 1 team wins everything''.

It's not that super league is good, or the game was good before super league, they were both a different kind of bad.

England v Exiles, no longer played
Magic weekend is still a plus, certainly in terms of putting money into the RFL coffers.
Grand Final is a huge success.

All depends on whether your glass is half full or half empty.
Plus, summer rugby beats the hell out of frozen pitches and freezing to death on the terraces.

Exactly the responses I expected from the exceptionally thick, parochial, RL demographic who either lost the ability to think for themselves after 1996 or never possessed that ability in the first place.

It's the other way round. The overwhelming majority on here think that super league is in the dump. Pretty much every week on the Leeds forum you get someone rabbiting on about how the quality is so bad it's like watching a bunch of one legged 80 year olds play the game. To hold an opinion contrary to that is to think for ones self. Just because people repeat something over and over again doesn't make it true.

What you are basically saying is ''because your opinion doesn't accord with mine (which is the right one) you aren't thinking for yourself. Mental.

At the start of licencing I tried to get dialogue between the 20 Championship Clubs to start to work together for the common good , the response I received beggared belief , considering we had clubs that needed to build off field to ever stand a chance of entering SL rather than winning matches on the pitch , it was truly depressing how stupid their opinions were

That's really depressing and is something that annoys me intensely. I can sort of understand how clubs can end up looking inward and get stuck in a rut of doing the same old thing but when someone is actively there to help but they can't be d to listen just annoys me.

Given that at that time we had effectively 20 clubs going nowhere except within the 2 part time competitions , not competing for massively differing amounts of central funding , all desperate to increase their income streams in a new environment , and I had club owners saying they wouldn't work with another club because of an on field incident from the previous season , or actually suggesting they received things ' free ' from suppliers

From a Wigan perspective, injuries have played a massive part this season to make us as dull as dishwater. Sean Wane has his critics for being defensive, but there's a degree of sympathy of what else can he do with the disruption. Leeds fans will no doubt say the same, Huddersfield too, whether it's just been a freak year, or there are other reasons for it who can say, but straight away there are three of the top four sides from last year dulled down. Being optimistic, next year all three could field the same squads and look back to their best.

Otherwise, you look at Saints, and they've never really rebuilt to the strength of their great sides of the 2000's, but they've got a young squad improving. 2-3 additions and they won't be far off, and if Warrington/Hull continue to improve, then potentially next season could be very competitive. Throw in Cas and Catalans, and potentially you have eight strong sides.

The biggest problem for SL though has always been the disparity between the top and bottom halves. Commercially, too many clubs are living in the dark ages and don't seem to have any desire or wherewithal to improve and grow themselves. Too happy to just stand still and complain, usually about the RFL, instead of being proactive to try and increase their fanbase and income. That's not to say the RFL aren't without criticism, there doesn't seem to be any strong leadership or plan, but I do think ultimately it is up to the clubs to improve themselves, or wait and get surpassed by the likes of Toulouse and Toronto who are a breath of fresh air when it comes to positivity. Too many clubs remind me of those grotty pubs that complain about the smoking ban killing the pub business when you'll have a pub down the road which is packed out with families. Life moves on and evolves, businesses have to adapt to what the demand is. You have to work hard to get people through the doors, and that takes initiative as much as money.

That said, the RFL certainly need to up their game on marketing and exposure. I know we're locked in with Sky now, but getting a game each week on terrestrial TV would work wonders. The amount of times scrolling through Twitter during a Challenge Cup game you see comments from Union fans saying they never thought they'd enjoy league, but it's great, or football fans watching their first game in ages and loving it, it makes you wonder if they really comprehend the potential of the game, especially when they can't sell out a showpiece match like the CC Final at the national stadium (I mean, just hawk the tickets around London at £10, you'd easily fill it, and godforbid, pick up new fans)