Supporters everywhere have been trying to determine why the test team is not performing strongly, and looked at the overseas quota, the ability/skills of the current test team, the young alent coming into SL. However, IMO the overseas quota is not the biggest factor affecting English RL, nor is the question of whether current players are good enough (IMO individually they are). English test players:
* play too many games in a season
* play more games than Australian and NZ players
* get barely a 2 month offseason (2007 being an exception) compared to Aussies/NZers getting a 3 month offseason.

Prominent figures in both codes of Rugby like South African sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes, NZ Warriors/Kiwis Dr Simon Mayhew, and high performance managers from ARU & NZRU suggest a player should not play more than 30 first class games in a season. Before RLWC started, on average, England's RLWC squad members had played 30 first class games per season, yet the Aussies and Kiwis played on average 24 games. Before facing PNG, these were some match totals for 2008:
37 games - Burrow, Senior, Sinfield
36 - Higham
35 - Peacock
34 - Ellis, Gardner, Roby

For Australia, only the young centre Israel Folau had come anywhere close with 30. For New Zealand, besides the SL based Leuluai playing 38 games, the next closest were the Storm forwards Adam Blair and Jeremy Smith playing 30 games.

Every year for the last 5 years, England's test stars have played more games than Australia, and Englan has consistently lost against Australia. If the RFL and SL clubs reduced the excessive workload of England's current test players, let them rest and focus on skill development, this English team could improve its performance and stand a stronger chance of winning.

Trying to compare Super League game totals to NRL games totals is ridiculous.

Especially when you have left out the Test matches and Origin games.



Try again...

and trial matches

And, as Matthew Johns noted when asked about this very thing, SL players play St Helens one week, and then Castleford or Wakefield (in all due respect) the next week, while in the NRL the games are of high intensity every week. There are far less runaway games in the NRL from memory.

OT but I had a read of From the Sheds in a bookshop this week - good reading, especially his - very complimentarybits on English players (Hanley, Davies, Robinson). Section on Mal Reilly was very funny.

bullpoop

there is nobody in the English game as good as Slater, Inglis, Folau, J Monaghan, Lockyer, Thurston etc

In England all the skilled players go to RU.

All the fit players go to RL.

England RU aren't especially skilled, they are just fit and have a strong pack and a good kicking game. Their outside backs, even in 2003, were nothing special apart from one world beater in Robinson.

Corrcet, the totals do not include trial matches for NRL players and some SL players. They are correct up until the beginning of RLWC, and include Origin the May test and pre RLWC internationa warm up games.

Yeah, they dont get 40 - 0 drubbings in big games in the NRL do they, oh hang on......



in all seriousness, Mathhew Johns is correct, unfortunately it cant just be fixed with a click of a finger like some of the Aussies seem to think.

Edited to make some kind of sense.

some of the nrl clubs are back at training now

for next year

So are Sl clubs, what's your point?

Most of the SL clubs are too.

I think burnout is a major part of the failure at the top level, it is something i have mentioned on several other threads.

Not only are we playing significantly more games a year, our seasons are longer played in more difficult conditions and rest periods shorter.

Its all well and good stating about the intensity of the game but how many NRL games are played on heavy tracks in the wind and rain/snow? Of late 80% of games in the SL have been played in poor certainly not summer conditions.

The most significant point though in this entire fatigue equation that seems to be lost on the Aussies is that for years season in season out England GB have had to relly on the same players, in the NRL the larger pool of players means a drop in form and you are gone. Internationally we as a nation have put players such as, Peacock, Morley, Fielden, Ellis, Long,Senior,Gleeson,Wellens,Pryce, Locky, Sinfield through this no rest constant playing cycle, added to which the squad is made up from players mainly from the teams that make the final/play the most games and have just been peaked by the clubs physically.

Sadly though until the SL clubs stop looking at the financial side of things there will never be a reduction of the fixtures and the players will continue to limp into the end of season tournaments.

I don't think it holds much weight when you consider how tough the nrl is wekk in week out, plus origin.

In order to even get close to recovering fully for a new season you need a minimum of 4 weeks active recovery off prior to getting into pre season.

The top players we have to relly on year on year never get this, the accumulated effects of this over the years can be devastating.

Look at the Aussies regards International Caps i would guess that in the team apart from Price, Petro and Lockyer the other players will be lucky to have at most individually 7 caps each, with a good few gained in the midseason Anzac test with is played mid season, they are not being asked to have no off season year in year out as our better performers have as they do not get the rest/recovery performances drop off during the season, they do not make selection for the rep sides, due to increased player competition, not having that pool of players to pick from in our case means we relly on the same players year in year out and throughout there careers they get no recovery time, not just for 1 or 2 seasons as is often the case with the Aussie players.

AUSTRALIAN forward Brent Kite has played more games than almost every other NRL player this year and yet he couldn't feel better. The Manly prop is enjoying his finest season to date and he believes it is all due to being controversially overlooked for the NSW State of Origin team. Missing NSW's third straight series loss meant Kite didn't return to club football tired and emotionally drained. www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 66,00.html

AUSTRALIAN forward Brent Kite has played more games than almost every other NRL player this year and yet he couldn't feel better. The Manly prop is enjoying his finest season to date and he believes it is all due to being controversially overlooked for the NSW State of Origin team. Missing NSW's third straight series loss meant Kite didn't return to club football tired and emotionally drained. www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 66,00.html

Very good points jonh.

Could one of the moderators rename this thread "Workload for England test players must be reduced"? This might clue other posters in to the main focus of this thread.

I think you will find all the St. Helens players have not had a decent off season break for 3 years..................and it shows.
Its time clubs outside of Leeds and St Helens stop recruiting between 7 and 10 overseas players and contribute some home grown talent, instead of going for the short term gain.
Hopefully the no relegation policy will start to put clubs in transition for the international future of the game.

I should point out Barrett said hw went to the SL so he did not have to deal with the NRL off season, which is like an Army style boot camp

Workload could be a factor but tbh, imo it is excuse making, fair enough the English players may have played more games but at the end of the day if say a player from Saints has played 37 games, you can knock 4/5 off that total already because 1/2 were probs a Challenge Cup game vs NL2 opposistion and the best players at Saints could probably be out on the lash the night before that game and still beat them by 40 points at least. Also 3/4 games a season probs more for the Saints/Leeds contingent in the England side are played with less intensity for example and its no disrespect to a team in the lower echelons of SL here but around 9/10 times Saints play Cas how many times are Saints's players giving it 100%, probably never, more like 60%/70%. In the NRL there really are no easy beats, fair enough SL has seen a reduction in 40+ point results but you still get far more than in Aus. The competition is more intense thus a player playing 28 intense games a year is probably on the same workload as a player who played 38 games a year with around 9/10 games not at 100%.
Another problem SL has is you look at all 14 teams in the SL, how many of them have 2/3 star players, eg : 2/3 of the best 60 players in the world. I would probs say 7. In the NRL every side has at the very least 2 star names. Even NQ Cowboys who finished bottom of the NRL last year have Thurston, Penrith have Wesser, Civoiniceva. The really top sides in the NRL have say 5/6 star players, eg Melbourne - Folau, Inglis, Slater, Johnson, C Smith.

IMO many fans are understandably upset at England's failure in RLWC, but the popular reasons (that the test players are not good enough, too many overseas players in SL) merely serve to create convenient scapegoats of those players. Those reasons are excuses, at best secondary reasons.

Even if the talent pool is widened, and even if the the number of imports is reduced, unless the major problem of the season structure is addressed, nothing will change and England will still be beaten.

Player welfare is not just a physiological phenomenon, but a mental one too. England players need a 3 month off season to mentally take a break and freshen up. The 2 month offseason is inadequate compared to Australia's 3 months.

what about the chat for aussies test players before the thread being renamed

IMO SL should have 12 teams and 22 games, it seems daft playing more because it gives some teams an unfair advantage, I'd still keep the play offs as they are though.

Challenge cup from January to April, that way most teams can treat the early easy games as pre season friendlies, assuming they don't draw a decent team in which case they might need a friendly or two. Plus this means you can't just rely on hitting form around july in order to win trophys.

Add to that a mid season international friendly (ideally Lancs v Yorks but this seems to have gone down the pan so England v Ireland/Scotland/Wales/France would do.) Then a friendly just before the internationals start.

Agree with the sentiment of your post, but I would raise these points.
1. None of the 14 SL clubs will agree with a reduction in the number of teams in SL. They won't risk being relegated to the Championship. The RFL also want 14 to maintain the value of TV rights, as Sky wants to maximise coverage to increase subscriptions.
2. The clubs still need to participate in around 26 games to generate the revenue from gate takings. The trick is how to lighten the load on representative players.
3. The NRL has not staged full home and away fixtures for years, but clubs, players and fans accept it because the season would be too long.



I would definitely agree with this. However the question is whether the BBC would agree to revert the scheduling back.



This would be my model:

1) Reduce the SL to 20 rounds (from 26/27 rounds). Each club plays all the others once, half the others twice.
2) 3 weeks finals series, comprising top 6 or 8 on a straight knockout basis.
3) A European Nations Cup (either England, France and Wales playing home & away; or a 5 nations competition adding Scotland and Ireland, all nations playing each other once), then away and home test tours against Southern Hemisphere opposition.
4) Expand the Northern Rail Cup by adding SL's English clubs using their non test players. 8 pools of 4 teams This will making up shortfall of SL fixtures for the clubs, and will make the NL clubs happy. The RFU is planning something similar with an expanded Anglo Welsh Cup. Celtic Crusaders, Catalan Dragons and Toulouse could play in an NRC equivalent competition with French Division 1 and 2 clubs.
5) For the Challenge Cup resting test squad from most games involving non SL opposition, except on a case-by-case basis if they have missed a lot of games due to injury.
6) If an Anglo French test must be played mid season, stage it on a culturally significant day - either V-E Day (first week May) or D Day.