Best candidate from what I've seen seems to be Walker...

Completely agree. Morley was a superb leader of men. Physically he was intimidating, the kind of guy that when he arrives at training, the rest of the squad try to impress.

Briers knows rugby inside and out and steered the team. When we were good, he was behind it. One thing is for certain, if he was playing a few weeks ago in the Saints play off game, we wouldn’t be kicking for goal 30 yards out when they are down to 12 men, missing one of their best forwards. We had a chance to put the ball in the corner and take some energy out of their tanks, and a huge opportunity to post points, and came away with 2 and gave them a breather.

Williams and Dufty are gifted athletes, and Williams in particular is a great competitor, but compare smarts with Briers and Hodgson and you can see how much we have regressed.

I can understand your comments about Williams and agree to an extent, but as he's got the England shirt perhaps it represents where our league is currently compared to past years.

I think rugby league is obsessed with the athleticism, it’s not just Williams. The creativity is left out, as a rule, in the selection of juniors. Players can pass off both hands, can run, fend and step. Fine. But the genuine creativity is just phased out.

The whole aim of the game is to manipulate numbers and use that space. That’s why the block plays became the standard feature of every single team from under 9’s and over. Teams play to bend the line, catch a defender on the wrong side of the ruck and play a mini game of 4 v 3, or shift the ball with block plays hoping for a defender to switch off and get a 3 vs 2 on the edge. Rinse and repeat for 80 minutes. Yet we have that number advantage, we have the field position, have the momentum, and kick for two. Madness.

When i was a kid, the first game of RL i ever got to see was a Widnes one (as my grandad used to play for them).

It was Bradford northern at naughton park, in horrible mud... tony myler chipped the ball over a scrum as soon as the ball had come out, ran around.. caught it... flicked an inside pass to Alan Tait, who then flicked it to Offiah, who ran a long arc around the poor fullback, who knew less than me as to what was going on infront of him.

i had never seen anything like it and i was hooked.

i wonder what the youngsters of today have to watch and get excited about.

To be fair I think some of that flair still exists. I was really impressed with Wigan last year with Field and French looking like they were playing touch rugby at times. I haven't seen as many Wigan games this year but the ones I have seen there has been a few times I have seen plays that I have been impressed with.

When a team is full of confidence that is when those plays happen. I will never forget Briers kicking cross field to Riley (I think it was Riley) in his own half in a challenge cup final. That was a team that had confidence in their ability to defend and in a team that looked like they enjoyed defending. If the play didn't come off then so be it.

We are miles away from that so maybe it looks like the rest of the league is the same but I am not sure it is. I reckon youngsters that are fans of Wigan and Catalan fans might have a similar view to the one had a naughton park.
And to add. As life wears you down you will never have the wide eyes innocent view of the world again. When I was growing up I only remember the good things like the odd Phil Blake try with only one boot but I forget the countless god awful matches at wilderspool on a Sunday afternoon when the most exciting thing was watching a train pull up in the corner so the train driver could watch the match.

Well it isn't yardage, holding down in the tackle, percentage plays for sure. Mind you I hear the home attendance is up 25% this year so maybe they do.

We have suddenly gone from "our weakest position" to why is rugby not as exciting. Well ... for me it is all about defences ... they are so much better. All full time now (for years). I reckon even our most creative players from the past would have found it hard to find space.
In all other sports (that can be measured without emotion) skills, pace, strength have improved.
Sad but ... our minds are playing tricks.
The Alex Murphy team would have to really adjust their game to play today ... mind you make 'em all full time & give them 6 months ... they might cope OK.

There's no 10 meters, there's an eternity of holding down in every tackle, our games now gone so mind numbingly slow and boring. I am enjoying NRL games more and more with each passing season compared with SL

Yep ... unless we get to grip with this, defences will hold sway. It is not just holding down as there is every trick in the book to slow down the player in possession playing the ball.

Noticed Saints leave a man in the ruck very often which makes for a messy ptb for attacking team, even Catalan were doing it in the semis

According to the Saddest one winger may well be our weakest spot. If anyone thinks this bloke is anything other than a one eyed snake this is his view on Thewlis (and his view of our view!)
“That was a bizarre award and shows how weak the competition is. A lot of Warrington fans don't like him. He's error prone, returns the ball really poorly and horrific defensively. There's potential there, but if he's the best young player in Super League, it's a worry.”

Sad Man speaks with forked tongue.

Must think we can’t see Redvee, comes on here all smiles with his objective views but spews crap back on their own board.

Lesad curry. A troll with many faces.

Which Warrington fans don't rate Thewlis?

Horrific defensively? I’ll say it again he’s an idiot.

I don't know why we give him so much attention. Clearly just a troll.

That "WarrrigntonWolve69" fellow. You know, the one who spends his time mostly trolling Wigan fans and talking about how great Saints are. Strange thing for a Warrington fan, but the user name never lies. I think.

Not seen him around in a long time, as he run out of e-mail accounts to keep making names on here.

Try Rob Riches

Yes but are defences today significantly better than 15-20 years ago? There was definitely a step change in the first 10 years of Super League (a good barometer was Iestyn Harris before and after his spell in union - he found it much harder to ghost through defences second time around). But I don't know that there has been a big step forward since then. The game was a fantastic spectacle in the mid 2000s with some superb teams.

You only have to watch some classic games with Bradford, Saints and Wigan from that period to realise how far our game has fallen.

It comes to something when England vs Fiji offered a little more excitement and creative off the cuff play than the Grand Final.

Well from Fiji anyway

That was just england v Fiji, ireland v new Zealand and France v South Africa absolutely smashed the grand final out of the park as far as a viewing spectacle goes. There is better ball handling and a faster more exciting spectacle in union these days, even the club game can be better on occasion.

I've heard quite a lot of the talk in talksport and the likes about the grand final being one for the purists (it wasn't), which is a kind way of saying it was dull as dishwater. The sport won't attract new sponsors and fans unless the powers that be make the game quicker and more exciting.