Fantastic Shout!

We are always looking to model our game and on the Aussies and seem to show them far to much respect.

All we heard all week in the build up to the game is how good Lockyer is and How fantastic Inglis is!!!

!st half we seemed to stand back and admire them and the desision to start Smith in the Centre and 19yo winger was suicide.

Credit to Smith though he got his troops in at half time rectified his mistake and mangaed to changed the mindset of the boys.

Three key moves that changed the game for me:

1. Nulified Inglis by putting Ellis in his face and he didnt like it one bit.
2. Counter acted Smith by utilising Sinfield in the dummy half role on both attack and defence.
3. Changed to tactis on 4th and 5th play with ball in hand to a short kicking game and encouraged our exciting halves to take on the line.

Lockyer is still quallity but at 32 doesnt want to have to defend for long periods like he had to 2nd 40 and wont fancy having to chase exciting elusive pacy players like Tomkins and Eastmond around all day.

Id be looking to get Sinfield and Eastmond rotating at 9 and maybe utilise Myler (offers more with ball in hand than Maguire for me) and Tomkins and run the balls of them if we get aanother crack at them.

For the thread question....

F.uck all, its done absolutley nothing if anything our team has gone backwards. What the idiots at the rfl dont realise its not the stopping of relegation, its the fact that they have Massive Rugby League acadamies and are scouting players as young as 6 and bringing them and coaching them all the way through their life, they even educate them.

Its a enormous sport over there and gets back and front page coverage in all the papers, ours is a average game for our country in the M62 corridor that only makes the 3rd from back page when the grand final is won.


FACT






Jiffy

Well I think our second half performance reflected well on the players.

Our coach obviously changed the game plan at HT and he had too. With a bit more zip in our passing I don,t think we,d be that bad.

================================================
SENIOR retired from International rugby after the World cup


Graham was pretty good yesterday his workload was top class

The key for me is actually getting our top players over to the NRL!

Ellis has had a stormer in the NRL as did Morley who came back a better player!

Burgess is going out there and would be great to see players like Westerman (massive tallent and potential) get the chance.

Think Tomkins will only get better at Wigan under the new coach who has taken massive raps for his role in the development of the likes of Inglis etc.

Along with Nathan Brown this guy Wigan have brought over is the right end of his carreer and bringing over the latest and even new coaching and development ideas.

Likes of the Macrea and some of the other Aussie hangers on offer nothing new and should no longer be entertained in SL for me but likes of Nathan Brown are a breath of fresh air and signs that we are starting to attract Aussies at the right age who are coming to develop themselves rather than just top up a pension.

It definitely says something when our top players are signed by NRL, you just know that that player will be better at International level next time they play!

You include Millward in that I take it?

I dont think anyone is looking back 'fondly' at the good old days, what we're saying is we were crap then and we're crap now.

We've had 12/14 pro clubs for 15 years now, and erm, well, erm. Yes.

We're still getting tonked.

Whether the top 3 or 4 clubs providing the internationals is healty or not.....no, but it happens in every sport in every country. The creme will rise to the top, for good or bad. The idea that the lower clubs will develop, and more inportantly keep world class players from the clutches of Leeds or Saints is nice but often unrealistic.

Must admit I sat there bored out of my brains

The entire game was a non event

Aussies showed how to play the game in the first half and to be honest the second half they went through the motions

When the austrailians passed the ball they meant the pass not just throw it up in the air and hope was the best way of describing our first half performance

Lockyer took the mick the first half...waited until the forwards had thundered up the field, point to the backs were to stand and tell them what THEY were going to do....try followed try

Meanwhile throw it and hope england were at best rubbish

Second half ganson spotting a rout was on the cards intervened and helped us

Anyway the final will be a cracker with two proper teams aussies v new zealand

I think you keep changing your view on this, about good old days. Did you honestly not get something from that 2nd half that gave you a bit of hope that we are progressing. We are long long way off, but deffo going in right direction.


For 1 half we got a rugby lesson, but to be fair we beat them 16nil in 2nd half, and coulda shoulda (:winkicon_smile.gif had a unlikely win with a bit more luck.
Also your 14 pro clubs for 15 years includes swapping around between PT and FT league, hardly helps long term by taking steps back for half of them pro clubs.


If we had more clubs like Leeds/W1gan etc we wouldn't have a problem. Its obvious players move to different clubs, or even swap codes. If clubs are ambitious and want to win trophies, players can be persuaded to stay at the more unfashionable clubs. Afterall with the salary cap, current top clubs can't have them all.

They seem to play with the attitude of there's no such thing as a bad pass, if one of their players makes a break and throws it in a generally backward direction its up to one of his team mates to catch the damn thing, if they don't its their fault for not being there, not his for throwing a stupid pass. We have the totally opposite view to the extent that at times we're afraid to pass.

Eh?

All along I have said we are no nearer now than we were in 82. We were crap then and we're crap now. I dont htink I have changed my mind at all.

I named half a dozen naturally gifted world class players from the pre-pro era and asked why we have stopped producing them when there is still the same player pool available. These gifted player have not suddenly stopped being born. Does that not strike you as odd?



No.

If it takes 40 minutes of humilition and getting booed off the pitch to raise pro-players in an international against the Aussies then we have a major problem. World class players can produce it from the word go. I have to admire your optimism though.

You saw the France game I take it, whats the excuse there?

When the Aussies or NZ play at 100% we cannot touch them. They have to drop to 3rd gear for us to get anywhere near them and with the Aussies its been the same since 82.



Thats another P&R debate you're starting and we've had it numerous times and will never agree on all of its merits. Are you not bored of it?





Like Myler for example? Its romantic but it isnt going to happen.

If you think we're catching them up then fair enough, personally I dont and there's 20odd years worth of results to prove it.

Play Eastmond and Tompkins at half backs for a start. Eastmond is the only player who can pass the ball with zip. He is a totally class act. He has everything, He just needs to tighten up a bit on defense. Tomkins is good but Eastmond is better and I don't know why he starts on the bench. He is Robinson and Hanley rolled into one and will be a world class player both in League and eventually I suppose in Union. Maguire is a load of rubbish at this level. His defense is non-existent.

We have the forwards but we definitely need 2 centres,2 wingers and a full back.

The only way to stop him is shoot him!! We don't have the class, size or speed of outside backs to compete with any of the Aussie or Kiwi outside backs. They get the ball out wide as soon as possible and let the backs do the damage. We just look at trundling the ball up the middle for four tackles and then try and get it out wide (without succes).

I'd still give Eastmond a go at either 9 or 13 though, see what he can do.

When you was going on about the triumph down under in 80's when we still lost but we should go back to them days where we had "world class" hb's. I'll be damned if I'm going to sieve through your posts tho to find it




We was nailed on for a pasting before the game. I went to watch a very good Aussie side, and see us give 100%. We got tonked in 1st half, but that didn't bother me because there is no humiliation getting beat by a lot better side than us.



We have got near them in recent years, and there are times when we honestly think we have beating of them which usually leads to them having their 100% day and us not turning up. I think even if we won this comp, it would be ridiculed as Aussies didn't give "100%" by some that would rather we failed so they can be proven right with their Mystic Meg predictions of doom.


I don't want another debate about that, I know that. Time will tell if it works. But the point was vaild as you state 14 clubs, when in fact there is about 6 which have been in SL for those 15 years - not good trying to get all those GB players with just a handful of clubs helping.



Bad example because do you honestly think Salford are ambitious enough to be challenging top clubs soon? Myler is quality player, and if Salford where able to sign players of quality to match the lads ambitions he could have chosen to stay. Until Salford move from Baghdad they will never fulfil promises they claim.
But clubs like Salford should have long term plans to win trophies not just playing out a season. Earl Crabtree is a good player, and just signed a new contract at Hudds. It happens.


I don't say we are catching them up. We are improving but so are they.
Near the end of the game the Aussies where off their feet with the defending they had to do - and the relief when the hooter went was plain to see. We pushed them all the way.
Its just 40mins tho. But I left the ground a lot more optimistic than when I went in.

I did mate your right.

Hanley and Gregory they were called. Soon followed by a Scholes lad called Edwards. Not bad they were and a match for Lewis and Sterling.

It was the 88 game in Sydney - way before SL and maybe 300 full time professionals playing the game in the UK. I think Hanley actually played at loose with someone from Widnes at 6 who's name escapes me.

We had, in my opinion, a better team then than we had now (I know the game has changed with fitness etc, I'm talking about like for like ability) and apart from that game (3rd in an already lost series) we were not good enough then either.

A couple of years later we came as close as we have done in 30 years to winning a test series against them, but still were not good enough. I can still see Mal Maninga romping in at the scoreboard end of Old Trafford to kill a close game.

Does this mean we should go back to part time pit men and builders? No, that would be silly because we'd now be on a par with Lebanon.

Should we have improved more than we have? Dead right.

You see I can't disagree with much of this really. Strange that as you seemed to suggest we should go back to how it was when you posting this kind of thing recently.
Anyways I'd love it (Keegan stylie) if we beat NZ, and then topple the Aussies in final. Would you take everything back then ? and if we are so far behind them would you make donation to LISA or sommat if we win comp ?

I dont think I have seemed to suggest going back to anything. I'd like to go back to the 80's with Tachini tracksuits, away days with Bolton, and Reubins but thats just a morbid generation thing



What I've said, and stand by, is 'all this money and still no world class players' yet we could produce them whilst they were working in a factory or a scrap yard during the week. At international level I really don't see many benefits.

Since SL has started I feel we have gone from having a sometimes skillful International team capable of filling large stadia to having a set of muscle bound athletes running around in small regional stadia.

SL has seen more money invested in the game at the top level than at any other time in the games history, that means the most professional players ever, the most professional coaches ever, the most professional off field staff ever and more staff on the wagebill at each club - ever.

In the quest to beat the Aussies we have switched the time of year our game is played , stopped promotion & relegation, scrapped the 'A' Teams , created clubs in the South of France, created clubs in Wales and generally spent millions trying to get near the holy grail of competing with the Aussies.

The question perhaps should be Have we seen a return on all that money in the game at the top level since SL began



I'd bet you a team of Harrisons, Jacksons, Schoefields, Offiahs , Clarkes, Gregorys, Wards's, Hanleys, Davies's, Edwards's etc etc that the answer to that is no, we havn't seen a return on all that money since SL began.

Well I,m a flatcapper and always have thought RL in this country is a regional sport that does not travel. I,d like it to but it can,t because of circumstances.

It,s facile just to real off a list of former good players from our home spun game. You could just as well do the same with Aussie/NZ players.

Superleague has made our game faster and more fitness orientated. There is now a big gap between that and the Championship as there is between the Championship and Championship 1 and then Championship 1 and our Amateur game.

I do think however having only 10 or so regional clubs in a non relegation league and trying to introduce our game professionally outside our region is dangerous and will ultimately leed to our games extinction at professional level.

Fans give up going if they think "their side"will find the top level unobtainable.

Team -

Phil Ford
Henderson Gill
David Stephenson
Paul Loughlin
Martin Offiah
David Hulme
Andy Gregory
Kevin Ward
Paul Hulme
Hugh Waddell
Mike Gregory
Roy Powell
Ellery Hanley

Darren Wright
Brian Case

Yes i do!

I wouldnt touch Millward as no other SL team Would.

We have a chairman who live on the same street and worked at Saints and the local press have sold this bloke to us but fact is hes nothing to write home about!

I aint seen many sides post or pre SL that wouldnt struggle against that bunch!!!

Hanley was the most complete R player ever to play the game.

That Pack is Scary!!!!!

I posted about this before. Once England/GB start to look like we have a chance to beat them Aussies the crowds will be there. Its the set backs that do have an impact on fan. A bit like when we missed out on SL season after season.


Its not that great. The money 6 of the clubs in SL (the ones that have been in it since it started) have accumulated over the 15 years doesn't match the worst premier league clubs earning for 1 season. Its pennies in comparison. Staff wages again pennies in comparison to cricket/fooball/RU.


We switched to summer because the game was broke at professional level. We stopped relegation because it didn't work (done to death), and crowds only showed interest in it if there was a last game of season decider scenario - very rare and not a healthy focus.


Depends. If its about developing players and competing with Aussies - not really. Clubs will always look after themselves. For the profile of the game and marketing, SL with the help of switching to summer it has helped greatly to bring new fans/players to the game.


Of course these where great players. But the backdrop with then and now is totally different. RU turning professional, football on the up again. The very fact you can look at a small country like Scotland that had a very good team in 80's, with big name players - then look at now. What went wrong? 2 similar scenarios where Scotland probably reached a peak because of how weak their domestic comp is. RL a minority sport in 80's reached maybe its peak, and on a downward slide later.