I personally think that the lifestyle/coaching and conditioning that gareth will have had over in OZ will mean he can come back over here and easily carry on for another three years. I'm pretty sure when morley came back that Tony Smith will have sat him down and asked if there was anything he had been doing in OZ that could be used to better a warrington side that still weren't doing much at the time. Were still behind when it comes to sports nutrition/psychology/conditioning/basic skills and prep compared to the aussies so im sure that players who go over there and are now coming back will have new info for any club looking to sign them as each club is always looking for that extra 1% advantage over other teams.

Without reading all of this, I would have him in a heart beat, and be more than comfortable with a 3 year deal. Ellis is a truly worldclass player in every sense of the word, he is also a model professional.

He would bring that Phil Bailey type impact behind the scenes and a real positive impact on the field. I appreciate we have a wealth of secondrow's but it is not often worldclass players become available with so much still to offer.

Having said that do I think he will come to us....no, we will be priced out of the market if we were interested by clubs in a more dire need for secondrow players. Every club though in SL must be interested, they would be mad not to be. Absolute quality in everything he does.

Why would it be denying a home grown player a place in the squad given we don't have a squad made up of entirely home grown players?

If he is better than the likes of Flower or Lauaki why would we not improve our squad by signing him if we could?

In fact if a player becomes available that improves our squad and we can sign him then we should sign him regardless of who he replaces in the squad, whether the player that losses out is home grown or not. That is the ruthless and professional mentality that got Wigan to the top in the 80's and 90's.

Would Ellis improve the squad? Don't know but that has got to be the only consideration.

Oh, and the idea we would sign any player to deny other clubs his services given there is a salary cap is a joke.

The only factor that we struggle with is the intensity of the games. Too many easy games that allow players to drop off in their performances does the national team no favours. I am not convinced about the Exiles concept, can it continue to grow or will it fall by the wayside. The top players need to be tested more than an handful of games a season.

I think you'll find that Burgess has been an outstanding success too.

"It has been said in the media that "Sam Burgess is the best Pommie to come out here in 20 years" meaning he is the best English exported player to play in the NRL for 20 years." is one quote and, from Souths own website: "Sam made quite an impact on the NRL in his maiden season in 2010". To be honest that's common concensus anyway so I'm not ure where you get the above statement from.

As for Morley, if memory serves, the only thing he struggled with initially was the transition from England to Australia, (i.e. being away from friends and family etc.) not on the playing field, which is no different to Pat Richards for example. Are you arguing that Pat's training in the NRL didn't prepare him for life in the Superleague and he's 'become a better player' because he now plays regularly in England rather than in Aus?

Anyway, didn't Morley play in two consecutive Grand finals over there in only his 2nd and 3rd seasons? He must have at least performed well enough to maintain his place in the team! Either way, even if we discount Morley, that makes 2 out of the 3 players who were an immediate success. One even made player of the year for his club in his first season!

The point to be made here is that the loss of [uany[/u world class, or potential world class, player to the NRL is a loss to Superleage. The relative benefits of getting that player back at the tail end of his career is dwarfed by the loss to the competition by his being in another competition during his prime years. I can simplify this analogy. Would the people who are advocating this as a good thing accept it so readily if the players were going to Union for the best part of their careers and returning as [umarginally[/u better players for a couple years prior to retirement? That's if you even accept the premise that the players return as 'better' players. For my money, as good as he still is, Morley was a 'better' player during his stint in Australia. He would still have been better during that time than he is now had he stayed in England and the rest of Superleague would have benefitted by playing against him in his prime.

Gary Hetherington already been to Australia in January and said that he was looking for a 'marquee' signing for the 2013 season..