COULD NOT AGREE MORE...

Hell might have frozen over, but I agree. An extra decent boot can help a team too, Scott Moore is dreadful.

The last time the GB national team seriously came close to beating the Aussies in a major tournament was when one team were totally dominating the league: Wigan (who provided about half of that international side). But of course, according to many of the people you are talking about, that era of Wigan dominance was very bad for the game.

It seems to me that as a barometer of the British game's health, the state of the GB/England team can either be underlined or ignored depending on which agenda is being promoted.

What I would agree with, however, is that if one team dominates for a long time, it can get boring. Thus I don't see it as a major crisis that Saints have slipped down a couple of pegs, as they have had plenty of time in the sun. These grandstanding St Helens nonentities on TotalRL who are 'not watching anymore because the game overall is unwatchably bad' could do with learning a little humility.

No.... The basis for the argument that the league is crap is that... well frankly, the league is crap...

A simple question: you look at your current squad and ask yourself how many of them would be good enough to have played for Wigan 10/15/20 years ago. (And that's from one of the stronger squads in the league right now). How many current GB players would have been good enough to get in a GB squad from 10/15/20 years ago?

Exactly.

If you want to know how weak the league is: Matty Smith is the best available half the biggest club in the league could find to build their team around for the next few seasons, Richie Myler is probably the other best young half in the country right now, and we have to make do with some raw kid and a clapped-out old antipodean fullback/hooker pulling the strings and are still stronger at #6 and #7 than most other clubs in SL.

Now look me in the eye and tell me the league in general and the quality of British players in particular are as strong as they've ever been. I dare you.

Chill out bruv its only an internet forum

I think the quality of Wigan as a team is far better than for many years.

Their attack is not only structured but also expansive and in Sam they have one of the finest individuals who would be a superstar in any team including the Hanley/Gregory/Edwards/Offiah era. They have a very good defensive structure too.

The main issue with the overall quality of SL of recent years is that we are playing with 2 two many teams, but then there have always been crap teams in any era of SL.

I think this wigan team could easily hold it's own against any of the better teams in the SL era.

doesn't help that there isn't enough money in SL compared to NRL and Yawnion, top players now have other options if they so wish to chose.

Go easy on me, first post.....

Put Simply there isnt enough investment in the game for it to compete with NRL, we can hold our own with domestic RU I have no doubt and lets not forget RU as a game is far less appealing nationaly as it on an International platform, in fact its awful!

With the NRL Salary Cap increase the days of marquee SOO/International signings have gone, if you look at the wages of some of the stars of the game in Australia it dwarfs the UK cap. 300k+ is not uncommon.

The answer for now has to be to survive and invest any money you have in your academy setup. We must develop from within. This opens up questions as to the viability of some clubs but no doubt if they have cash they will survive, inevitably when you find superstars the sports with more money will take them, or indeed other Superleague clubs who can pay over the odds for a player developed by a rival team, it happens now but no names mentioned as this post isnt meant to create an inter-club argument.

I have no doubt that Sam will go in 2 years and ply his trade in the NRL for double his salary, who wouldnt!? Thats why we need academy systems identifying the next Sam Tomkins and the like.

The game and quality of players isnt worse as a whole but the talent pool has become smaller. Gone are the days where you can go and make 4 marquee world class signings and place them with the best Britain has to offer.

As I stated at the top of the post, investment is key, how are national and international sponsors attracted? I am sponsor because I love the club, not for any financial benefit. I have ideas here but this is not the forum to discuss them.

I have though long and hard about how to improve the game and as a start I think a reduction in clubs would help, by at least 2, possibly 4. If the International game is to work, and it must, then by losing 2 teams it gives time for Internationals to be played without expecting players to front up 3 times in a week. Thats just wrong in my opinion. I think the whole licencing system needs auditing, how this mess with Bradford has come about is outrageous and this cannot be allowed again, it discredits the game as a whole.

As an aside, I thought Matty had a great game yesterday and made a difference when he came on, I am confident that he will be very succesful in his time at Wigan.

Rgds

AP

Nice post Andrew, you hit the nail on the head Rugby League is short of funding and the Sky money is spread too thinly to keep the stars in the UK game. We also have a very poor International set up as there are not enough meaningful games. The talent pool will only decrease further if investment in the game as a whole is not increased.

Totally agree Andrew with you view of the game. I also have to agree with Northampton Saints. To many of our younger players come into the first team drilled to death but lacking that flair and opportunism like a Tommy Martin or Shaun Edwards. There are of course exceptions Sam T is one that sticks out a mile but I struggle to think of many more. Saints have brought through Lomax and Gaskell from the Academy while promising players they lack that X factor.

The fact that Wigan have signed Mattie Smith (god bless him) is a sign of the times when he was firstly rejected by the saints, and has never really set the world on fire when at Widnes and Salford shows how poor the market place is in rugby league at the moment. For me the better option for Wigan would have been bringing through the young Wigan half back on loan at Widnes. He does look like a real prospect! I am sure saints would be interested him in if Wigan wanted to offload ala Sean Long

Utter nonsense - the Wigan of Farrell, Radlinski, Paul, Connolly etc. would chop the current Pie team (and anyone else currently in SL) into tiny little pieces, never mind the various Saints and Bradford teams there've been post '95. The current Wigan team may be fitter and better drilled than most of the better SL teams from the last 15 years, but would be inferior in every other possible department by a very considerable margin. Stop kidding yourself.

This is you opinion, but please don't present it as fact. There is no way to tell how our current team would go against the Wigan or SL teams of the past. I think we'd be competitive and they would be good games, we may even come out on top, due to the current teams superior fitness.

The game has evolved, players are fitter these days and coached more stringently. When people say it was so much better back then, they are probably right entertainment wise, but now the players are much more professional.

It has happened in all sports, look at football, Spain won the Euros playing no striker, could you imagine the Brazil 1970 side doing that? It doesn't make one better or worse than the other as there is no definitive answer to who would win, I think Spain, my dad thinks Brazil.

Do you really discount better fitness and better organisation so readily? I doubt most modern SL coaches would.

Also, to compare the current Wigan side to other good sides in the SL era and describe them as "inferior in every other possible department by a very considerable margin" is a huge and frankly ridiculous exaggeration.

In the current Wigan team, Sam Tomkins, Josh Charnley, George Carmont, Pat Richards (when fit), Sam Tomkins, Brett Finch, Jeff Lima, Mike McIlorum, Gareth Hock, Harrison Hansen and Sean O'Loughlin would all have comfortably found first-team berths in and around the Wigan, Saints and Bradford teams that you think so highly of.

Purely on the basis that your lot signed Bryn Hargreaves in 2007, I'd argue that Lee Mossop, Gil Dudson and Paul Prescott would also have got into the St Helens team.

Sam is THAT good!

Meant to put Tommy L.

They could be better but as Wigan showed in 2010 fitness is key. That team were almost the same as the team that won nothing under Noble. Organisation and fitness won that league for Wigan.

However, if the team you mentioned were in their prime and playing now with the current fitness and organisation we have at Wigan you're right it would probably beat the current team as well as every other team.

The scary thing is how far your team has fallen since the times when Long and KC were in their prime that team in their prime today would take your current team to the cleaners but that's not where we are fitness and organisation is key now. Wigan have it in spades but the difference Wigan has is it still has a few players that do their own thing and make their own chances. Sam, Mossop, Finch all being that way. And charnley would still get into a squad with all those greats too.

...and, naturally, you're completely missing the point... Noone's arguing fitness and organisation is better now - that has nothing to do with the point...

The point is that basic player quality is in steep decline in SL right now and that[i is [/iincontrovertible fact.

You go kid yourself that Matty Smith is the next Sean Long, Charnley is the reincarnation of Robinson, Carmont would have graced any RL team ever etc. etc. if you like. Personally I'll just live in the real world and get fed up that Saints' current squad, despite being a hollow shell of 5/10 years ago in any vague measure of quality, is still in real terms at about the same level of competitiveness. That simple fact says all that needs saying.

....and yet we're still in the same position in the league with the same chance of winning silverware every season with the same level of competitiveness against the teams there are around us now as then.

Thanks for proving my point for me

So, correct me if i'm wrong, you think Saints are capable, this season, of doing a double or treble as they have done in the recent past?

There's a[i big [/idifference - there are many, many brilliant individual football players still being produced all around the world and many of the current Spain squad would have walked into that Brazil team on basic talent and ability with or without current fitness levels and professionalism. The difference in SL is that the brilliant, exciting individual players produced in the British game of 10/20 years just simply aren't there any more, and fitness and organisation is no substitute...

Saints are well behind the standard of the Long, KC, Sculthorpe days. You could put this argument to any club. At the start of the season, all clubs have a chance of competing for silverware. The fact is its years since you won any!

The double [imight[/i be a bit tricky now

But we've as good a chance of winning the Grand Final at this stage of the season as we have had at the same point in pretty much any previous SL season bar 2006 most certainly. And that's just plain sad given how many glaring holes and deficiencies we have at the moment, but it is the truth and speaks volumes for how **** the rest of the league is.

But in [u[icomparative [/i[/uterms we're.... Oh sod it... Just go bang your head against a wall for me and come back when you get it - saves me a job...

calm down dear.

humour me a minute, but at any point in your life when you were growing up, did your dad/anyone else feed you a 'they're not as good as they used to be' line, to describe anything from food to beer to music to sports players to politicians to cars to films etc etc? this seems to be exactly what you're doing.

There, you humoured me, now I'll humour you. The Wigan team of ten years ago was far from a great team. In fact, the Wigan team of 15 years ago was also far from a great team (yes they won a SL) but I'd be thinking more than twice before naming the likes of florimo, moore, reber, cassidy (as a hooker), goldspink, tony smith, holgate, mark smith, jon clarke ahead of any of our starting team now. we've had great individuals such as faz, rads, connolly, paul, newton, renouf, robinson, dallas etc but as a team I think this one is more rounded. thats just my opinion.

Now if you'd like to go back 20 years (not sure if saints fans go back that far???? ya know, before sl...) then yeah we are entering the territory of that wigan team and that national team (mostly wigans team) were the business. However, the 20 years since (when according to your theory it was never as good) never stopped you lot from crowing about how super the wooper dooper saints team were, and bragging about back to back this that and the other? And when we turned sides out at your place to get a good stuffing we didnt turn round and say, well actually, all of rl is crap...we went home, had a beer, kicked the dog and got on with it.

The problem with your theory is that there's always someone older who will take you even further back to a time when, shock horror, we beat the aussies. They will scoff at names like hanley, edwards, gregory x2 etc and say its a sign of the times when we have to have an organiser (edwards) as a gb half back when we used to have the real deal (murphy) or we are stuck with a quick man who cant tackle on the wing (offiah) when we had the blockbuster himself (boston)

the point is using individual player comparisons to back up your theory doesnt work. matty smith isnt as good as trent barrett (i wish) but this wigan team would stick some serious points on that millward side.