a point that most fans fail to understand.

players are getting poorer in real terms, why would they chose to stay in the competition.

You can't believe this, surely.

How many small clubs have won the SL in the SC era?

How many clubs have gone bust or had serious financial difficulties in the SC era?

Are you actually a member of the board of directors of the RFL?

I don't like the SC in it's current form, but it is only a symptom of a wider disease. Even if the SC were reformed in the way it should be - to encourage growth, ensure financial stability of clubs with additional financial controls and monitoring and reward clubs for developing players - the SL would still always be weak financially because of the people and culture at the RFL and clubs (and in the wider RL world - as shown by a poster on this thread claiming the SC has done a good job to protect clubs from insolvency!!)

Some of the cash has gone into new stadiums (Wigan's deal diverts a lot of revenue - more than IL has yet admitted publicly - to the stadium company), but it is a bit of a mystery as to where the money has gone, until you realise that clubs have just got used to the status quo under the SC and waste money because they can't spend it on players...

So you are of the opinion that the Salary Cap doesn't restrict the larger clubs and that teams like Wigan haven't lost players as a result of the cap?

I don't know how many have had financial difficulties? Are you trying to say that no cap would prevent this? I can't see how a reduced number of teams would fix this, as less games = less cash while fixed costs remain the same (ground maintenance / wages).

Where would the additional fans in a reduced league come from? Lets take Widnes and London out, where do their players go? Where to the bigger clubs players get SL experience? Would Wigan be developing a full back right now, and if so how often would they get a game?

I wrote " The SC is a great way to cap the achievement of the top teams and level the league. The associated rules were a good way to prevent insolvency."

I neither stated that the SC prevented insolvency, nor that they did a good job. I do think that the maximum spending limits which took into account the clubs revenues were a good way, I think that this route with more financial governance would help but I don't think the RFL executed this well.

"The associated rules were a good way to prevent insolvency".



Clubs that have got into serious financial difficulties in the SC era include: London, Bradford, Widnes, Halifax, Crusaders, Wakefield, Salford, Gateshead, Sheffield. There may well be others, but that'll do for starters!

As for the mythical level playing field - it remains mythical. The league title is held by the club with the highest revenue in the competition and the SL this year is likely to be won either by the club with the biggest fan base or the club with the richest owner. I ask again - how many clubs have won the title since the SC came in?

Where did I advocate reducing the number of clubs in the league? Actually I think the issue is not so much the number of clubs but whether we have the right clubs making the right contribution. So, for example, if I were in charge of the SL one of my top priorities would be to get a sustainable Toulouse side into SL.

simple.... have a 2 tier sl with 10 teams in each tier and have promotion and relegation. could have for example...

tier 1
wigan
leeds
saints
wire
catalan
hull
hull kr
brad
hudders
london

tier 2

salford
wakey
cas
featherstone
leigh
barrow
halifax
batley
widnes
sheffield

He said the same on the NRL Footy Show last week where he was a special guest

Is there any way of watching the footy show over here? Can you stream it or get it on Premier Sports? I love that program.

There are clips on YouTube.

For me we need to seriously reduce the imports in our game in order to improve the quality of our home grown players. Under Nobby at Wigan, Sam Tomkins was in the 20,s and not going any further ( in fact nearly on his way out ) because he thought he was not big enough. Tim Smith got injured and he had to bring him in to the team, the rest they say is h.......

There are too may overseas players + coaches in our game, a lot of young players never get the correct amount of game time in their strongest position because of this, I know results, results, results ! only matter and winning trophies because its a business. The demise started when teams like Wigan, Saints, etc went looking down under in the 80,s and don,t get me wrong I loved watching Kenny, Meninnga, Miles etc, and this trend has continued ever since.

The trade off is, our own lads never get the right chances and hence we never produce the correct amount of talent we should do. There is enough playing talent round the north west alone in RL to produce enough players if they are coached correctly and more importantly given the correct chances. ( over-rated Kiwi stand off playing for England instead of ? )

Its the same in the Premier league, too many foreign players and not enough home grown lads. How many non-Aussies play in the NRL ? not many, how many non Spanish play in their football league, not many.

If they had kept the overseas quota in and reduced it to 2 players years ago, there would be a lot more players like Tomkins knocking about in SL.

Imo this is the only way we can go forward in SL in order to improve our own league + chances of competing against the Aussies. I also think the player pool is not bigger enough yet to support 14 competative teams in SL

There are lots of urban myths regarding Nobby and Sam, a quick check of the teams listings up untill Smiths injury and Nobbys damascus moment shows that out of 21 games before smiths injury Sam started 9 and was sub in 6, so hardly rotting in the 20's

Sam was young and inexperienced, but an obvious talent, it needed protecting and nurturing, throwing him or any kid in at the deep end is a sure fire way of ruining a carreer.



whats the problem with overseas coaches? Mcguire turned us round, the last english coach to win the grand fibal was Mcdermott, but that seemed to be a Dorahay moment by Leeds rather than anything else, other than that its mainly aussies and new zelanders that coach well.




but does that talent have the attitude and dedication to become a full international player, as Monie always said out of a winning youth team you would be lucky if 4 went on to become fully established pros.

you refer to the NRL, they are not embarrased to have other nationalities play for them, Tony Carroll springs to mind, isnt Petro Civenaciva(sp) a south sea islander?



couldnt comment on football, but shall we ignore the New zealanders, tongans and other south sea islanders plus a handfull of brits who ply their trade in the NRL?




if we had reduced the quota where would these players have magically appeared from? the game is littered with kids who had a talent or natural size advantage and looked like world beaters at an early age, but either get disillusioned with the game or stop developing, for every Sam Tomkins, there are a a dozen Darryl Laceys.

I normally avoid posting in this way, but the problem isnt too many overeseas players, its too many clubs in SL chasing too few players and spectators, there are too many blow out games with one sided score lines, before we can address the problems with the national side, we need to make the weekly rounds more competative, this can only be done with 10 teams!

It doesn't matter how many times Eddie Hemmings spouts this on Sky it's NOT TRUE!

Well we agree on one thing that there are too many teams..... I never suggested that Sam was rotting in the 20,s. I am a great believer in the saying " if your good enough your old enough " I do not believe Sam was being protected, and his older brother was defo not being protected, there were held back in the 20,s because at the time there was imo over rated players playing in the same positions.

Why do they get disillusioned ? You only need to look at the way Wigan are now progressing with lads who have come up through the system, MM, Precky,Sam,Hock,Tuson,Mossop,Goulding, Charnley etc, compared with other clubs who look overseas to fill all the key positions. If piggy had stayed, would MM be playing 1st team now ? I,m not saying we will produce another 20 Sam Tomkins but there would be a hell of a lot more quality young British players.

Why is it over the years that we have continued to beat the Aussies at youth level, but fail at test level ? imo its because over there, and yes they have a more competitive league, but alot of them lads progress to play 1st grade quicker. Over here how long does at lad in his 20,s have to wait to get a 1st team chance, unless they are exceptional.

In my view these English players would have come to the top because they would have been coached correctly and then play the correct level in order to develop them in to, perhaps not superstars but good quality internationals.

As for coaches, yes MM was very good for Wigan I 100% agree. However how many Aussie assistance coaches have failed over here ? alot. If we go on to win 3 trophies this year do you think SW would have MM to thank for his schooling and ultimately his success ? I would suggest that if you asked him, he would say he learned a lot from him but also MM learnt a lot from him in aspects of the game.

It doesn't matter what Ellery thinks about the standard of the SL competition because Craig Sandercock begs to differ.



[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/12/06/19/RUGBYL_Sandercock.html&BID=480[/url

To save anyone reading the article, here's the crux of his argument.

"I've been very impressed to tell the truth, it's possibly better than I thought it would be."

"Possibly better"?? Maybe the RFL need someone else to do their positive PR spin. I hear Shaun McCrae's available.

its dificult with Joel, he was a forward and a much bigger frame than Sam, and a better athelete, so he was physically ready before sam was, but the point still holds about the myth of nobby and sam, as someone else has posted, its a myth created by wiggy.

yes at the moment the wigan team is full of home produced players, and we are and should be proud, but the it has taken 6 or 7 years to get to this stage, hock made his debut in 2003, lockers 2002, mixed in with players who have broken through in the last 2 years, but we dont have an english half or stand off, we have a couple of outstanding prospects, but robinson and brown were suposed to be our half back pairing for years to come, now robinson is a hooker at shuddersfield and brown is really journryman who peaked in a televised game against the old enemy, its difficult to predict how a player will develop.

we do beat the aussies at youth level, which suggests the skills are there, but look the progression from u16, our players go on to u18's and u20's where some clubs cant raise a team and games get cancelled, the aussies progress to the bartercard league to learn and hone thier skills, again 2 few players or 2 many clubs in the uk which ever way you look at it, this needs addressing there needs to be a set development ladder, that may be loaning young players out at NL level but the current set up is not fit for purpose. at the end of the day there are only 17 first team shirts available every week and its a balancing act who to play in those shirts for both short and long term success, if the supporting structures are correct and players are plying at a higher intensity even in the u18's the first team will benefit.

you are right about SW, but it will have been a two way street, he will have learned a lot from MM.

Yes and yes.

Like so many others, you ignore the 2008 season, when he was completely ignored after scoring 5 tries on debut, so it's 40 games, not 21. Smith should never have got back in, after being dropped after the Quins game, when we'd lost our first three games and were losing to Quins before the substitution.

Bilko is always pretty fair with his match reports, here's what he wrote at the time:

Quins game:



Bradford game:



Practically everyone apart from Nobby could see, even in 2008, that Sam was better than Tim Smith.

Those quotes are from 2009. In 2008 Sam scored 5 against an awful whitehaven team. 2009 was the perfect time for him IMO. It was just a shame that he didn't start every game from the start of 2009. We could have finished much higher that year.

I remember his performance away at Cas to seal our play-off spot. He was already one of the best and most skilled players in the league. He is now the very best!

I agree the RFL + SL need to do something about making the 18 comp a lot more competitive in order to improve the quality of the players. Imo it should be a joint effort to stop the major top 4-5 sides swamping the talent at 16-18,s and the rest going to the lower not fancied teams. This leads to a lob sided comp with the top teams smashing all before them.

Perhaps the RFL could help fund the SL teams wages at this age group and defo not include them in the SC , this way they could try and create a more even playing field with lads feeling the don,t have to go to Wigan, Saints, etc at the expense of your Salfords, and Widnes. I know the odd superstar will always get the the main clubs into a dutch auction for their signature and that could be looked at. This could lead to a very competitive comp which only can improve them as players and therefore SL + GB.

I still maintain that if we look back over 10 years of SL + 10 years before SL, most teams would have fielded 2 or more overseas players in the spine of their team, imo this had lead to the decline of us producing top quality 1,6,7 +9,s. These players that were showing promise have either got p..... off waiting and moved to lower club for 1st team rugby or become journey men as you stated.

Reducing the comp to 10 teams would help, but if these teams are still full of "overseas journey men" or lads trying resurrect their career over here, then our talent coming through will end up playing in the lower tiers of the comp. This will only lead imo to more Aussie domination at test level.

Am I alone in thinking that the problem is not totally with SL? For me the quality of competition in the Championship is not strong enough - this should be a proving ground for young players - how many in the last five seasons have made the switch up to SL level? Barely a handful if that. Most of the teams in this league are filled with journeymen / 2nd rate imports and over the hill players.

Perhaps there is a case for having either SL clubs fielding a 2nd team in the lower levels of the game or having feeder/tie-in with teams below SL level to encourage player development. With a formal arrangement between clubs this would open up the possibility of shared training/development and player exchanges/loans.

Whilst there are many positives in the game what is needed is a thorough look at the structure of the game from reserve/U18 right through to SL level to try and produce a more structured/cohesive game. Of course this is never going to happen.

Just reduce the size of SL, that will move players down and raise the standard of the Championship, or am i being too simplistic? That would also give you a more intense SL.

Your all asking for a smaller league, dont bite my head off, but what about a bigger league?

You're all saying that clubs like widnes, cas and wakey are embarrasments, but yet all 3 of them have either beat, or run a big club close this season. If we could put 2/4 more clubs of that strength there, surly it would give more room for huge upsets, more teams for young players to break through and more competition at the bottom of the table.

ATM, the poorer clubs have about 4/6 games a season which they look at a possible win with a few upsets in there. If there was a few more clubs there, that could be doubled into 12 games they were looking for a win.

With this, surly more supporters would be attracted to these games which would increase income and popularity of the game.

But hey, thats just me, fire away

Its the money thats available that the problem. just not enough of it.

Just google NRL footy show then go on the video tab. They have the highlights of each weeks programmes