Tbh even attempting to compare Wellens to Davies is embarassing.


It's like comparing a Ford Focus to an Aston Martin.

HOW CAN SUPER LEAGUE BE SUPER WHEN WIGAN ARE NOT TOP OF THE LEAGUE

What's the point debating? Most of the best players of that era played for Wigan and you'll never admit the superiority of a non-Wigan player.

Out of interest I dug up a list of some (not all) of the players selected for GB squads from 1985 to 1995:

Mark Forster
Joe Lydon
Keith England
Kevin Beardmore
Paul Groves
Roy Haggerty
Paul Medley
Mike Gregory
Steve Hampson
Ellery Hanley
Tony Marchant
John Fieldhouse
Neil James
Kevin Rayne
Andy Goodway
Ian Potter
David Laws
David Plange
Phil Ford
Paul Loughlin
David Hulme
Roy Powell
Hugh Waddell
Paul Hulme
Kevin Ward
Paul Dixon
Andy Platt
Martin Offiah
Andy Currier
Paul Newlove
Peter Williams
Kelvin Skerrett
Alan Tait
Darren Wright
Chris Johnson
Shaun Edwards
Barrie Ledger
David Creasser
Vince Gribbin
Deryck Fox
Harry Pinner
Andy Dannatt
Roy Dickinson
Shaun Wane
Nicky Kiss
Gary Divorty
Chris Johnson
Chris Bibb
Gerald Cordle
Jonathan Davies
Paul Eastwood
Carl Gibson
Daryl Powell
Gary Schofield
Graham Steadman
Bobby Goulding
Karl Harrison
Martin Dermott
Lee Jackson
Denis Betts
Karl Fairbank
Richie Eyres
Les Holliday
Paul Moriarty
Michael Jackson
Anthony Sullivan
Ian Lucas
Billy McGinty
Phil Clarke
Allan Hunte
Allan Bateman
Gary Connolly
Andy Farrell
Chris Joynt
Sonny Nickle
John Devereux
Jason Robinson
Barrie McDermott
Henderson Gill
Ronnie Duane
Tony Myler
Alan Rathbone
Mike O'Neill
John Woods
Des Drummond
Lee Crooks
Bob Eccles
Ian Potter
David Stephenson
Andy Gregory

Whilst there are some excellent players listed, there's a huge number of (and I'm being kind here) .... average players. Some of the names listed I literally did a double-take on. Certainly not a halcyon period of RL talent as people seem to be suggesting in this thread.

im not trolling here but its because players have progressed and got better obviosuly some names like Offiah Hanley Woods would still make it if they were in their prime at this level but the game has moved on a lot and its better to watch now than in the past IMO

Mugwumps list is excellent and does highlight average players.
A number of quality players did play for Wigan in that time but there are plenty International class players that never played in cherry & white.
Kevin Ward, props never came any better than him.
Anthony Sullivan would be an automatic choice for GB now.
I always though Deryk Fox was a good 7 and he played for Featherstone.
Alan Tait IMO is still one of the best full backs ever to play the game.
Excluding the Wigan players I'll bet there's a very good GB side in there.

What also convinces me that the standards have dropped is when the RFL launched SL in 2008 they said they were to continue the "Successful" policy of levelling. No mentioned of raising standards or improving our International competitiveness.
The salary cap has been static from the outset, at one point it was reduced from £2m to £1.8m Even at 2% rate of inflation each year it will have lost over 25% of its purchasing power. That is a reduction in standards.
It must be an RFL/SL thing whereby the SC here has been a disaster and in Australia a remarkable success.
As mentioned before, I still believe that the SC should be abolished and clubs made to make an after tax profit. Points deduction for a financial loss. That way clubs can invest how much they like where they like as long as they make a profit.
That way businesses will be developed and monies invested in where the particular clubs deem it necessary.

Finally.

So you picked some, not all


Not a great deal of point in that then is there?

Why don't you do what's previously been suggested and look at the 95 World Cup England squad or the 92 touring squad????

Why not look at the players available between those periods and then compare it to the options we have available today?????

And All I seem to hear is that the 2006-2009 forwards would Batter their predeccessors!
Not if they had to play 60mins with only 4 x substitutions per team they wouldn't!

True - Davies was a different class to Wellens, no doubt.

Double post

Why not look at the 2000 world cup squad which was also pre cap?

The drop in standards has nothing to do with the cap, the drop between the 92/95 teams and the 2000 teams happened with no cap in place. Much of the drop in standards in that period is down to us no longer being able to poach the likes of Davies, Gibbs, Offiah, Devereux, Tait etc from union (and this is nothing to do with the cap, it is due to RU now being openly professional so players have no need to move away from a sport with more exposure and a better international scene. Not to mention the likes of Leicester generate more cash than any British RL team anyway. However much money RL can find, RU can find more).

The standards of GB rugby is, and always has been, about youth development.

If you think I'm sitting up all night typing out names for a bunch of pie eaters who'd rather swear black is white than admit players weren't Olympian gods back in the 80s and 90s you are sadly mistaken.

In any case, it makes no difference. As things stand most of the best players of that era are included in the list. It's the (ton of) dross that I've skipped.



You mean those squads that trounced Australia? No, I don't remember any of those.

Has it ever occurred to you that there were plenty of average players turning out for the cherry and white?



Sully was a good attacking winger who had as many limitations to his game as any current international winger. He was poor under the high ball (he had nervous hands in general), wasn't a great defender and was useless at taking the workload off his forwards.



He was rubbish. I remember him playing in the World Cup under Larder where he was a bloody embarrassment. The Aussies dropped better scrum halves from their reserves.



Alan TAIT? You mean the Alain Tait who couldn't tackle - THAT Alan Tait? He might have been good going forward but he was hopeless at the bare minimum standard - last ditch defence. Only in a competition so poor could he be a 'Great' player.



Do me a favour. That list is a who's who of mediocrity.

The 2008 squad that was thrashed in Melbourne does not compare to the one that beat the Aussies in 1992.
Best Wingman 1992 Offiah, 2008 Gardner
Halves in 92 Edwards, Gregory & Schofoeld. 08 Pryce, McGuire & Burrow.
Those are massive drops in quality of players.
As for the 13s 92 we had Clarke & Hanley, 08 Sinfield & Purham.
Hanley to Sinfield isn't a drop in stanards its falling off a cliff.

We do not have the quality players now that we used to have prior to SL and the SC. There are many reasons standards have dropped. Mainly management reasons. The RFL are useless.

If that were true, you could say the same thing about a certain Shaun Edwards. After all, he played in Wigan teams dotted with superstar players, in a league in which most of the teams were mediocre or worse, did very little at International level and played just one game for Balmain (I think) during his time for them.

In the all conquering 2006 season (arguably the most dominant team in Saints' history) Wellens was voted:

Man of Steel
Super League players' player of the year
Rugby league writers' player of the year

The following season, he was voted

Lance Todd winner
St Helens club's player of the year

All of these awards were won because he was the best performer out of all the talented Saints players that surrounded him. But obviously he only won these awards because he was surrounded with all the talented Saints players.

I have replied to that point elsewhere.



And the fact that you are defending players who you claimed "not to have seen much of" or "can't remember" is just laughable.



Whichever way you cut it, time will show that Wellens will go down as one of Saints legends.



They are totally different players with totally different skill sets. Both are/were top class full-backs and their collective and individual awards place them in the same bracket.



I'm not dreading the four nations at all. England *should* walk all over the other three nations. True, we do have a lack of quality backs at the moment, particularly in the three quarters but up front we can match the Aussies. That has always been GB/England problem though, hasn't it? We can never quite get a side that has enough quality in every position to challenge the Aussies - years ago it was the forwards who let us down, now it is the backs!

That's game, set and match methinks.

Your spot on!


He won all of those playing against a declining standard of RL Player!

If it hadn't declined he wouldn't have got anywhere Near any of them!

So do I. You can go now and take the rest of the KR crowd with you.

You summed it up lovely in the last sentence, thank you.

It's true, he was the best of all the players because all the other players were better than him

Wellens is good but still one of the most overated players ever. Briscoe has been better for 2 years now and should of been playing for England and GB.

Briscoe is average and isn't an international class player in a million years.

He is the best we have.

He is at the moment, hence he's been picked for England.