This is the most competitive SL ever. We will beat tha Aussies at the end of the season. Simple.

Another example of what a fantastic league this is! Boring is an understatement.

Your right!

Eddie & Stevo told us so!

Did you see the HYPE before the France Match!!!!!!! it was amazing!!!!!

Phil Clarke was almost cringing with embarrassment after the game when Eddie & O'Connor were Bigging up that performance!!!!!





























God forbid we had to go Down Under and play & 12/15 game tour like we used to!

Just imagine how "Tired" and fatigued the players of SDL! would be then!

I mean they already play about 32/34 matches in a season now whilst getting substituted 4 times a game!!!!!!!!

I don't know how it's possible when they are so fit & strong & more proffesional than they used to be!

So you prefer the old days?

Not at all. I’m perfectly comfortable with my reasoning. It is you who appears to be leaking steam out of your joints.

No - it’s dead easy. Hit the quote button and bracket what you want to quote with [QU0TE[/UNQU0TE) – Replace the zeroes with O.


Not me, Guv. I have very little time for SKY’s coverage. Eddie is tolerable as a front man, but Stevo demonstrates all the tactical awareness of a liver. It’s harmful to the game because it spawns people who populate threads such as these spouting nonsense about how things were better in the Owwul’d day. If posters possess not so much as a smidgeon of tactical understanding how can they claim such?


The reason we have fallen behind is as I’ve posted earlier. Since the inception of SL the Australians have worked far harder than us at grass roots level. Consequently they produce a proportionally higher number of good players than they did ten years ago. The salary cap is not the problem. It’s the amount of raw materials the Aussies get to draw upon. But there are plenty of hugely talented kids coming through at the moment. Or are Mossop, Tomkins, Eastmond, Wheeler, Lomax, Lawrence et al as inferior as some in this thread appear to claim?


Gregory was part of a team that defeated Australia in Australia. So was Gareth Ellis. I’m struggling to see the apparent difference.


I interviewed Tallis and a number of other Kangaroos on the RLFANS press ticket. But I don’t get it – I’m supposed to think Betts is a world beater because an Australian Test international says he’s the mutt’s nuts, but when I offer the same evidence it’s tossed into the round filing cabinet like a page three calendar on chief exec inspection day. Weird.


Oh, come on! Senior might be agricultural, but he’s played some blinders for GB. Were you not at the JJB the night he tore down the left flank a number of times?


You must be joking.


What on earth are you smoking? Farrell was never a world class player in the early to mid 90s. He had ONE decent series against Australia. His last.

If you’re seriously claiming Graham and Burgess aren’t world class players there’s no point debating with you. I just wish you’d told me you are nuts at the start of this post so I could have saved the effort.

Wouldn't you like to know, sweet cheeks.

Super League is getting better and better, standards are going through the roof.

The competition is now truly equal, the salary cap has ensured that any team can beat any other.

Have you got your tickets for the Saints / Leeds Grand Final yet?

That is exactly the point, and one which the pro CC lot never answer.

And now Iv'e figured out that your just a Think's he knows it all I won't waste my time either!

I think Graham & Burgess are Very Good/ Excellent SL Players, I think bith have much to prove against the Very Best at international level before we call them "World Class"!

While i feel that i don't agree with all you say. Pro cap supporters don't really make any good cases in its support... the bigger clubs are running to the max...and the smaller clubs making do with what they can pick up from the bigger clubs. would be the same with or without the cap...

Nothing more needs to be added, to even suggest that Wellens is superior to Radlinski you are clearly talking b*llocks. Temerity, indeed






Would you only judge a prop on the number of carries he makes at international level? Or a fullback on the number of successful catches? Or a SR on the number of tackles? No, you wouldn't. Maybe you should look at Connolly's club try-scoring record...

Which ever way you look at it RL hasn't made the significant increases on and off the pitch that it needs to.

Were defiantly not any closer to a test series win than we were before and many are arguing were actually further behind. The fitness levels of the players have greatly increased and we have a better marketed comp but have the skill levels increased as much as they should have done? Have we yet to produce a GB player to rival Hanley, Edwards, Offiah or Robinson? Not imo

The most worrying aspect should be when we look at the gains other sports have made in the past ten years.

Football has increased its popularity world wide and now easily reaches homes in Asia and the middle east. The players it’s producing like Kaka, Ronaldo, Rooney, Gerrard, Torres etc are just as good if not better than the players that have come before them. The game has risen to new levels in the past decade.

Rugby union sadly for us tho has made the greatest advancement in the past decade. Players are now as equally as fit as those in RL and some are just as skill full. It’s had the vision to look at sports such as RL, football and the NFL and use the best out of each bit to improve with new coaches, set ups, playoffs, marketing, organisations and international setups.

It’s got a very strong international game where games are close and not as predictable as say England vs Aus in RL. There is no doubt that RU is a much more skill full, faster and popular game than it was a decade ago and what’s really scary is it still got a long, long way to go as well. RU in another ten years time will, imo, be as far away from what we see today as today’s game is away from the amateur set up a few years back. Can we say the same about RL?

If RL doesn’t soon start to make significant advances it may well be far too late for it to make the major impact that it deserves.

boring to watch these days, and ive watched since bostons era.

i know they have brought in rules to cut out dirty play and safeguard players, but thats whats missing in my opinion.

there used to be nothing like a good punch up to get the crowd and team fired up ......hardly ever see it these days.

Did you know there are less than 80 professional rugby union players in Australia? Did you also know that there is no national rugby union league competition in Australia?

Whats your point?

They have a super 14 team which included 5 NZ teams and 5 SA teams? RL has one comp with 15 aussie teams and 1 NZ team maybe if it was spread around a little we may not have such a weak international game.

The super 14 league gives way to a tri nations comp which is far, far more competitive than than any RL international comp.

Are you honestly trying to say that RU hasn’t made larger strides over the past 10 years than RL?

I agree.

Nobody likes cheap shots but you really cannot beat a good scrap. The Saints v Leeds game at the start of the year was a good example of a game that made the hairs on the back of your neck because of the tension the scraps and big hits caused.

A good scrap makes it spicey and games are miles better when there has been a scrap in them as it raises the team and the intensity. See GB v Aus after Mason eathered Fielden, that game started off dull as dish water and after that fight it galvonised the team and they went on to win. Its referees spoiling it, its worse in the NRL though, Moi moi and Dane Laurie were going at each other hell for leather but nothing dirty just big hits and that and the referee kept getting involved teling them to pack it in WTF?

Don't get me started on refs!

I was just mentioning the number of players playing the game in Australia. RU isn't quite in the brilliant state that you're suggesting that's all. It's had a stronger international game than ours for years.



I don't really want to turn this into a discussion about RU but it depends on what you mean by larger strides. Isn't the professional club scene dying out in Wales and Scotland? Aren't English RU clubs struggling to keep hold of their players because of the higher spending power of the French RU? ([url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/dec/09/rugby-premiership-salary-capRU and the salary cap[/url). Has their club and grass roots scene grown as much as Super League over the past ten years? How many new clubs have sprung up during that time? Hasn't our Summer Conference been a success? Would that have happened without Super League?

From what I see the best bits of their growth have come from them having more countries playing the game e.g. the European Cup thing. I don't think you can point at Super League and say it's not grown as much as the British RU club scene. We've done exceptionally well with the resources we have. If Super League had as much money in it as RU I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest we'd have done a lot more. Look at our club games attendances compared to what they were. Look at the new grounds we've got. Look at our Grand Final. There's a lot to be very proud of about our sport and this constant knocking of the sport is traditional in RL even when we do make great progress e.g. the snipes towards Celtic, Harlequins RL and Catalan Dragons.

Totally agree.

That's not really relevant to the point that was being made though, was it? I could quite easily point to the fact that 2 weeks ago, over 40,000 people turned out to a meaningless RU international... in the North West of England. Is that indicative of RU making the greatest advancement relative to other sports? Possibly. Not that I'm happy with that, at all.

Edited for accuracy

Whilst I agree with most of your points I think the one biggest thing that the Union world has done is to virtually takeover the term "Rugby" in so much that it is almost a patented term for them these days.
Nowadays when anybody be it the media or the public ringing in to national talk shows (eg Talksport) refer to Rugby do they distinguish it by using the Union or League monikers.

The RL world has failed to do anything about this.

Astonishing.

That would be the RU club scene that sees Zurich premiership average attendances exceeding SL, would it?

There are some truly ludicrous posts on this thread from Saints/pro-CC people.

If anyone reading this thread has any doubt about which side of the debate is sensible and rational, just consider for a moment the following ridiculous claims made by pro-CC people in a desperate bid to convince us (I wonder at times if they're desperately trying to convince THEMSELVES

):

1. The Saints 1996 double-winning squad largely consisted of players who were "garbage" and wouldn't now get a game in NL1.

2. Paul Wellens was/is a better player than Jonathan Davies was. (Some of this stuff is actually difficult to type, its just SO wrong!

)

3. Jason Robinson only looked good against semi-pro defences.

4. Vila Matautia - fourth choice Saints centre in 1996 - proves that squads were much weaker back then compared with today.

5. SL is in great shape and doing better than club RU in Britain.

6. We should be looking forward to the Four Nations, England is closer to the Aussies now than the early-mid 90s.

This is just a selection, anyone who wants to do some digging will find other bizarre arguments being advanced by the desperate Saints supporting pro-CC camp.

It was hilarious yesterday on Sky.

Eddie: "It's sad to see a young man aged 22 leaving our code"

Steve: "Something must be done......."

Barrie Mac: "It's the Salary Cap"

He then obviously got a dig from someone.

"er it evens up the competition............"


Utter shambles.