And its great to see a (mostly) constructive discussion. To me, as things stand it will be harder for Wigan to go backwards than to progress. Certainly when you look at their opposition, Leeds are certainly entering a re-building stage. Warrington are an ageing team and will be going through transition although they too have a great youth system. Saints and Huddersfield will have new coaches so may take time to adapt to new systems etc. It looks as though Hull and Rovers are going to have a massive turn-over of players now that our new coaches have had a good look at their respective squads so that is going to take time to bed in.
When you take all of that into account on top of the young players that are bursting onto the scene at Wigan and the masses of salary cap that they have spare then i would just hand them the 2013 title now.
(Rovers to win the Challenge Cup though Mrs B).

Maybe the rest of SL teams will finally wake up and start really investing in it's Academy's now. The need for teams to produce their own English/French stars is now paramount.

I still think the overall quality of the competition will be diluted in the next couple of years as Leuleuais (Tommy and Kylie), Finch, Brett Hodgson, Menzies, Morley etc depart and are replaced by younger British players with a lack of genuine homegrown talent.

100% correct. To be fair to Hull and Rovers they do seem to be making the effort and Academy/Scholarship results have been encouraging but it is a long term and costly project hence i think the plans to join forces at junior level.

And hopefully good for the international game too

The Effort isn't good enough and Both clubs are way off the player amounts they should be producing imo. SL clubs should have been chucking money into the kids long ago rather than wasting their money on NRL quick fixes.

Perhaps, but maybe we may find that Ratchford is better than Hodgson, Bowden better than Moa, Green better than Clinton, Jones better than Meli, Russell better than Roberts etc..

Brett Hodgson won MOS. Moa can get a gig in the NRL, I like Bowden a lot but will he ever break tackles like Moa does? Would guess more than likely not. Not seen enough of Green and Clinton to compare. You're wilfully missing the point here. The best players in our competition over the last few years have either been the highest paid overseas ones (Hodgson, Monaghan etc) or British players capable of an NRL contract like Graham and Burgess. Even if you say we can replace the more mediocre overseas players with young British players, which I don't necessarily disagree with, the fact remains that the Leuleuias, Morleys and Finches of this world, ie players who would have played here but are good enough to earn a lot more in the NRL, will be lost to SL. We will see more British players getting SL deals, a good thing, but taking out the top slice of players will reduce the overall standard of RL being played.

You do realise Morley's English, don't you? Just that's twice he's been in your list of players lost to the NRL.

Yes, my point is that he was a player good enough to go play in Aus but came back with a few years left to a comparable wage. Things have moved on now, the gap is wider and I think he'd have been more likely to stay over there had there been the current differential. Not only will Aussie players be less likely to come here, the top Brits will find it more attractive to go there, diluting the quality of our competition overall.

Ah right. Don't care really, we already watch an inferior league and our players will improve playing in the NRL which will help our national team. Slight dilution, while lowering the quality won't stop the excitement.

It was always going to come though , I can see the SL been reduced in the not to distant future .

I agree and I think the only viable solution to this would be for the RFL to seriously consider going down to at least 12 teams in SL...although I suppose it's easy for the likes of us (Saints) and yourselves to say as we are more than likely guaranteed to be safe.

With less of average overseas players clogging up the league we'll be able to keep hold of our young players who go to union.

Aston, Tomkins, Eastmond, Smith, Walker, Myler, Farrell would have never left the game.

That's short-termism and an admission of defeat. If the Aussies had thought that way in the 1970s, we'd still be beating them at test level and most likely playing boring rugby.

The solution is not to reduce the number of elite clubs, it is to expand the pool of players to select from and nurture them into elite players

Came here looking for some rumours, must have taken a wrong turn.

Any truthin the rumour that we have signed a dobbins player on a 2 yr deal , ? Poss lovegrove

Haven't Hull just pumped a large smn of money into the youth development centre at Sirius, the first of it's kind? We are moving un the right direction, it will just take a few years to see the rewards. If only the past clowns had done this we could be reaping those rewards right now.

Dissapointing about Finch, I expect Gentle to make the right appointment.

In the star it says cass are following up the signing of shenton and going after ukuma ta'ai , jake webster - jamie ellis and cronulla scrum half jeff robson .. And are having a major boardroom shake up . Does that mean rangi chase could be on his way ?

He is on his way...to Wigan

We won't be signing Chase. I'd be surprised to see him leave Cas.

I just said the same thing on the cass forum , heard a while ago that rob burrow possibly going to wigan

I don't think any of the top 4 will be better next year than this.

Agreed, it's why I keep saying that we may not necessarily need to replace all of our outgoings with better players to relatively make progress.

So will we, but the problem is the sheer lack of top quality players obtainable. Also, after this year, I would have thought several players will be looking for improved deals.