Quote ="Seventies red"Ah yes what a great film, although it was produced by the same people who made the Sinbad films it was actualy Jason and the Argonauts that you refer to with the skeleton scene, www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4187095321/ Jason and the Argonauts'" Hopeless me, even get it wrong when it's stuff I like! I watched it quite recently as well. They appeared in a couple of the Jason and the Argonauts films didn't they? Edit: Surprise surprise, wrong again! Looks like there was only one Jason and the Argonauts film. It's only four queens on Amazon, don't think it would be the same if I could watch it whenever, it's best stumbled across on a wet Bank Holiday weekends. Best stop this now, Anakin will get cross.

Quote ="Seventies red"Ah yes what a great film, although it was produced by the same people who made the Sinbad films it was actualy Jason and the Argonauts that you refer to with the skeleton scene, www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4187095321/ Jason and the Argonauts'" Hopeless me, even get it wrong when it's stuff I like! I watched it quite recently as well. They appeared in a couple of the Jason and the Argonauts films didn't they? Edit: Surprise surprise, wrong again! Looks like there was only one Jason and the Argonauts film. It's only four queens on Amazon, don't think it would be the same if I could watch it whenever, it's best stumbled across on a wet Bank Holiday weekends. Best stop this now, Anakin will get cross.

Quote ="Sandra The Terrorist"Hopeless me, even get it wrong when it's stuff I like! I watched it quite recently as well. They appeared in a couple of the Jason and the Argonauts films didn't they?'" The actor was Todd Armstrong, im not sure about the actress, the film was shot mostly on location in Italy, on the other hand i believe most of the Sinbad films where made on location in Spain and Greece, including Rhodes. blackholereviews.blogspot.com/20 ... nauts.html

Quote ="Sandra The Terrorist"Hopeless me, even get it wrong when it's stuff I like! I watched it quite recently as well. They appeared in a couple of the Jason and the Argonauts films didn't they?'" The actor was Todd Armstrong, im not sure about the actress, the film was shot mostly on location in Italy, on the other hand i believe most of the Sinbad films where made on location in Spain and Greece, including Rhodes. blackholereviews.blogspot.com/20 ... nauts.html

Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/

Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/

Quote ="roopy"Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/'" He is huge

Quote ="roopy"Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/'" He is huge

What are are you refe....

erm no i'd better not ask.

Wow, everyone search google images for Sinbad Kali Topless, how does he cover those norks up?

Quote ="roopy"Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/'" you are starting to sound a bit gay now

Quote ="roopy"Sinbad this year - the guy is as cut as any 112kg player i've ever seen. www.flickr.com/photos/28990363@N05/5544658478/'" you are starting to sound a bit gay now

I'd like to look like him, but i think that might involve spending half my life in a gym and eating nothing but raw eggs and tofu.

id leave it now or you might explode

Glad I'm not the only 1 that was thinking that



The thing is size isn't everything, afterall David Mills is even bigger & Hutch Maiava is roughly the same size.

Amazing that there are all of these brilliant players sat around in the reserve grades when half of the overseas players with 100+ NRL apps come over here and are no better than the players we have already.

Shame that the aussies can't churn out cricketers like they allegedly can RL players

Just maths innit?

There are outstanding, good and ordinary players both here and in Australia. And in similar proportions, looking at the right hand ends of normal distributions. The absolute numbers though are (crucially) different.

Let's say that England has a dozen 'outstanding players' at any one time. Players that wouldn't look out of place in State of Origin. Not quite enough for one a team in SL (especially with the likes of S. Burgess, J. Graham and G. Ellis heading over there), or to fill out an International XVII. Also they tend to be forwards, leaving us short in the backs.
Australia, I'd guesstimate for these purposes has 50.

Let's now say that for every outstanding player there are 10 good players.
That's 120 Englishmen and 500 Australians.
Just over nine Englishmen for each English SL club, meaning that the 17 man team and 25 man squads have to be filled out with ordinary players.
The Aussies have more than 30 good players per NRL team (though the NRL is expanding, of course), which is a surfeit. So good Antipodeans come over here and take the place of ordinary Englishmen in SL squads.
The numbers I've used for illustration are arguable, but the principle is sound, I reckon.
Now you get the occasional spectacular Aussie failure, but mostly they come across and do a good job - which is why there is always demand in the market.
Coaches who choose what you might call 'average Aussies' over 'promising Brits', do so for similar reasons that I'd choose a [ismall[/i pile of banknotes over a [ibig[/i bag of coppers. You're judging the groups by different standards, when the only one that matters to a coach is what they offer the team.

The reasons for this disparity are, I suspect, to do with coaching, sporting culture and, most important, junior player numbers.
There is nothing amazing about the situation. As the NRL gets richer and bigger, a new balance will develop. And England will most likely still only have a dozen outstanding players - because quotas don't make junior coaches better or get more kids playing the game.

I think we don't target kids from other sports, particularly Association Football enough.

All Premiership, Championship and the majority of League 1 and 2 clubs run extensive academies.

The drop out rate from these are huge.

Often these kids are lost to sport completely when they're cut at sixteen. Now these kids will understandably be talented sports men who can run and jump, have good hand eye coordination and will often have many transferable skills.

Many of these type of kids would have played Rugby League in previous generations but the lure and glamour of football is rammed down their throats from a very young age and so that becomes their first choice.

All very good but my point is that roopy claims there are players in reserve grade in the NRL who would "rip it up" when there are plenty of regular 1st graders come over and don't "rip it up". Now the aussies may have plenty of good players but surely the best ones play in the 1st grade?

Great point. People whinge about us losing the odd player to onion but then completely ignore the 100's (possibly even 1000's) who choose football over rugby in the 1st place.

There are 3 kids who play for the same team as my lad who don't play if their games clash with their football teams games

That's more to do with the Australian attitude towards SL, they think it's .

The Aussies think anything "Pommie" is poop.

'Rip it up' might be pushing it, I agree. Aussies use generous euphemisms though. 'Average' actually means 'cack' there. Maybe 'rip it up', would be 'does awright fer a fat lad' in Hull.



edit - mind you, what does 'poop' mean then?



2nd edit - is it time to admit it...

[urlhttp://www.cfl.ca/[/url

'This is our league' is the CFL motto. Like it's rubbish, but it's [iour [/irubbish.

Here's a tip - if a guy has played 100 NRL games and can't get another NRL contract, it's because he is finished.

Watching ESL games, you constantly see players you thought were finished 3, 4 or even 5 years ago running around still.

That's what's wrong with the ESL - it's full of old has beens who drag down the standard of the comp.

The under 20s comp in Australia has been going for four years, and each year it turns out more and more players who have trained as near fulltime pros for a few years, and only about 50 of around 200 players who turn 20 each year get a senior contract.

I reckon that leaves up to another 50 who could slip right into an ESL side, and a good percentage of them could improve to be stars of the game.

The system you use of signing guys who are finished as players of NRL standard is what is dragging your comp down. If you wanted to change the system, you could find any number of young and talented players in Australia who are the equal of guys like Dobson and Dureau, but you could just train up your own guys. Over-the-hill players is the problem.

Or we could use players from our own U20's comp?

We have had some real success with these so called 'over the hill' players e.g. Galea, turned out to be one hell of an all round player. TBF we dont really know what we are going to get when we bring players over if thats young, experienced or palyers with a massive amount of honours. Just compare players like Berrigan and Vowles!

To a lessor degree, it's the same in the NRL. You never know if a 'mercenary' will be any good.
One rule is never buy a player from Melbourne - they will always go backwards rapidly.
Up till now you can always buy players from Newcastle because they just about always kick on to be better players after leaving us (Kade Snowden, George Carmont, Scott Dureau, Luke Walsh, Greg Bird, Clint Newton - nearly everyone we release gets better), but i'm thinking that will change now that we will be the best trained and resourced team.

Other good teams to buy players from are Saints, Penrith, Warriors and Brisbane - all the sides that produce far more juniors than they can use. The worst to buy players from are Melbourne, Roosters, Manly etc - the mercenary clubs - they only release crap.

There are also a few old average NRL palyers who are poor in SL and then go back and get a game in first grade.

Again you don't know enough about SL to coment about it's standard, there are a few Sl teams that would beat Newcastle IMO, but your saying players that can't get into the Newcastle team will "rip it up" it SL.

I'm glad your not in charge of recruitmrnt for my team as you you would have us signing players of the calibre of Ah Van and Herbert.

I'm sure roopy that we signed Clinton from storm I'm probably wrong I normally am, so if we can get these two players on board for next season u reckon
They can rip up super league for us, I really like sandercock to seems to have his head screwed on and knows what he's on about hopefully exciting times ahead for us.

You mean like Clint Newton?