Quote: El Diablo "I think the issue with how many games our international players play becomes relevant if their international opponents play significantly fewer.
I recall a recent example in soccerball in Euro 2012, when we played Italy. Having had 2 (relatively old) central midfielders play virtually the whole tournament, they came up against Italy, who had more options, their players had less game time (and in many cases had played less over the season). People p!ssed and moaned that the English players should be fit enough to play. Which of course they were. The fatigue level was not such that they literally ground to a halt. But all that matters in that situation is the level of fatigue relative to your opponent.
In that particular situation it was a minor sub-plot, because England were garbage and Italy were much better anyway, but the example, I think, stands.
If (and I have no idea what the NRL workload is) our players played a longer season than their antipodean counterparts, that could well have a detrimental effect when they play them in the autumn. And it isn't as if we need any more mountains to climb is it?
At the moment, our top players (the ones who might well play all the play-offs, most rounds of the Challenge Cup and then some internationals) get a tiny off-season and play far too much rugby.
On top of that, a combination of the professional era producing bigger, stronger athletes and the 5 yard separation of old being raised to 10 have, over time, allowed the collisions involved in top-flight RL to be like hundreds of minor car crashes per game. Which is not healthy. More games equals more crashes, and I think the sport as a whole, in every country, needs to think hard about player welfare with that in mind.'"
Yep, I worked out for the World Cup how many games on average each squad for England, NZ and Australia had played in 2013 before the tournament started. I wish I could find the post again! But the England squad was the highest by a decent margin.
IIRC a SL player could play currently play 36 club games. 27 rounds, 4 playoffs, 5 cup games & 1 WCC. (Potentially 38 in new system). Compared to 31 for NRL players. 24 rounds, 4 playoffs & 3 State of Origin.
Over one season it's not much difference, but in my opinion it's the cumulative effect of regularly playing 10-20% more games per year.
It's not the only reason, not having reserves, having weaker squads etc play an important role in this too but the number of games is an issue in my opinion.
