I agree it's not ideal, but none of the alternatives are either.

The alternatives are:
- As we are - England's top players continue to play 10-15% more games than Australia's (in the last 10 years Sinfield has played more than an entire season extra than Cameron Smith).
- A reduction in games - less money for clubs, less TV money, less money overall.

I understand the point and in a way agree with it. In an ideal world I'd want a straight 22-game season. But I don't think the clubs can manage on that.

A few comparisons of amount of home games:
- Say a straight 22-game season with top 6 playoff system and the Challenge Cup = min 11, max 15
- Current system = min 14, max 18
- Aviva Premiership clubs = min 16, max 21
- Premier League clubs = min 19, max 33

A point I always find that gets overlooked when comparing the teams, especially in contests like these is the differences in salary caps. With the difference in what the NRL teams are allowed to spend it shouldn't be a shock if the teams who finish bottom in the NRL can beat or run close the top teams in superleague. They are allowed to spend more on their squads so it's surely no surprise they can have more players of higher quality within their teams? We're immediately on the backfoot with contests like these.

Absolutely. Take the islanders out of the NRL and there is a significant drop off in physicality. It's another advantage they have when you compare their talent pool includes a good amount of massive islanders and ours includes a good amount of skinny kids from council estates.


OT but I wonder, with the NRL's seemingly ever-increasing TV revenue, whether some of the NRL's money could go toward establishing some kind of Pacific Island League to try and increase the standard of the clubs there without having to get them up to the standard required in order to enter the NRL. A couple of clubs in each of PNG, Fiji, Samoa & Tonga? Sort of like Super 15's but for the Pacific Island nations rather than Aus/NZ/SA

Because there's no incentive for the NRL to give Islander kids a reason not to come to Australia.

To be fair, most of the islanders whom get signed up by the NRL are already based in Australia or were born there.