It had no relevance whatsoever. An individual and a team sport.

I think this is more relevant point and pointing to the loss of individuals from SL. The style of the game nowadays is the biggest problem. So much placed on playing safe rugby, completing sets, wrestling tactics. You see it in football the likes of Chelsea, more quality in their squad than Leicester but who played the entertaining football and who just plays a grinding boring style? Bournemouth were a more interesting to team to watch last year than Man Utd who were mocked for their boring style....and the Premierships became more about 4-5-1 and keeping hold of the ball when it used to be 4-4-2 and let's attack end to end. SL has reached its own version of that.

In SL we have Wigan. Their style gets the job done most of the time and you can watch a Wigan performance and appreciate the way they went about winning a game but you wouldn't say it was entertaining. Saints who used to be called the entertainers are dull to watch and it's no coincidence that they've made the fewest errors in SL as they play a safe boring style.

If Sky said they'd show all the home matches of one team (like they do Catalans) next year and you had the choice of Wigan, Saints or Castleford who would you pick? Think most on here would say Cas because of their style yet you wouldn't say they had more quality in the squad than the others.

Ourselves we went from struggling to score points in 2013/2014 and being painful to watch with ball in hand to racking them up in 2015 and even getting plaudits from opposition fans for our entertaining style yet it was pretty much the same squad as those two previous years. The thing ourselves, Wigan and Saints will always feature heavily in Sky's schedule so that presents a problem if their styles are boring or they're having a shocker like we have this year.

It's all so subjective, But I think when people have a pre-conceived opinion then it can influence their view on what they see. When you have an idea that the quality is terrible every knock on and scruffy try simply re-inforces it, whereas the good aspects such as close games and tries scored against solid defences simply don't register because it's already decided in the mind that it's crap.

The teams you listed weren't playing against defences as well drilled week in week out, so of course there aren't going to be the number of harlem globe trotter tries we used to see. Unless you class a couple of passes out wide and the likes of Vinnie anderson darren albert, scott naylor et all running through gaps like the parting of the red sea as ''high quality''.

Alot of the NRL players that come over actually say it's more open and less focused on percentages, the lastest being segeyaro to have said this.

Do you remember when super league was a scoot-a-thon? Basically teams hitting the ground lightning fast play the ball, player scoots at broken defence then lobs it wide for a player to stroll through a big gap. Do you remember James Roby winning MoS one season for doing this 10 mins at end of each half?

Such awesome quality.

+1

If we are using this analogy then in my view up to about 2011/12 when the league started dropping in standard and has continued on that trend i would say you were getting probably 3/4 teams dipping under 10 seconds and the rest chewing dirt whereas i would say all the clubs are running close to the 10 second mark but not dipping under that barrier. We have gone from Olympic Standard to European Championship standards which although the race might be close and interesting to some, it is lacking the wow factor

It is, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't increased over the years. Also Segeyaro has joined a team that isn't as focused on that and is more prepared to take risks.



I do remember it and not one saying the quality was miles better previously. I think someone mentioned earlier, a lot of rose tinted glasses when looking back and after 5/10/15 years you only remember certain games and most of the bog standard ones you forget so your memories of those years are uneven whereas as this year you can still remember it all, good and bad.

I do think one position does sum up the change in style of SL and that's Loose Forward, we've gone from having the likes of Sinfield and Andy Farrell starting there as genuine ball playing 13's to this week having JJB and Lee Mossop starting there as extra forwards there to be a tackle bag.

I take your point. Its a matter of Opinion and i respect yours if you are happy with how SL is right now and the fare on offer then all good.

Anyone miss shoulder charges and big hits that shook the stadium?

But the question was and my answer is yes, we judge it on the players they had and how they performed at their best. The parallel i was drawing was that the games against the lesser lights were 'the heats' Which you just try and get through, and the games against the other big sides are the finals, the times when you have to perform.

For me there are some key indicators that would pretty much prove that there is a declining standard and that this year especially has been very poor

If you ask any wigan fan (who isn't deluded), they would say they are playing much worse this year than last, yet have more points at this stage in the season and are still in the cup, proving the standard this year at the top end is certainly lower
Whilst it is good that the standard at the bottom end of the table may have increased, it is the games between the best teams that neutral or casual fans are most bothered about, and which should attract the biggest TV audience, and they have gotten markedly worse
The reason the premier league attracts so much money is the games between the big teams are full of pace and quality, not because of Sunderland vs West Brom

Also in terms of a long term decrease in standard in the last 5-10 years:
Can anyone see someone signing a regular origin player, let alone a captain, as we did with Buderus 7 years ago
SL teams used to regularly win the world club challenge, and the top SL teams looked like they could mix it in the NRL, now they can't even come close

Some of the worst premiership soccer games are those between teams at the top of the table.

Fair point but they are still the ones that most people are watching

Long term the only sustainable way to improve things on the field is junior development, and I look at how few quality players we (Leeds) produce as an example of why the sport is struggling.

In the short term I really think we seem to have a lot of below par coaches around the place. Hopefully we'll get more hungry young Aussie coaches in SL in the near future.

One thing I'd possibly argue as a mitigant for this year is that last year seemed to knock the hell out of the top three sides. Not just retirements but you had playing groups who hadn't experienced genuine intensity for prolonged periods before like the end of last year, and none of them look as good this time round. Those better teams cited from 2003+ never had to face more than a couple of tough games on the bounce.

Now that seemingly anything goes for the team in possession when playing the ball, the game now resembles little more than a training run. Dumb down the skill levels in order to speed up the game but it just looks . Can't wait to see us required to play the ball correctly in the four nations - lets just hope we can remember how to.