Yes and it shows how poor SL is by comparison - half speed, half skill, half entertainment - shame the game here has regressed so much in such a short period of time.

Im just watching this mornings Blacktown/North Sydney game from the NSW Cup. Its very comparable to the standard of a lot of SL. Wakefield v Huddersfield type standard.

You just have to accept the 2 competitions are totally different and we should be light years behind them. No point comparing the 2 competitions. Their budgets, player pool, junior development, facilities and weather conditions are far better than ours. They should be miles ahead of us in the same way Man City should be way ahead of any Aussie soccer club.

Covid will set us back even further in truth, our community clubs will have been hit hard and junior development will take some recovering from.

Totally agree Marty. Very good points raised re covid setting us back over here, some of the smaller clubs may never recover

I was thinking about this earlier and the main thing I think will be affected is the development of some of the younger kids in the UK. Losing that year might leave a gap in readiness of some academy players going into super league which is vital for a lot of teams .

There has always been a bigger pool of quality players in the NRL/ARL. I imagine the fact that there have been fewer disruptions to sports during the pandemic down under will put them further ahead in comparison with over here.

I fear for our chances in the autumn. We've lost a few players of real quality in the past few years and nobody is near filling their boots - S,Burgess, Graham, O'Loughlin, Hall, McGuire etc.

The point at which it was financially better for someone to play in Australia than SL is when the beginning of the end. Fewer decent Aussies would come here at the end of their careers. Also, the best UK players went down under too.

There also seems to have been a shift in NZ players. 20 years ago SL had lots of current NZ players. Hardly any these days. Very sad

NRL is boring and more like Yawnion. Defenses are still Crap enough here to see some good trys.....!!

Yeah the only way we'll compete internationally is for us to get our best players playing in the NRL, and that's assuming we can develop enough to get their interest.

Playing SL will only take them so far.

The chances of SL ever competing financially with the NRL are slim to non-existent.

Eels Storm on sky this morning 9am

I'm not convinced by the 'we need our best players playing in the NRL for England to improve' argument. Sending our best players over just makes our competition weaker. I'm not sure it makes them that much better either. The Australian media love Josh Hodgson, but he's still the 4th or 5th best hooker England have.

Whilst i agree with your comments on Hodgson i think playing in the NRL must improve players and it certainly improves their bank balance.

Any player willing to give the NRL a crack deserves respect for getting out of a comfort zone.

As ive said before though, you cant compare the 2 competitons
The NRL should be better by a long way
We cant compete financially with them.

When I went over for the WCC in 2018, a mate who I stayed with showed us around Melbourne and took us to the amateur club he played for (Sunbury Tigers), and no wonder they are light years ahead of us. Just the amateur clubs over there are ridiculous with the facilities they have and pool of players to choose from. Them leagues Club's have casino's in them, it's pretty surreal when you compare the two. What you notice is though, that a big number of players are Islander's that the Aussies pinch from being kids.
The coach told us that there's roughly 40 clubs in a 20 mile radius. There's the difference!

Another cracking match this morning. Given the conditions it was played in, it had no right to be that entertaining.
I know I shouldn't do it but I can't help draw comparisons to matches we see over here when it's chucking it down.

Superb standard today in those conditions.
Gutherson and Papenhuyzen both brilliant at FB along with Sivo on the wing.
Forwards were great to watch and I particularly like the look of Papilil (sp) for the Eels.
The one I think is over rated is Munster who seems a bit of a flat track bully to me.