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.

Regardless of the conditions, it was one of the best games i've seen in a while! 835 total tackles, 88% and 80% completion rates, nearly 3400 total run metres with plenty of expansive play. Intense game from start to finish. We need to bottle that game and sell it. I wanted golden point just to be able to watch it for longer!

Disagree on this. There's not a better 6 in the world IMO. Today wasn't the conditions for an attacking 6 to shine though and when he took the line on he still asked questions. It was just one of those games where the the halves couldn't really get on top because it was so evenly matched in the middle and the conditions didn't allow for the skill players to take a hold of the game. Last week he was just as instrumental as Papenhuyzen against a good Souths team and all last year there wasn't anyone who played as consistently well as him in his position.