The 2009 world cup was resulted in a paradigm shift for the game in this country. We had a rubbish team, but the focus was more on our inability to cope with the wrestling tactics Australia and NZ employed. The rucks have been getting messier ever since.

The attack had to become more one dimensional and essentially percentage based because of the improved defence.

Slowing the play the ball and faster line speed is definitely a sign of better defences.

It’s not just a case of them appearing better, they definitely are better.

I’d counter that with Keith Senior or Kallum Watkins. Or Ali, McGuire or Burrow.

Schoey was at his peak around that time and I loved watching him play in the halves and as you say we did play some great stuff but "When they were on..." is an important caveat from that period. Shame but for all the spectacular rugby and tries scored I always seem to look back on those seasons with bad memories of the times when they clearly weren't up for it. In particular I recall a bad loss at Oldham who simply had more heart for the battle than us (I think that was in 1993). I also think of some of the players like Faimalo who were nowhere near as good for us as they had been elsewhere. Iro himself could easily disappear in a match though I appreciate it can be hard for backs when the pack is beaten. I also recall being in the away end at Central Park singing "Dougie Laughton's Barmy Army" as Offiah scored 10 tries against us.
Fast forward a few years and all that made me appreciate the toughness and never give in attitude that Graham Murray and several astute signings brought in.

I have thought exactly the same , watching those games

Obviously more to it but i have a perception , its been less entertaining since we copied the aussies and started the crossfield kick to the corners on the fifth tackle , just thought it was a easy option for the stand off to do , rather than running it or passing it or putting a deft kick into the goal line area

too easy to cross field kick or up and under theses days rather than be creative with ball in hand

i am happier with lui and gale think they will pass and run more , hopefully , or kick to force teams to drop out

I’ve also watched some of those early to mid 90’s games and remembered how great it was, but agree the play the balls were a bit too messy, and scrums too, but the one thing that was much better back then was the pace of the game, it was relentless, and the fatigue that caused made for opportunities for some great off the cuff, natural flair rugby. Taking it all into account, I think the game would be much better with the following;
- Reduced interchanges, get down to 4 per game
- A much more prompt ‘held’ call, with an immediate ‘release’ by the defenders required
- Have to say it, but bring back the biff (to a degree). Still stamp out the cheap shots that were rife in the day (raised elbows, high tackles, blind side shots), but allow the guys to go toe to toe when required - that whole anticipation of a stink in the grudge matches was a huge part of the enjoyment for me... even as late as the early to mid-2000’s when Barrie was chasing Fielden around, that was one of the things we all lost looked forward to in a Leeds/Bulls match. I also believe you’d get rid of a lot of the cheap stuff from the current game if players knew there’d be immediate physical retribution - there’d be very little attacking the knees of an attacker, pressure on necks, joints etc if they knew a prop was gonna come in swinging at them for doing it.

One other thing that stood out for me when watching the Leeds/Cas Yorkshire cup game on Sunday - we paid £50k for Carl Gibson, in the 80’s.... 30 years on and that is seen as a significant spend in the current game - how have we stagnated so much (granted there was some frivolous spending back then that couldn’t be maintained).

Agree with most of that Superted.

On the spending front I think partly the money has shifted from transfer fees to wages but mainly like you say there was a lot of frivolous spending that should actually have been spent on club infrastructure.

Leeds were better than most in that regard but even Leeds didn’t invest anything like enough in its infrastructure.
Also it’s a bit of a cycle in that the transfer fee money would essentially flow around the league. If someone buys a player off Leeds then Leeds have that money to spend maybe buying a player from somewhere else. I don’t really see it as a negative that transfer fees are rarer. Just a consequence of going pro.

There was a period where holding a player up then putting 3-4 bodies into a pile on became fashionable and it killed any momentum the attack could generate. I just don't see better defences, I don't see better tacklers and it's easier to have better line speed when the PTB is so slow - you are always set. Also, I definitely think defences "appear" better because we don't have enough players with genuine attacking skills. One prop who offloads came over from Australia to Leeds and caused total havoc in his first couple of seasons.
Any lump can wrestle and charge up and down the 10 metres to lie on a tackled player for 5 minutes while his mates get set. It's not pleasant to watch and it's eventually going to bore the sport to bankruptcy.

I do agree with what Christopher posted, pre 2000 ish the game was "ragged" and you can see the mistake count is high, but the 2000 decade was fantastic. Good balance between attacking skills and tough defence. There were some very good players in that era.

Each to there own, no right or wrong answer

Yeah the 'when they were on' regarding the team and 'in the mood' regarding Iro were two points that i had to include, neither were on or in the mood enough to make us a genuine threat to Wigan...But were both fantastic to watch on there good days.

Despite not being as up for it as they probably should of been at times, that Leeds team were still very good imo, and would of won silverware in most other eras, runners up to one of the best club sides ever in a couple of league campaigns and a couple of challenge cups.

I watched first half of Leeds v Barrow yesterday (I think I was actually at that match but I wasn't living in Leeds at the time), CC game from '93. My son walked in just as Leeds moved the ball from one wing to another to score. He commented on how much better rugby players were in the past. The players in that move were, Andy Gregory, Garry Schofield, Ellery Hanley, Alan Tait, Craig Innes. Skill and pace to die for. Yes, the reality was that most of that game was Leeds slugging away with a team at the bottom of the 3rd division but the ball moved everywhere. I've realized that what made "old" rugby league entertaining was the ball movement. The thing was thrown everywhere.

One thing that team did that I always thought was tremendous was doubling up the centres on the same side of the pitch. Having Iro and Innes suddenly both on the left used to cause havoc and Leeds did it a lot. They would attack from deep with the two of them in tandem and scored a lot of long range tries. Leeds also attacked from every scrum (which were a mess but partly because they pushed). When I first started watching league the "loose" forward was just that - loose - and able to not join the scrum. When they changed the law and you had to have him bound teams started attacking the space it created.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

We've almost always been fortunate in the 30+ years I've watched in that we have usually had some great backs that can utilise the space if they get good early ball. When we've combined that with a good pack we've won things (or gone very close) and I still believe in the saying that "the forwards decide who wins, and the backs by how much"...

I think I'm in the majority who see the rugby of the past, where there was more space due to fatigue mostly, as more exciting precisely because the ball was moved more to exploit that space. 2 subs on the bench instead of 4 and only 4 rotations massively to create that space. Given the lack of current activity, you'd hope that those running the game would think about what it could look like as well as how we will keep the game going.

Pffft......give over. Its a different sport these days to the 80s, 90s and noughties. The players now are different athletes to those days.

The reason there was more room in those days was because players trained in the pub after a game of touch n pass. There was no defensive structures whatsoever, mo idea of wrestling and tackling techniques.

Come on, we can all look back and talk about how amazing past players was, and in their era they was but its a different game now.

You’re actually confirming my point I think. The fatigue isn’t only down to the lower number of interchanges, it’s also due to the conditioning of the players too.

The wrestle is unfortunate from my perspective and could easily be penalised out of the game, but it’s a fine balance between too slow and too fast.

It is most definitely a different game these days.

Those Hanley tries from 94 and 95 sum up the way the game was played then. Whoever put the vid together picked maybe 30 of his best. There are top sides whose entire first 17 don't score such a variety of spectacular efforts over 2 seasons nowadays.