Should it need to be a matter of will? Shouldn't a player, at whatever stage of their career, always looking to be adding something extra to their game?

One thing that really does stand out, both in these games and when England play is the gap in error rate is enormous. Sl sides far too often lose the ball in the tackle or make rubbish passes mand aimless kicks. Aus/NZ and NRL sides do make errors, but far fewer absolute howlers in bad parts of the field. SL allows such mistakes because they simply aren't punished as harshly as they are in the NRL. They also don't necessarily show up in the stats, but its as clear as day to anybody watching.

Its interesting that the lack of size/strength in the outside backs is a problem for some SL teams. Souths themselves had virtually the same pack last year as 2013, but they replaced 2-5 with bigger, stronger players and it made a huge difference both in attack and defence. The days of small outside backs are probably long gone.

I agree there were far too many basic errors and spilled ball across the 3 games which ultimately cost the SL side, especially Wire and Wigan in the tight games. Some of the mistakes this weekend though were in the diabolical category, i mean Joe Burgess must have coughed the ball up at least 3 times in his own 25, and these really were not brought about because of opposition pressure, just really bad drops you would expect to make once every few games. I can't recall seeing any of that during his breakthrough year.Then you had Simms for the wire, he spilled at least a couple of times in his own half, 1 leading to a try and he is an NRL veteran. Just one of those things i guess but it shows you can't afford to turn ball over against top sides or they will kill you.

Regarding the three quarters, The game is going the way of Union in this regard, big seems to be the way but i do think there is still a place for the smaller, quick and elusive guys just not a full back line of them.Saints three quarters, who are in the small category, made no headway against there far bigger counter parts. And i thought Josh Dugan who is a big unit for a FB made a lot of good yards bringing the ball back on friday.

Height in the outside backs is very important in the NRL because of the need to be able deal effectively with far more probing attacking kicks.
Hence the success of players such as King & Monaghan when they came over here to sides with a reasonable kicking game - Brears especially.
Hall doesn't do too badly in attack which makes his failure to deal with kicks defensively even more frustrating.
If El Masri for example was coming into the NRL game now, would he be as prolific?
Fullbacks though in Australia - Inglis & Dugan apart (& there may be others) -tend not to be as tall. Slater is no giant for instance.

RL is becoming a game played by second rows (6'2'', 16-17 stone)

First of all second-rows were built like that, then loose forwards. Then props became like that (same size but maybe slightly less mobile), then centres (same size but slightly faster), then wingers.

The only positions available in the NRL for players without that body shape are fullback, half, and hooker (and fairly one of a team's halfbacks will be built like a back row too)

It's frustrating because it is a weak part of his game which has been evident for some time, which shows no improvement.

Possibly reflecting Gilder's comments about players reaching a plateau.
But in Hall's case it's particularly galling since we know he's a bright guy who I'm sure is well aware of his weaknesses.
He's not aided though by lack of support/cover from his inside defenders.
Compare our efforts with those from the Rabbitohs when defending attacking kicks near the line.

Under a well-placed kick with a well-timed chase, a defender is next to helpless unless he's either got a significant height advantage or gets a lot of (probably illegal) help from players on his inside.

He's invariably going from at or close to a standing start against players arriving at full speed. When Hall starts putting down kicks with nobody around him, I'll start to worry. Getting out jumped as a defender is just one of those things you can't usually do much about.

At least not having Burrow on the field means teams don't have a weak target to aim at by dropping cross-field kicks onto his head, and forcing the likes of Moon and Hall to come in covering for him.

Yeah if Senior was still around on that left hand side do you reckon teams get as much joy when they put kicks over there, I doubt it.

Protecting the catcher is something the Aussie do very well when defending a kick, and it's something SL refs tend to penalise in SL, which makes it more frustrating when they don't penalise the Aussies for doing it.

Regarding the difference in kicking standards in general I'm always impressed by the variety of the Aussie attacking kicking game. SL sides get to the last tackle and it's either a speculative up and under or a crossfield kick to the corner.

Also if NRL sides get to within 40 yards out on the last tackle they feel like they're in position for an attacking kick. In SL it's more like 20.

But you are talking about adding things to their game that aren't missing. They aren't missing because they aren't needed. They aren't needed because there are easier ways to the line

I agree with that entirely. I think Hall is fine under the bomb, A good kick puts the attacking player favourite to get something out of it. Sometimes you are beaten by just good play.

Agree.

And for all the talk about Hall's ability at catching and better protection/blocking around him......the best way to deal with a well placed kick is to prevent it being well placed in the first place and putting more pressure on the kicker so that he doesn't have time to pick his spot that'll make life really difficult for the defending winger.

Thought we defended kicks pretty well last night. Pressure was on the kicker quite often, and the catcher was guarded well too