Thanks for that, it does in fact prove my point that Monaghan finished the season as first choice Scrum Half.

True but also proves that last year he played the majority of his games at hooker, so I was also right!!
Everyone is a winner

I agree and don't thing one season should singnal the end of his Leeds career, but in my opinion he has not been at his best for last 2 years. Again I am not suggesting we do get rid of him, and I do like rob and his attitute, particulary the heart he shows when he plays, I just don't think he is one of our best players anymore, again I hope he stays, and I appreciate we all have our view on things.

What ever happened to 'The Next Big Thing' the fantastic prospect that was Greg McNally, not exactly flying last season was he.

Can I say that when I made this post I believed that what I had heard was correct, that being said I really hope Rob stay's, remains injury free and has a great season. But who knows, who would have thought DISCO would have gone to the Bulls, also hear that Burgess is very unsettled. I hope GH remains ambitious, add's to the squad and doesn't sell the crown jewels!

Burgess apparently wants to join Sam down under IF he goes best of luck to him but i'd hope he at least stays this year and proves that last season was just unlucky and 2nd season syndrome and he can live up to his early potential.

Burrow should look at how McGuire started to transform himself last season. From what I saw McGuire started to look a lot more like a creative stand off than he had in previous years, looking to set up plays and when he did run aiming much straighter at the line (Cup semi vs Sts being an obvious example), without losing his support play. IMO if Burrow were to look to play more like an 'orthodox' halfback, marshalling the pack and choosing when to run rather than looking to scoot on almost every play, he and Leeds would be far better. Getting the balance right with Sinfield in the side and McGuire back won't be easy though.

...oh, and as with ALL British halfbacks, for gawd's sake practice some kicking. I cannot believe how poor most of our halfbacks are at what should be a fundamental part of their skills.

Agreed, you can't blame him though, I would be envious of my brother if he was in aus!!!

There's a third...

I'm all for blooding the young ones, and all against overseas dross, but there's an argument for somewhere in between.

My country plays 4 (Maybe 5?) competitive games a year, and costs me £0.00 to support. My club plays at least 28, possibly 37 with a WCC, PO/GF & CC run, and costs me over £2000 a year to support. As a person, and a fan, I would much rather see quality week in, week out, than once an October for 4 games.

If there were two players with very similar stats for a season, except one is 20 and English, and one is 35 and Oz, then clearly, you'd have to be an idiot to not want the 20 y/o Brit. I also agree that signing "overseas dross" is not a good thing, but I'm far from against signing an overseas player if he's right for the job and what the club needs.

Take our new prop... The requirements for the job role was an experienced powerhouse forward, hard hitting, high work rate, solid tackler with a proven track record guaranteed to strength the pack.
Does Cross fill that role? Yes
Would Lynch fill that role? Yes
Would promoting Ambler? No
Was Lynch available? Clearly not.

So as a club, Leeds have to go with who best fits that role, it just turns out he's Australian.

Take our new hooker... Promoting McShane to 2nd Hooker suits the club. It also happens to help the International game in 2 years time but that is very much a bi- product.

GH & the board are running a business. As owners of a business their absolute paramount priority and responsibility is to keep the people spending the cash on the gate TODAY happy, and to endeavour to keep the people spending cash on the gate coming back and spending the cash next season too. Not to help England beat the Australians in 2015.

Does anybody really, REALLY think that GH will be sat watching the 2013 WC, in 3D on his new TV, from his villa in Spain thinking, "If only I'd promoted Ambler instead of signing Cross 2 year ago we'd have scored that try!" (Yes I know Ambler is playing for Ireland but the point still stands).

It's all about the business, and short income & bums on seats and not at all about the long term development of the national team, and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

Sounds like you are "Club" and not "Country" to me. The thing we need here is patience. If we could get the club chairmen to see beyond the next two or three years to set up a proper feeder programme for young British talent then we can have a strong and vibrant Club game and a better International side. This only works if the Club Chairmen all agree to stop signing the "space fillers" from overseas and give the kids a chance.

Yes but the Club Chairmen don't make any money out of us having a better International side do they?

If anything they lose money. As a CLUB Chairman, Internationals are neutral at best. Certainly on the negative side of neutral more so than the positive. You ask Alex Ferguson how he feels about having a team full of Internationals, all it does is increase the risk of injury, increase the amount of time away from the club, and possibly mean you're going to get a lower crowd turn out if star players are away or injured.

There's no doubt that somebody in Dramaball is getting rich out of Internationals, but it's more likely to be the TV execs and certainly isn't the Club Chairmen. RL would be the same if our International game was as big. Thus, no incentive whatsoever for the Chairmen to give two shiny $hites about the long term development of International RL.

Well said. The problem lies in that there's a lack of young talent that's good enough to make it in superleague and internationally. Is that the sole responsibility of the chairman of each club? I think not.. It's the game as a whole and there's not enough young kids playing rugby league at school level.. the reserve grades are poor.. and possibly coaching is not as good as it should be at junior level?

I agree with the above - sadly there is a major flaw in your arguement - the most important revenue stream to the club is TV monies - without a viable international the sport will never command the revenues the likes of RU and cricket get. We will never have a viable international game until we increase the pool of GB eligible players playing in the elite comp.

Soccer is different where the club game is what TV is paying for - but you only have to look at the dismal display by England in the world cup to see what happens when you fill your domestic comp with overseas players