Uncompetitive compared to when?

When Wigan were crushing everyone pre-SL?
When Saints & Bradford were crushing everyone?
2004, when Leeds won the league by a record margin?
2007, when Saints were unbeaten for most of the season (bar one game at the end )

Or further back, when rugby was proper rugby, played by true athletes (like Steve Pitchford) in the snow & in front of 3000 proper fans who paid full price every match?

On the other hand, doesn't some of the points this smokescreen raises suggest that the question "why is Super League so uncompetitve today?" is too narrowly framed? If it has always, or at least for a fairly long stretch, been this uncompetitive then the solutions probably need to address deeper issues than is the case with a short-term contemporary drop in quality.

I see it as an issue of failing to progress rapidly enough rather than going backwards. For instance, I think the product in terms of its skill and athleticism is far greater than when I started watching a semi-pro sport. Both skill and athleticism lag a bit behind the NRL, as Mr Eve is fond of (slightly unnecessarily) reminding us.

Crowds are also higher than when I first started going. Not just at Headingley, but across the board. This makes me wonder where the alleged extra fans that some posters here, and the good Dr at Salford insist would turn up if Sam Burgess was in Salford's team would come from. How many Wigan fans have stopped going because Sam Tomkins has left?

Slight digression, but it raises the question of what we're actually trying to fix and whether any of us really has a credible answer.

In short, if more people are turning up than when I were a lad, to watch a league which one of 4 or 5 teams might win (never the case when I were a lad) then could a large part of the problem lie not with the game itself but with the facts that a lot of us are getting older, more cynical, harder to enthuse and just generally miserable old gits?

Again, why are you comparing it to anything - are you happy that since the start of this season we have played in ten games involving nine SL teams where the opposition could compete equally ?

If not 10 then how many games were evenly matched, would three be a fair answer ?

If not three then why have seven of them been by a winning margin of 28 points or more, and six of them by a winning margin of 34 points or more (many more in a few cases).

Guilty as charged for the last allegation and whilst crowds at Headingley are still healthy-ish at around 12 to 13k for the less competitive games and 16k for the single competitive home game so far this season, they are not so healthy across the board, and nor are some teams finances.

I think this is a big reason that people keep looking down or our comp. as going backwards, with the constant comparisons to a competition we have not been near in my life time and are never likely to.They are that far ahead there is no point comparing, its like comparing the Premier League to the Championship, they will never become equal, or near equal and neither will NRL and SL.

I think in reality, things certainly have stagnated a bit for us quality wise the last few years.The stem of the flow of quality NRL recruits has all but stopped and the movement of our top English stars the other way hasn't helped.On the whole though the state of our game attendances wise and facilities wise is in greater health than 20-30 years ago.The league is winable for 4-5 teams which as stated elsewhere wasn't the case in the 80's and 90's.The top 8 system IMO has failed but atleast the RFL are now trying to address that.

Of course you have to compare, or are you saying the game's never been competitive? In which case, why bother.

Leeds, Wigan, Saints, Wire, Hudds are all contenders for the GF this year. Hell even Cas or Hull have the potential to make it to the final. Within a year or two Salford and hopefully even Catalans can be added to that list.

Leeds have had a relatively easy start to the season playing most of the teams everyone expects to finish in the bottom half, let's see how easy they find it in the coming weeks.

Why are people obsessed with close games?

If we'd played in close games and lost some of them, people would be kicking off.

Except the angle (from the usual suspects) would be gawy hetherington and his sleeve have failed, tight fisted, old team past it, back to underachieving blah blah blah f*cking blah.

Leeds play in close games - the standard of the competition has levelled out at an appallingly low level, standard is worse than ever blah blah f*cking blah.

Someone is always kicking off.

And that cockroach william eve orchestrates the whole damn thing.

Maybe some of you should go w*nk yourselves silly over the 2003/2005/2011 CC finals /2008gf. Close games. Let's sit with a bowl of popcorn, who cares if leeds lost we are fans of the game. 2011 grand final? F*ck that, 16 point ball game. Pathetic for a grand final, standard is shocking there should be beed of sweat in the scoreline not 16 points.

Better yet, go watch football. Alot of games only have 1 goal in them, some are draws, really close and lots of upsets.

Good point. I remember clearly last year we beat London at home by a scoreline of 30-6. The same suspects who want close contests moaned that Leeds are no good because we should've won by a lot more.

In fact a whole host of Leeds games since McDermott took over have been a lot closer than games in the McClennen/Smith eras........For all you who drool over the Smith era (again usually the same suspects) how was beating Saints and Wigan 70-0 enjoyable as 'contests'???

In the season when Bradford last won in 2005 we went to Odsal and won by not far off the same as last week, 42-12, and that's when that team was one of the contenders.

Yes, but i doubt we went expecting to win at a canter and barely needing to get out of first gear to achieve that result.If required, i suspect a fully focused Leeds could put 70/80 past the Bulls,London and Wakey right now with ease.

I take your point though.there will always be a few teams at the bottom end of the table who are on a hiding to nothing.Always has been, always will be, was the same pre- SL.

Completely agree only thing I would add is there is scope to attract more wealthy backers like Koukash! It will be really interesting to see how Salford shape up over the next 3 seasons. Investment in PR, media and communication both centrally and at club level in a coherent and sustained way would not be a bad next step either!

Glaringly obvious reason why the quality is not great (as someone living in Yorkshire for the last 10 years) is the geography and compact nature of the sport. It is essentially the 'north West and Yorkshire league'. And then not even the bigger places. Leeds and maybe to a lesser degree Wigan / St Helens are the only towns of any size. But there is no Manchester or Liverpool teams in the Super League.

I've said before on other threads but you have about 10 teams all within about 25 miles of each other and only one - Leeds - in a city of any size and thus with a local population big enough to sustain support for it.

It'd be great to see 'Liverpool' and 'Manchester' team and then a 'Birmingham' and other such teams. Instead you have small working class towns that people by and large move away from as there are fewer opportunities available - Cas, Bradford, Wakey, Keighley, Fev, Halifax, etc all scrabbling around to get supporters.

I came to Leeds as it is a big city with stuff going on and was a good uni. If Cas was big and like Leeds, maybe I'd have gone there and become a Cas fan. But I didn't, as it isn't. Similarly had I gone to Liverpool or Manchester or Birmingham or Leicester or Newcastle and they had a team, I'd have likely ended up supporting them.

I don't know many people who move TO the likes of Cas, Wakey or Halifax and then become fans of their teams. More likely they are from those places and ARE fans before but then move to the likes of Leeds,or Manchester or Liverpool for job reasons (or development ones) and finding no team there stop going at all.

Who supports the Cougars, Wildcats, Bulls, or Tigers but for those who live there? Then, like I say if they get older and doors open, how often will those doors be opening in those towns, rather than in the big cities (without teams) bar Leeds?

Plus as well, from a young kid's perspective. If I live in Keighley and am amazing at rugby, am I going to stay in Keighley playing and developing with them, then in their team and helping them into the Super league and up it with time? Or will I go to a city that is a few miles away which has infrastructure and facilities (whether the city itself or the team) and play with them and thus end up at Leeds or Wigan if I come from the NW?

Christ, all the good kids at home in the North east (wherever they were from and however good the lower league set up was in their county / town was) ended up at Newcastle, Sunderland or the Boro with football and that was just 3 cities in an entire region. How tiny must the 'catchment pools' be I'm rugby league? A five minute drive away from the stadium as the next SL / Championship team is based 10 mins away!

In my view what would help most is it getting popular in big cities that are apart from each other so that it can develop, rather than as it is with loads of people all too close together so suffocating each other on a rotational basis.

Salford is 3 miles from Manchester city centre and is technically in Manchester and St Helens is only 13 miles from Liverpool city centre. Both teams fall well within the catchment area of 'big cities'. The problem in attracting young kids to our sport is not geographical.

Kids see the likes of David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard living pop-staresque lifestyles, driving super-cars, living in mansions and getting paid millions a year and aspire to be these people. The youngsters that live in Manchester get draw towards Manchester United or City, those in Birmingham follow City or Villa. If you grow up in Newcastle it is almost indoctrinated into your psyche to be a Newcastle United fan.

Kids play soccer at school - in their games lessons and on the playground with their mates. I did as a kid 40 years ago and nothing has changed to this day.

The problem attracting new supporters (and therefore investment) to RL is marketplace competition. How can RL possibly compete with soccer when the most a Rugby club can spend on it's entire squad every year is nearly equivalent to one single soccer player's annual salary?

How many times have we seen the RFL try and expand the sport outside of it's heartlands and spectacularly fail? RL has had 120 years to establish its self as a national pastime but has been unable... and why? There is little or no appetite for RL outside the heartlands because there are far too many other, more attractive teams to nail your flag to.

Grow up and come back when you can put a coherent argument together. The above is pathetic!!

People are not obsessed with close games - people just want value for money. This is supposed to be elite sport with standards on the field that reflect that ambition. The size of the winning margin is irrelevant it is the quality on the field and the lack of competitiveness of many of the teams that is at issue. You may be happy if Leeds were the only serious side in the competition and won every game by 50 but for the game as whole that isn't healthy.