although the league generally has evened out, Leeds & saints are still a clear top 2.

This year we are a lesser squad than last year & next year should have strongest squad yet.

Saints this year also never replaced a centre or prop & some senior players have lost form @ the business end making them appear a weaker side than us & their squad of last year.

This year we've got by without replacing ellis with a more consistent lauititi & Smith's improvement.

Why chance it again if we don't have to.

I'd have to look at their squads over those years to have an opinion on that. Perhaps 2006 will be seen as St Helens peak.



Leeds.

Pardon? Could you not look at their results?

Is that how you gauge success? An objective opinion of playing strengths of a squad of players from individual supporters?

I personally feel that Leeds' success has very little to do with their ability to spend. Or perhaps I am wrong, it's an ability to spend in the right areas. £50k spent on a flashy player from another club? Or £50k invested in youth policy. Hmmmm. It's a poser.
But what if the squad we have IS capable of competing in a League comp diluted by the effects of the salary cap?
Perhaps, just perhaps because Leeds' success came off the back of it's internal player development policy and not its' ability to splash out in the transfer market, they are not as affected by a dearth of talent in that market, if affected at all.

But, and this is a big but. If the dearth of talent on the market means that Leeds can then sell it's preferred percentile of quality home grown players to other clubs for an increased premium, generating further income to add to the development pot, then when a bit of top class talent becomes available anywhere in the world then several things happen for me.
1) Leeds have the capital available to spend
2) The facilities invested in are attractive, state of the art and demonstrate the direction of the club. (So hopefully the player wants to come)
3) Said top class talent has a ready made incubator in which to propagate the development of new talent at the club. (You have to believe that Buderus is breeding good things into the current crop)

G1 , luckily for the point I am trying to make, picked up on the fact that I believe that any player in the world that wants to come to Leeds for whatever reason, MUST fit in to the side.

Yes Leeds could spend, and spend big, but [ishould[/i they? I'll leave that to GH and Caddick, they appear to know what they're doing.

Pint of Bass Headingley anyone?

But don't you see, you HAVE to spend spend spend on big name players if you want to guarantee that you will win everything.

Yours in Sport

Dave Whelan and Maurice Lyndsay.

Maybe. It might also highlight that good, hardworking English kids who've been developed in a professional way can match the achievements of more expensive signings.

And more to the point, when and if said good , hardworking English, Irish, Welsh, Carribean, Pakistani, etc etc etc kids do leave Headingley and the Rhino's, they take an education in sport, but seem to be taking an education in a conventional sense too. I have not yet heard (with the exception of money) a bad word said by a departing player about their development and or treatment at the club.

Seems to me that Leed's is investing in the good of the game whilst investing in the good of the club too.

See this is the point where AP would have said "Did Robbie Mears tell you to say that <FX> Guffaw."

Isn't this a poorer place for his absence?

Yes, that is how I would make a judgement on an individual club playing within a competition of twelve as was / fourteen as is.

St Helens may or may not have improved their squad from 2006 to 2007 to 2008 to 2009 but so might their rivals within the comp at a faster rate which is where using results alone could be misleading.

So far this season both Leeds and St Helens appear to have less of an advantage over the rest and have been vulnerable at various points in the season. That in part will have been due to a certain level of under investment by both over the off season as neither are spending their full cap allowance in 2009.

There is a balance to be found, (there has been for a long time now, around the last twenty five years) between your own produced players, acquired British players and acquired overseas trained players.

The balance at Leeds historically (since the time restrictions were imposed) has always been within the limits set. Not next year though where for the first time Leeds will employ a loophole to field seven overseas trained players when the legal limit will be set at six.

Where is the outcry from the Leeds fans supporting the famed Academy route at Headingley? And why are Leeds doing this now?

One has invested significantly in a new stadium and the other will have to do so in a new stand.

Factors which is convenient for a fan to ignore but not a CEO. So he cuts his cloth accordingly. Ours has been cut to a sufficient standard to have us 160 minutes from an unprecedented 3rd consecutive SL title.

That may not meet [isome[/i supporters expectations but others will realise its' quite remarkable. Those not satisfied remain unable to convince me that spending £x on player B would have altered our playing course in iota. In fact, as widely discussed, the one splashy expensive overseas signing we have made has, in fact, taken the team no further than where they were last year.

maybe because the academy isn't producing like in recent years. we had a golden period, mcguire, burrow etc, but only since then in dribs and drabs(some quality dribs and drabs admittedly).
hence buying the likes of pitts and amor,young players who feel they can improve.

I can think of several players who Leeds have deemed surplus to requirements, path blocked by a better 1st team option at the point where they need 1st grade rugby to develope or released to prevent blocking a bigger talent coming through below them.

My question is; do you have any examples where Leeds have received a fee in such circumstances?

Jordan Tansey to Hull and?

Hardly a surprise when that one 'splashy' overseas signing didn't directly replace any of the four players Leeds were losing from their 1st grade squad between the end of the 2008 season and the start of the 2009 one.

It was an odd signing, guaranteed only to reduce the role a long standing, existing and continueing member of the 1st grade squad.

Whatever the Leeds recruitment policy in the last off season was, the results thus far have seen them relinquish their hold on the WCC trophy they held and lose at the first hurdle in a home Challenge Cup tie. Results that the club would be right to consider unacceptable. On the plus side the absence from mounting any serious challenge in the cup has allowed them the breathing space throughout the year to take out the League Leaders Shield (thanks in part to a faltering St Helens outfit) and place themselves in absolute pole position to win their third successive title.

If and when that happens I'll be as proud as any other Leeds fan, IMO.



There is no maybe about it, is there? When you look at the reserves who went out to St Helens last weekend it was a Leeds team containing plenty of SL experienced young players who are supposed to be on the fringes of the Leeds 1st grade, (Watkins, Jones-Bishop, Ratu, Broughton, Allan, Pitts, McShane, Manning, Gibson and Chandler), they got beat 59 - 28.

I take as much pride as the next Loiner for Leeds staying within the salary cap and within the overseas trained limits set down by the RFL but next season they are using a loophole to get around the quota.

if saints, or anybody else falter tvoc, then that is there fault.
the coaching staff have been supurb this season in the timing of the run at the end of the season