Maybe I didn't phrase myself very well. Yes we should strive to be the best, my life's work has been at the very centre of contributing to that focus. I do however feel that RL fans are too quick to put our game down, it is possible to challenge it's weaknesses whilst also enjoying the product we currently have and being realistic about the comparative infrastructure challenges we face (not least having a player pool less than half the size of Australia, while the new Zealanders get to play in the intensity of the NRL every week).

We are always going to be behind the 8 ball due to the nations obsession with football, but there is (and should be) a great deal more we can do to engage more players at all levels and develop the athletes we have better at an earlier age.

Quote: ThePrinter "Are you still going on Sunday JUST TO WATCH ONE SINGLE PLAYER and then struggle to figure out why Englishmen look like rabbits in headlights against them??? You're the poster boy for the English mentality ting themselves in awe at the mere presence of an Aussie Rugby player......I bet your heart flutters at the sight of Thurston's girlish hair. (BTW I don't care if he is the best player in the world, his hair in the promo pics with Burrow is fu**ing awful unless you're Miss World 1962)'" You bet I'm going tomorrow to see a genuine star quality player and one of the best players in the world of Rugby League in Thurston I'm also going to see several other star quality players in that Cowboys team, just like I did two years ago when I went to see several genuine star quality players among the Melbourne Storm team. I'm definitely not paying good money to watch Leeds or any of the Leeds players. And therein lies the quandary Super League is in --- there are next to no players of genuine star quality. And that's the problem Super League has to address. It's crap. It possesses no star quality players. You may prefer to pore over all your heart-fluttering poster pics of the likes of Sinny & Co, but they ain't star quality and they certainly ain't world class and never have been. Winning all trophies in a crap competition does not equate to greatness. I'm not the only one who is bored shiitless with the tripe on offer in Super League. See here..... www.redvee.net/forums/showthread ... keys-years

Quote: ThePrinter "Are you still going on Sunday JUST TO WATCH ONE SINGLE PLAYER and then struggle to figure out why Englishmen look like rabbits in headlights against them??? You're the poster boy for the English mentality ting themselves in awe at the mere presence of an Aussie Rugby player......I bet your heart flutters at the sight of Thurston's girlish hair. (BTW I don't care if he is the best player in the world, his hair in the promo pics with Burrow is fu**ing awful unless you're Miss World 1962)'" You bet I'm going tomorrow to see a genuine star quality player and one of the best players in the world of Rugby League in Thurston I'm also going to see several other star quality players in that Cowboys team, just like I did two years ago when I went to see several genuine star quality players among the Melbourne Storm team. I'm definitely not paying good money to watch Leeds or any of the Leeds players. And therein lies the quandary Super League is in --- there are next to no players of genuine star quality. And that's the problem Super League has to address. It's crap. It possesses no star quality players. You may prefer to pore over all your heart-fluttering poster pics of the likes of Sinny & Co, but they ain't star quality and they certainly ain't world class and never have been. Winning all trophies in a crap competition does not equate to greatness. I'm not the only one who is bored shiitless with the tripe on offer in Super League. See here..... www.redvee.net/forums/showthread ... keys-years

just looks like a bunch of peeved fans sad to have slipped from the top of the tree to me william not much else.Cant really say i blame them, having watched champagne rugby with the likes of Long,Martyn,Sculthorpe,Cunningham and the rest ripping sides to bits for years and winning everything this set of players must be a bit of a come down for them.I guess its how Wigan fans felt when their crown slipped.

And really, i can say this from experience of wathcing it live myself, Rugby in the 80s and 90s was of no higher standard than it is these days no matter how much you yearn for those days you need to get real.

Give me ET, Lyons, Hunt, Grothe, Currie, Izzard, Schoey, Hanley, etc over the tedium of Sinny, Burrow, Peacock, Leuluai, Hardaker etc any day of the week along with August to May seasons, proper genuine Kangaroo and Kiwi tours including games against the likes of PNG.

Super League is crap and has ruined the sport.

Fair enough if thats your opinion you are entitled to it. But how on earth do you propose in this day and age we go about bringing over names of the calibre of the Aussies you mention? its impossible with disparities in cash available. Even if we were still playing september to may there is no way Aussie clubs would allow their top players to come over during our winter.Times have moved on.

Probably the best sporting analogy for rugby league in the two hemispheres is British cycling and the rest of the world.

Under Dave Brailsford, GB cycling focused on the one percents. The marginal gains that on their own don't account for much, but put together help you to be ahead of your competition. Players in the NRL do everything to a marginally higher standard, but when combined and put into pressure situations those marginal gains make for significantly better teams.

NRL players grow up being coached to do the simple things to a very high standard before they get anywhere close to being in first grade. There are young players in the Academy systems at SL clubs who have massive gaps in their skill sets. They've got where they are primarily on the basis of their physical attributes and being quicker or stronger than counterparts in their age group. Had they come up in Australia, they wouldn't have got close to a professional contract due to the things they can't do. They would have had to work harder at their game to achieve a degree of success, because the bar is set so much higher than it is here.

How do you raise that bar? Make it harder for players to earn Academy contracts for a start, by reducing the number of Academies in existence through mergers. Let's take it down to say 8/10 across the country run by the RFL, make it harder for kids to get taken on so they feel they have to work at the deficiencies in their game. Create hothouses where there is pressure and competition for places from both a playing and coaching viewpoint.

Raise the age at which players can sign professional contracts to 18, and strictly enforce it. We all know that 16 year old kids (and in some cases their parents) are getting inducements to sign for clubs and signing "pre-contracts". What message does that send to kids at that age, other than "you've made it"? Give them something to aspire to while they are in the Academies at 16 and 17 years old, rather than feeling they don't have to work hard and kick on.

Rather than talking about raising the salary cap to enable the competition to retain a handful of top stars, work from the ground up to improve the standard of player coming into the competition from the bottom. You don't build a bigger, stronger pyramid by polishing the stone at the top. How good would it be to see 18/19/20 year old players coming into the SL competition capable of executing all the basic skills of the game in the way that say Nikorima did for the Roosters last night? Players aren't born with the ability to execute skills under pressure, they acquire it by having to work hard and practice in order to get to that point otherwise they won't get to play the professional game.

have the aussies brought anyone fat like george rose

As I said earlier Leeds will get beat by a team that will do the basics more accurately and faster than Leeds can - that should not be that hard to coach into talented youngsters. Unfortunately the junior amateur game is all about winning and not about skill development. We have players in an elite competition that can't pass - Hardaker is MOS yet he struggles to pass at all never mind accurately.

great players bill , would you have gone to headingley just to watch ellery or schoey play against ? we didn't get the best of them even with 40 offside tries in a season

et , lyons , grothe , currie , izzard would poss put in my all time leeds teams that i've watched but were here for short spells

best rugby for me has been 2004 and 2005 with ali , senior , bai and the youngsters supporting

I agree re SL but the NRL is miles ahead of where it was pre-SL - watch some of the old origin matches and the difference is huge. Can't agree re winter rugby - SL haven't got the skill set to play in the dry it would be tedious in the winter. The NRL has real star players these days and competition that standard-wise is as good as it has ever been

just had text 1,000 tickets left . thought it would sell out with the clamour for elland rd prev

Agree with much of above and points by Seth and fair chunks of points by Andy. A large part of producing star players like thurston and deeper overall quality is a numbers game. Apologies in advance , if I have the below numbers wrong but recollect someone telling me recently that the number of registered 15/16 year olds playing in Aus is over ten times higher than UK. Approx 25,000 versus 2,000. As others have said our potential thurston are probably in Man city academy along with for example the sons of Kylie L and mcGillvary from giants. Mal Reilly played football until. 16/17 then played RL. these days he would never have worn an RL shirt. Sadly, I have no particular solutions

Having watched the NRL version of Sam Tomkins crumble under the high bomb last night, I hope the management at Leeds have taken note. Our kicking game has never been one of the best despite our success, and if it's as bad as it was last week, I.e non existent, we're in for a long night tomorrow. Seeing Watkins die with the ball on the 6th tackle on our first set and watching Delaney tasked with a last tackle kick was indicative of how poor our options were last week. I'd like to see more kicking from our lot tomorrow, whether it be 40/20 attempts, rockets up into the dark Yorkshire night, or testing kicks along the ground into the in goal or cross kicks for our wingers to compete for. A physical battle is one we're never gonna win, a good kicking game and clever tactics will always be our best chance of success. Fingers crossed we have a bit of luck and they don't hit top form.

The NRL's version of Tomkins? It was the first game Ferguson had ever played at fullback. In contrast NQ's fb Coote is really solid under the high ball. Not saying it shouldn't be part of our tactics, but the lessons you can learn by comparing one team to another are minimal.

Agree with that and with everything that AG said. It isn't that hard to coach the basics into youngsters. It just takes time and a wildly different setup and environment to that which currently is in place in the amateur game.
As you say the basics aren't being taught.

In my humble opinion, the amateur game is failing Rugby League in every aspect.