Quote: Northampton_Saint "How people could look at some of the names in those 2 teams and then STILL try and maintain that standards in our game haven't collapsed in the last decade just... beggars... belief... And remember that Bradford and Leeds had similar amounts of quality at that time too...'"
Those teams were class, that Wigan backline was phenomenal, probably the best ever in SL. The only problem with the Wigan team at that time was it did not have that much depth especially in the forwards, the bench was weak. Saints as well were more exciting then than ever, with Tommy M and Sullivan.
However in general standards in SL were not that strong then. Even Bradford were good because they were bigger and stronger than anyone else but their team had guys like Scott Naylor, Nathan McAvoy, Justin Brooker, Hudson Smith in it, they weren't world beaters. Leeds were very heavily dependent on Iestyn Harris.
Harris back then was a top player who dominated SL, he just used to waltz through defences. When he came back in 2004 the game had moved on and he was never able to find the space he used to although he was still quite an effective player.
Below the top 4 the teams were rubbish back then. Warrington finished 6th and we were garbage we just had Allan Langer so we won some games.
I think the time when SL was really at its strongest was about 2004-05.