Interesting topic. I think the game tends to go in trends - we saw this with Bradford 10-15 years ago who went for having a team full of huge players which worked for a while until Saints started going with fast play the balls and offloads to tire them out. Teams then copied this style. Whilst in-yer-face defence and NFL style playbook attack are currently in vogue, after a season or two some enterprising coach/team will find a way around it and then everyone will follow the new magic formula and create a new dynamic to the sport.

I don't think this is new. RL has always been a game in which aggressive confrontation usually decides the winner. Very aggressive defence is thus a kind of attack. If you can physically dominate your opponents without the ball, you will certainly dominate them with it. Saints' single biggest weakness is the absence of sufficient aggression to gain that dominance in the big games.

Are we seeing us move closer to the NRL in terms of competivness?

There's been a lot of results that contradict each other, suggesting that no matter which team you are, it's very dangerous to go into a game undercooked.

In terms of competitiveness I think it's getting pretty close with some of the scores. It's much harder to do the coupon than it was 4 years a go. I used to win a fortune on it.


I'm terms of ability I think we falling further behind.

I think that's true, and it's definitely the case at Leeds as Brian McDermott has said himself. They've changed from a steady defensive line to one where it's more a case of getting back into good starting positions and then getting up almost as fast as you can to try and pressure the attack into either making mistakes or turning the ball back inside.

It's almost a mix of a blitz defence and an umbrella defence, with B, C, D & E defenders responsible for getting up very quickly in defence.