I'd be more worried if they we're kicking to Meli or Gardner than running at Shenton or Smith
We've no chance of competing with their star studded back line,thats a fact
but lets not disguise the fact that we couldn't put any current english sl players in this squad that could match any of the aussie backline and in any position

I wasn't advocating any Saints player being in the team, and I don't think for a moment that our defense will hold them out for the full 80 - no matter how organised and how enthusiastic they are - I was only using the centres as examples - wing, FB, SO, SH are all the same.

The forwards will do their job, the problem will come when the play breaks down.

My thoughts also too

How much of that is down to improved defence making it harder to create openings meaning that territorial position becomes even more important than it ever has?



I agree with that, however British players not being able to pass has been a problem since I was a lad. Why that is, is a more fundamental question in regards to playing standards in the UK i.e. coaching. The Australians don't have a problem passing because their junior coaching is, I presume, a lot better. We need to improve our coaching at a younger age so that we can see players coming through who can pass the ball. Scott Moore still has a lot to learn but he does appear to be able to pass with spin in both directions. I think that only now are we starting to see the results of Super League's 'forced' investment in youth coaching starting to pay off with the passing ability of some of the kids e.g. Tomkins and Wheeler. Even then they are far from perfect, however I can look at Eastmond and say that at his age he is ahead of Sean Long in his skills development, in terms of how good Long was at the same age. Burrow and McGuire are probably the last two notable half backs to come through an academy system and I think that Tomkins, Wheeler and Eastmond are ahead of their development in terms of skills with the ball in passing, kicking and RL intelligence. I don't think it's just a coincidence that in terms of Saints' youth development there's been a marked improvement since Mike Rush became involved and he learnt his youth coaching over in Australia which supports my argument about youth coaching in the British game.



We have always been way behind the very best i.e. Australia. What I am not keen on promoting though is this thought that our skill levels are poor in comparison to what it used to be i.e. before the professional era, because across the board it is far better. RL supporters like to moan a lot and talk our sport down when in comparison to other sports played in this country it is exceptional. Football in this country is of a high standard at the highest level but once you get away from the top six or seven clubs there's a real big drop off. I don't think we get that in RL.

If we are going to be critical towards our game then I don't mind that but it has to be in the right context i.e. the whole of Super League and not just us moaning about Saints not rattling up 90m tries and 75-0 whoopings every two games or so. It also should mean that we should not ignore advances in the defensive aspects of play to justify a one-side argument about creativity in the game on the back of one or two seasons.

One thing that rarely gets mentioned in these discussions is the general improvement of competitiveness in the modern era, which has improved quite significantly. Even then, if we don't agree on that, there is the factor of an increased competition size and the impact that has had on the quality of the sport as well. I was one of those not in favour of expanding the competition to fourteen teams because of concerns I had about our sport not being to provide a sufficient volume of quality players to maintain the integrity of the quality of Super League.

When we talk about improving quality there is another argument which has been largegly forgotten and was one of our desires and ideas for improving the quality of play over here and for our national team. That argument is about improving the intensity of our game. We have all said, at one time or another, that the only way for us to compete at international level is to have a more intense Super League competition. Surely that is only possible by developing a more competitive league. We should not forget that when we are assessing Super League and what we want from it as a competition. I believe we can have a competitive league that is entertaining and has high playing standards. Which comes first though is your stance in the argument. I saw some brilliantly entertaining games this year where the quality wasn't as great as it has been in some other games of previous years e.g. Bulls at home.

I would not want to sacrifice much of the improvement in competitiveness just to see 90m tries every so often. In the NRL (the highest quality rugby competition in the world) they aren't racing over for 50m+ tries every game and yet the standard remains high because the basic skills are commonplace amongst players which again goes back to coaching at a younger age. Twenty years ago I was taught how to tackle, which is great. There was very little emphasis though on improving my passing and how I improved my own passing was by just practising with mates. I would force myself into trying to spin pass the ball to my left because it was a weakness. We should be coaching our youngsters by forcing them to learn to spin pass at an early age. It is as important a skill to our game as tackling. I'd say similar about English football and coaching young players to learn to play off both feet. We don't do that enough and I'm appalled at how many times you will see a professional footballer waste an opportunity because they want to get it onto their preferred shooting foot.

McClennan

Superb post.


Here's what I put on the Wigan board over the weekend.

"Last year I had the good fortune to spend a couple of hours on the Gold Coast in Australia with two former Aussie internationals.

I asked them what we (England / GB) had to do to catch up to them, or even get close.

They said that a lot of their young players are identified at a very young age and the clubs then send them to schools which are more like sports colleges from around 12 and 13 years of age.

We don't really have that facility here but I know that Wigan are working more with Lancaster University with some of their academy players."

I should have added that I deliberately used to try and play with my left foot at football when I was in primary school and although I was generally pretty average at football my own determination to use my left foot did see me get into my school team at left back despite being right footed. Like with RL, at secondary school, I was never taught how to do this. It was all self-taught.

Wasn't it Bobby Charlton who was right footed, but put a slipper on his right foot and a football boot on his left to make him better with his left when he was a kid?

I find it embarassing that most right handed england professional rugby players, still cannot pass to their right aswell as they can to their left.

It does make you wonder.

Three of the top wingers of all time, Billy Boston, Tommy Voll and Brian Bevan were all right wingers so in the past we must have had inside players who could shift the ball to the right.

With all the full time training you would think someone would be able to teach player how to pass a ball both ways.

I suppose we should also note that there are less left handed people playing in RL than there are right handed people, which will obviously have an impact on the overall likelihood of quality players in that position. I think I would be right in saying that in most teams over the past twenty years, the left centre has usually been better centre on a team. Arguably the best right centre, skills wise, I've seen in the professional era would probably be Gleeson. He's lost it a bit, however on his day he was excellent at putting his winger away. Okay, he doesn't compare with the likes of Lyon, Gasnier or Gidley but as a British player he compares favourably with other contenders in that position during my time watching the game.

Again, it's no coincidence that Gleeson learnt the game when he lived in Australia from the age of ten to seventeen. He is pretty average in terms of his physical attirbutes (similar to Gidley) yet with good coaching he's been able to put in better performances than most British right centres during his time.

a very good read mate
my interpretation of the differences between the NRL and SL competitions on the whole is that they do the basic "core skills" much better than we do,as you have eluded to
imo the english player that is by far and away the best in the "CORE SKILLS" department is kevin sinfield,i know that you guys do not rate him too highly,but he's not the fastest player around,he's not the hardest,he doesnt make the most yardage etc etc,but the one thing he can do all season long is to perform all these "Core skills" as close as possible to perfection each week,it's probably second nature to all the NRL players but sadly not to the majority of SL players

I think that's a very fair assessment of Sinfield. He perhaps doesn't have the magic to make a difference at international level, however he is a phenomanlly competitive and effective player at club level or has been for the past three to four years.

Would it not have anything to do with your dominant hand? i.e. similar to learning to write with your non-dominant hand, in as much as you can just about tell what it says but it's nowhere near as neat?

Interesting that Sean Maguire has picked up on the topic in todays Daily Post effectively condemining the current SL as a 'five drives and kick competition' and contrasting it to the finely balanced Australian and New Zealand performances on Saturday.

In relation to junior development, the question that begs to be asked is that why are our juniors more than equipped to defeat their Australian counterparts?

Is it because the game at that level is more reliant upon pure physical ability such as speed and strength and less reliant upon rugby skills such as handling, scheming etc or is it that the SL is just not breeding good rugby given its reliance on imports over the years.

All valid points Mike but it's a typical 'Free Mike McClennan' post that completely ignores the real points I am making and goes off at a tangent to describe other facets of the game, with a large dose of Oxford Dictionary, in an attempt to convince the 50%ers that your take on things is right.

Whichever way you look at it, the game in this country is largely about one man drives, kicking, defending and playing with zero flair. None of your comments alter the fact that Super League games are by and large boring to many of us whereas they never used to be so.

What were these "brilliantly entertaining" games? I could name about half a dozen that were reasonably entertaining to watch.

My interpretation of "brilliantly entertaining" obviously differs from yours. Just because a game is close does not mean the game is entertaining. 0-0 draws in football are close but can be boring as hell and that was the level of entertainment I was seeing, at Knowsley Road and watching other teams on Sky.

The brand of football that clubs in Super League are playing is negative and the emphasis has gone from teams trying to outscore their opponents to trying to concede less. That's a simplistic overview, I know, but teams are minimising risks and are unwilling to take a chance on forcing a gap in case they inadvertently leave one of their own.

The Aussies and Kiwis showed us on Saturday that it does not have to be this way, you can defend but still give the ball some air and try to fashion chances and, hopefully, the risk-free obsessed coaches of this country will have watched and learned.