Paul Johnson was a decent player, I certainly didn't mean to call him a duffer, and he deserved his caps. But I'd take Charnley or Hall ahead of him. I'd forgotten Sheridan even existed, so Chase would get in ahead of him (though he wouldn't have been eligible back then). As for Pratt. Well....

And then. Deep breath. I'm going to defend the young Wellens... I'm sure he wasn't too slow back then to play centre, even at international level? I think his fiercest critics would have to admit that apart from his (increasing) lack of pace he has everything else needed for a top player. Would he have been as good as Atkins, no, but I'd take Senior from 10 years ago ahead of Atkins anyway. Better than Goulding or the other centre options? I can't remember enough of Wellens from those days, but I suspect he'd be in with a shout. Over to you as you will be able to recall the young Wello.

I think you're too harsh on Gleeson (don't forget this is the 2002 Gleeson, my memory of him then was of a very good young player) and Newton (I'd say the 2002 Newton was not that far off Roby, and I'd rate Roby as one of our best 2 or 3 players at the moment). To be honest I never particularly rated Joynt, but that may be down to Wigan bias to be fair, though if you don't rate him either then I'm not going to disagree with you!

What's your thinking on Fielden? I certainly can't forget the 2003 version when the Bradford pack was just too powerful for us in the GF.

Better option at stand off now than scully?

Scully was rated in the top 3 players in the world while playing at stand off, he has his best playing days wearing the #6 shirt.

Corrected for accuracy (again with as much pro-2012 bias as I can muster), so I probably make that a 10-7 win to 2002.... And you have to bear in mind that Sullivan, Long, Connolly and Newlove (the last 2 admittedly past their best by then) were all missing from that team and Harris and Robinson (and Paul if you're going to use Chase in the comparison) hadn't long since joined the rah-rah brigade. So do a 2000 vs. 2012 comparison instead and you start to struggle to be able to pick anyone bar Roby, Tomkins, Jammer and [imaybe[/i Ellis from today in the 17. And then there's the likes of Briers and Martyn who never got a look in in the international scene for whatever reason who I'd pick ahead of any GB halves playing now (except Tomkins and "old" Briers maybe) and things look more one-sided still.

There is no player in the British game now who could play #6 even remotely as good as either Scully or Farrell - 2 frightening monsters of players the likes of which there just simply isn't in the game at the moment.

Agree.

I posted this tonight on the VT in a discussion started by McLennan on this topic:

And there are three players - Farrell, Cunningham and Sculthorpe who were significantly better than anyone playing today (other than Tomkins).

Sculthorpe out of position was better than any 6 we've currently got (as was Farrell when he played stand-off) and in recent years we've been playing foreigners to try to strengthen the side.

I don't think that 2002 side was very representative though of where standards used to be.

If you look at the 2003 Ashes series, it was a 3-0 whitewash but GB were much more competitive than they are today and who knows what might have happened if Morley hadn't got himself sent off in that first test. (As an aside, Farrell was immense that day and anyone that says he never proved himself at international level needs to sit down and watch that game. One hit he put in on Webcke - during which he stole the ball - will live long in my memory, partly because an Aussie sitting behind me had just been forecasting that Webcke was going to smash the GB pack single handed. I heard barely a peep out of him for the rest of the game.)

This was the 2003 side, from the first test

Radlinski (Wigan); Carney (Wigan), Connolly (Leeds), Senior (Leeds), Horne (Hull); Sculthorpe (St Helens), Long (St Helens); Fielden (Bradford), Newton (Wigan), Morley (Sydney Roosters), Peacock (Bradford), Farrell (Wigan, capt), Forshaw (Bradford). Subs: Anderson (Bradford), McDermott (Leeds), Deacon (Bradford), Gilmour (Bradford).

Apologies if this as already been said. I think we have to tolerate the drop in standards for a few years because it will only benefit us in the long run.

There is more opportunity for young players to come into SL sides now, instead of being cast away into the lower leagues never to improve their game. You get many late developers in sport.

With only 10 clubs the pool of potential international talent to pick from would be tiny.

I also think when a side as to pick an extra couple of homegrown youngsters it gives the fans of RL something that football fans rarely get...which is cheering on players who are fans themselves, and not some overseas player here to make a quick few quid.

Only problem with that is that almost all young people who get into RL are runts. They are poor physical specimens on the whole and will never be great at RL simply because they've not got the required attributes naturally. What league should be doing is actively going into Primary schools and identifying the top athletes, not only the big oversized monsters but also the ones with the natural ball skills and co-ordination and those with pace. If they can get kids playing RL at 5 or 6 and get them interested it should stop the current situation where our Greg Inglises and Jonathon Thurstons are playing football instead of RL.

Edited for accuracy. You can watch just as many hungry, homegrown young players as you'll ever see in RL by not being a glory-hunting Premier League whore and watching some [ireal[/i football instead.



Exactly - almost all of the top young athletic talent in this country plays football now and this somehow needs to be re-balanced. We're doomed to an eternal future of GB squads filled with Shentons and Matty Smiths otherwise.

I agree with what you're saying. I don't think we produce the kind of athletes the Australians produce mainly down to weather, as daft as that may sound.

A little kid opens his curtains in St.Helens and the likelihood is that the weather will be crap and cold. And they end up watching telly etc
A little kid opens his curtains in Australia and the weather is stunning....again. The kid goes out, plays ball games, better metabolism, ends up growing up fitter, stronger, faster...
I'm probably simplifying it too much.

For me we need to seriously reduce the imports in our game in order to improve the quality of our home grown players. Under Nobby at Wigan, Sam Tomkins was in the 20,s and not going any further ( in fact nearly on his way out ) because he thought he was not big enough. Tim Smith got injured and he had to bring him in to the team, the rest they say is h.......

There are too may overseas players + coaches in our game, a lot of young players never get the correct amount of game time in their strongest position because of this, I know results, results, results ! only matter and winning trophies because its a business. The demise started when teams like Wigan, Saints, etc went looking down under in the 80,s and don,t get me wrong I loved watching Kenny, Meninnga, Miles etc, and this trend has continued ever since.

The trade off is, our own lads never get the right chances and hence we never produce the correct amount of talent we should do. There is enough playing talent round Wigan + St Helens alone in RL to produce enough players if they are coached correctly and more importantly given the correct chances.

Its the same in the Premier league, too many foreign players and not enough local lads. How many non-Aussies play in the NRL ? not many, how many non Spanish play in their football league, not many.

If they had kept the overseas quota in and reduced it to 2 players years ago, there would be a lot more Roby,s + Tomkins knocking about in SL.

Daniel Anderson was interviewed on Boots'n'All this evening and he believes that the standard of SL has deteriorated since he was here, citing the increase to 14 teams as one reason. He doesn't think we have the player pool to support that number of teams.

I totally agree with him.

I don't think he said we have deteriated. He said we have not moved on - the level has stayed the same we have stagnated and fourteen teams he thinks is two too many.

Ditto.

He was trying to avoid being overly negative. He was going to say 'plummeted', but didn't want to offend anyone so changed it to stagnated. He's right, there isn't the player pool to support 14 teams with any real quality.