I see Smith is once again calling for a reduction in the number of teams as Warrington a beating people too easily.

rlhttps://www.skysports.com/story/0,,12209_7113289,00.htmlrl

He seems to chunter on about this every few months without taking into account that before Wire won the lotto they weren't exactly setting the world alight themselves.

To me his comments are a little bit black and white. With the greatest respect to Warrington, it's easy to be good if you seem to be able to squeeze so many top class players under your salary cap. It also fails to take into account one of my pet hates and one of the worst rule changes the game in the UK made - the team who conceded the try having to kick off and give the ball back to the team who have just scored.

So...

[*]Is he right? Are there too few good players in the UK or is it just that certain teams are able to attract a greater percentage of the top players for whatever reason?
[*]Rather than extending the cap to allow us to keep 'star' players in the game (meaning that the wealthier teams become even better and able to suck up even more talent), should we instead accept that the NRL/RFU have bigger pockets and reduce the cap to ensure that all 14 teams are able to spend up to it?
[*]Should the cap be amended to allow each team to have a certain number of 'star' players on higher wages? Maybe even look at a 'draft' system?
[*]Should even greater focus be put on home grown players rather than allowing teams to creat success artificially by bringing players in?
[*]Should we revert back to the scoring team kicking off to try and stop them getting on a roll and scoring 4 or 5 unanswered tries?
[*]Should we just throw in the towel and accept that if we're not even capable of putting 14 teams out the game in the UK if effectively dead in the water?

Feel free to discuss. Or not. To be honest, I've got to thr stage where I don't care at the moment. They tinker and tinker and tinker yet has anything really changed for the better or is it all style and no substance?

To take first things first, the kick off option isn't as obvious as it's painted; if you let the conceding team kick off, as now, it returns the ball to the side which scored but if you give the scoring side the kick off the game re-starts with the conceding team under pressure near their goal line, which is hardly perfect.
Maybe the scoring side should kick off from their own 20?

Is he right? For my money he largely is. We don't produce sufficient players in this country and one of the biggest reasons is the fact that the game's 'footprint' is too small. There are many many areas of this country where kids have hardly heard of RL let alone considered playing the game, and until that changes, if it ever does, then we are behind the proverbial 8-ball when trying to bring players from other areas into the fold. The RFL is trying to spread the game but there is a large swathe of flatcap opinion having to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new dawn.

Continually reducing the number of overseas players doesn't help to keep the quality higher either. [iIF[/i we were producing vast numbers of SL standard players then there would be a reason to reduce imports; but we're not so there isn't.

For what it's worth I think the clubs do a pretty good job of bringing juniors through, but at the end of the day many won't make it, not because they aren't given the chance but because they simply aren't good enough to play professionally. To get round this we need more youngsters at the bottom, so see above about spreading the game.

I don't think a 'draft' system is feasible to be honest. It depends, like in the USA, on having vast numbers of players busting a gut to get with a pro team and that situation just doesn't exist in the UK.

Sorry, but I don't have any real answers, other than supporting the RFL in its efforts to spread the game.

Well, this is something I've been saying for a long while. The RFL shot themselves in the foot by increasing the number of teams and reducing the player pool by decreasing the number of overseas players.

This seems to have been the RFL responding to this strange belief that the reason for the poor performances at international level by England was due to these mythical world class English juniors were not being given game time due to overseas players preventing their selection at SL level. So they hamstring clubs by reducing the number of available players and forcing them to play substandard players because they fit the fed trained/home grown status requirements. It also means that any home grown players of any quality can charge a premium for their services, which given the salary cap just puts up a new barrier between the haves and have nots of the league. So you've teams without the big bank rolling chairmen being unable to have decent sized squads in order to compete.

I'm all for improving the number and quality of English players coming through the ranks, however I don't believe the current system is the way to go. The best players will get picked to play at club level regardless of how many overseas players the club is allowed AND they'll be breaking into a league of a higher quality which means they'll be better players, leading to an improved international player pool for England selection. But really, developing quality players for the international team, while done by clubs is not really the reason clubs develop players. The responsibility for providing the conditions for the English players to flourish is, IMO, that of the RFL. They should be encouraging SL clubs to produce players with financial incentives rather than hamstringing clubs and reducing their effectiveness on the field

Perhaps having a minimum salary cap spend as well ?85%, ?90% of the maximum

Stop the rich clubs poaching/buying youngsters from other clubs.

I remember playing in the 60's when we played 38 league matches, the yorkshire cup, the captain morgan(john player), the floodlit trophy, but in those days we all worked full time. The fact we played so many matches had a twofold effect (1) the supporters managed to see a lot more games in a season with 2 games a week being fairly normal and also brought in more revenue to the clubs. (2) It also meant fringe/junior players gained more experience with senior players being rested for the easier fixtures.
I get fed up of hearing the likes of Stevo screaming for fewer games so we can complete with the aussies I am not interested how we fare against the aussies if it means we only have a handfull of games to watch per season.
As a player you want to play as many games as possible and as a supporter I want to see more games per year and the more games we play the more we can blood our own younger players, If we carry on reducing the number of games we will be killing off the game as people will find other interests on those blank days and may drift away from the game. I like most supporters suspect some clubs are finding ways round the salary cap which is making it an unfair competition in response to Mr Smith's comment to reduce the number of clubs and share more top players around the reduced number of clubs, maybe we should have a 6 team league and play each other 4 times so we can reduce to 20 matches per year then we can go and thrash the aussies, I think not, I'm of the view the more games we play the more skills we learn and perhaps we revert to the british game of ball playing which was good enough to beat the aussies in the past. We should remember the game is as much for the supporters as it is for the players and it seems some people want to deprive the supporters even more, it's only a few years since we played 34 league games,county cups,john player, challenge cup, and play off's. This also gave more silverware to play for and lower division teams the chance to play against the top sides which could provide a lifeline to many lower clubs having a big crowd match and also generated mor cash into the game with the increased competitions.

While I agree that reducing the number of fixtures is foolish bordering on suicidal as the clubs with a bank rolling chairman would really suffer if they were getting less revenue from a reduced fixture list.

However, the lack of players of sufficient quality mean that we're currently in a catch 22 with the number of fixtures. More fixtures would mean more income for clubs, but would put more strain on player fitness as RL is not a tickling contest and it takes players longer to recover from a match than say it would take for a premiership footballer for whom 2 or 3 games within 7 days is not unusual.

There is obviously scope for blooding youngsters if you have an expanded fixture list, however you then run the risk of damaging the development of those players.

With the lack of money in our game, the most sensible way to increase incomes and exposure of the sport IS to have more games. But in order to do that, the player pool needs to be drastically increased. The easiest way to do that is to remove the overseas quota. However, with that being said, the strength of the Aussie dollar compared to the GBP combined with the NRL's new tv deal down under which has allowed them to increase their salary cap will make it harder to get players to make the switch from NRL to SL. So what is needed in the long term for RL to survive or even flourish in this country is a huge shake up from the grassroots level all the way to SL in terms of player development.

This was something that I came up awhile ago, but I still feel it would be of benefit to the sport and that is RFL run academies of excellence. These would be a combination of skills coaching as well as academic coaching to ensure that players have a future beyond the time they're playing the game. The players from these would then be signed off to clubs via a draft system similar to the one employed by the NFL in America in regards to college football players. With this system, not everyone gets picked to go from college football to an NFL team, but it doesn't mean they drop out of the sport, but rather that they're picked up by lower league teams. Which would be similar to how the system works at the moment, however it would mean a better class of player going to the lower leagues, which in turn makes those teams more competitive and more likely to stand a better chance of making it to the top tier of the game.

Much to agree with there with just the odd point to mention.

I think the days when there were four of five 'pots' to win were of great benefit to the clubs, not only did it give more finals to play (and medals to win) it also left far more fans thinking they'd had a winning season if they managed to lift one.

I think the reasons why we no longer have these are probably twofold; firstly finding sponsors for the individual cups and I often have the feeling that Sky aren't entirely happy with the Challenge Cup games coming inbetween the SL games, let alone Yorks and Lancs cups, Floodlit Trophy, John Player Trophy etc.

The second reason is the game itself. Being full time professionals, players are often on the fine line between being as fit as possible and overcooking it, and like F1 racing cars, whilst they are faster and stronger than previously, they are, to some extent, more likely to break down and need to be nurtured. Add in the speed of collision in the modern game (10 metres apart at the ptb gives plenty of room to build up pace going into the tackle/hit) and general speed of the game means that, in any given game, modern players will expend more energy and get hit harder than the players of old. It's certainly a fact that most clubs seem to get far more injuries today than happened in years gone by.

Regarding fitness I agree today's players are stronger and far more muscular now, but there were lots of players who would easily hold todays players for pace, and there were lots of players who would love todays physicality and would more than hold their own, I would love to have the likes of Tony Fisher,Len Casey, Jimmy Thompson, Karl Fairbank etc in a bulls shirt today. Taking up your point of 10 metres apart this has led to attacking players laying up flat and as a result most tackles occur within 15 yards of the play the ball and we probably only see 3/4 passes per play the ball.
Under the old rules of defence only being 5 yards back the attacking sides were runnimg from 20 yards back so they were hitting the ball at speed but also gave them the time and space to move the ball out and the object was to get the ball out wide to the wings and streach the defence. I remember the expected position for outside backs would be 25/30 yards back from the play the ball.
I have vague recollections of a pedometer put on a footballer possibly alan ball and a rugby player and I think the distances run were 4 and 10 miles respectively. In todays game laying flat players do not have to run and cover anything like the ground in the past. so i wonder how much distance todays players have to cover. I would also agree not all matches were played like that as I remember playing at hull and had difficulty pulling my fees out of the swamp. thank god for summer rugby.
I agree that the way the modern day player is trained is to be big strong muscular but I also think that in itself can impeed on their speed hav'nt we had players out injured for torn pectoral muscles and the like unheard of in the past do we encourage injuries by training to look like an adonis.
Is it better to train a player to be able to run at 29.5 miles per hour all season than finely tuned to run at 30 miles per hour for half the season.

When you look at the sheer number of injuries we see today it makes you wonder if modern 'sports science' is all it's cracked up to be. Having said that, I don't think anyone can really argue that the game today isn't much faster than in the days of Fisher, Casey, Thompson etc (admittedly with far more use of substitutes) which will take its toll on bodies and cause many of the muscular/skeletal injuries which are so common today. I'd have to say though, that in my opinion, those old-timers with their old fitness regimes would be blown away by modern professionals, the sheer pace of the game today would be just too much for them to compete with.
Got to say the game was much more multi faceted in those days, with hookers who could hook and props who could prop and you were [ieither[/i a second row [ior[/i a centre.........Wouldn't want to go back to all that mud though!