Quote: the artist "Have there been any this season?
It wasn't too long ago that they were pretty common and not just when top played bottom - even some notable ones in the wigan v saints derby. so what gives? are teams better defensively or worse in attack, or are they just mentally tougher in that they don't give in when the scores pile up
are we slowly catching up with the nrl in this aspect of the game'"
I don't think so.
The NRL has a crazy amount of games every week that are undecided with 10 mins to go. Games are still in the balance with 1 score separating teams until the final stages of games on a regular basis.
Superleague will never have the same kind of competiveness as long as we don't have every side spending the full salary cap as well as have players interchanging between clubs top to bottom.
In Australia you can have a player leave a top side to go and play for the side that finished bottom the year before and its not seen as a big shock as its more than possible that a team finishing outside the top 8 can go and achieve something a year later.
We don't really have that in Super league. The better players at the top clubs tend to sign long term contracts and if they do leave its to the NRL rather than a super league side.