In order to even get close to recovering fully for a new season you need a minimum of 4 weeks active recovery off prior to getting into pre season.

The top players we have to relly on year on year never get this, the accumulated effects of this over the years can be devastating.

Look at the Aussies regards International Caps i would guess that in the team apart from Price, Petro and Lockyer the other players will be lucky to have at most individually 7 caps each, with a good few gained in the midseason Anzac test with is played mid season, they are not being asked to have no off season year in year out as our better performers have as they do not get the rest/recovery performances drop off during the season, they do not make selection for the rep sides, due to increased player competition, not having that pool of players to pick from in our case means we relly on the same players year in year out and throughout there careers they get no recovery time, not just for 1 or 2 seasons as is often the case with the Aussie players.

AUSTRALIAN forward Brent Kite has played more games than almost every other NRL player this year and yet he couldn't feel better. The Manly prop is enjoying his finest season to date and he believes it is all due to being controversially overlooked for the NSW State of Origin team. Missing NSW's third straight series loss meant Kite didn't return to club football tired and emotionally drained. www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 66,00.html

AUSTRALIAN forward Brent Kite has played more games than almost every other NRL player this year and yet he couldn't feel better. The Manly prop is enjoying his finest season to date and he believes it is all due to being controversially overlooked for the NSW State of Origin team. Missing NSW's third straight series loss meant Kite didn't return to club football tired and emotionally drained. www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/s ... 66,00.html

Very good points jonh.

Could one of the moderators rename this thread "Workload for England test players must be reduced"? This might clue other posters in to the main focus of this thread.

I think you will find all the St. Helens players have not had a decent off season break for 3 years..................and it shows.
Its time clubs outside of Leeds and St Helens stop recruiting between 7 and 10 overseas players and contribute some home grown talent, instead of going for the short term gain.
Hopefully the no relegation policy will start to put clubs in transition for the international future of the game.

I should point out Barrett said hw went to the SL so he did not have to deal with the NRL off season, which is like an Army style boot camp

Workload could be a factor but tbh, imo it is excuse making, fair enough the English players may have played more games but at the end of the day if say a player from Saints has played 37 games, you can knock 4/5 off that total already because 1/2 were probs a Challenge Cup game vs NL2 opposistion and the best players at Saints could probably be out on the lash the night before that game and still beat them by 40 points at least. Also 3/4 games a season probs more for the Saints/Leeds contingent in the England side are played with less intensity for example and its no disrespect to a team in the lower echelons of SL here but around 9/10 times Saints play Cas how many times are Saints's players giving it 100%, probably never, more like 60%/70%. In the NRL there really are no easy beats, fair enough SL has seen a reduction in 40+ point results but you still get far more than in Aus. The competition is more intense thus a player playing 28 intense games a year is probably on the same workload as a player who played 38 games a year with around 9/10 games not at 100%.
Another problem SL has is you look at all 14 teams in the SL, how many of them have 2/3 star players, eg : 2/3 of the best 60 players in the world. I would probs say 7. In the NRL every side has at the very least 2 star names. Even NQ Cowboys who finished bottom of the NRL last year have Thurston, Penrith have Wesser, Civoiniceva. The really top sides in the NRL have say 5/6 star players, eg Melbourne - Folau, Inglis, Slater, Johnson, C Smith.

IMO many fans are understandably upset at England's failure in RLWC, but the popular reasons (that the test players are not good enough, too many overseas players in SL) merely serve to create convenient scapegoats of those players. Those reasons are excuses, at best secondary reasons.

Even if the talent pool is widened, and even if the the number of imports is reduced, unless the major problem of the season structure is addressed, nothing will change and England will still be beaten.

Player welfare is not just a physiological phenomenon, but a mental one too. England players need a 3 month off season to mentally take a break and freshen up. The 2 month offseason is inadequate compared to Australia's 3 months.

what about the chat for aussies test players before the thread being renamed

IMO SL should have 12 teams and 22 games, it seems daft playing more because it gives some teams an unfair advantage, I'd still keep the play offs as they are though.

Challenge cup from January to April, that way most teams can treat the early easy games as pre season friendlies, assuming they don't draw a decent team in which case they might need a friendly or two. Plus this means you can't just rely on hitting form around july in order to win trophys.

Add to that a mid season international friendly (ideally Lancs v Yorks but this seems to have gone down the pan so England v Ireland/Scotland/Wales/France would do.) Then a friendly just before the internationals start.

Agree with the sentiment of your post, but I would raise these points.
1. None of the 14 SL clubs will agree with a reduction in the number of teams in SL. They won't risk being relegated to the Championship. The RFL also want 14 to maintain the value of TV rights, as Sky wants to maximise coverage to increase subscriptions.
2. The clubs still need to participate in around 26 games to generate the revenue from gate takings. The trick is how to lighten the load on representative players.
3. The NRL has not staged full home and away fixtures for years, but clubs, players and fans accept it because the season would be too long.



I would definitely agree with this. However the question is whether the BBC would agree to revert the scheduling back.



This would be my model:

1) Reduce the SL to 20 rounds (from 26/27 rounds). Each club plays all the others once, half the others twice.
2) 3 weeks finals series, comprising top 6 or 8 on a straight knockout basis.
3) A European Nations Cup (either England, France and Wales playing home & away; or a 5 nations competition adding Scotland and Ireland, all nations playing each other once), then away and home test tours against Southern Hemisphere opposition.
4) Expand the Northern Rail Cup by adding SL's English clubs using their non test players. 8 pools of 4 teams This will making up shortfall of SL fixtures for the clubs, and will make the NL clubs happy. The RFU is planning something similar with an expanded Anglo Welsh Cup. Celtic Crusaders, Catalan Dragons and Toulouse could play in an NRC equivalent competition with French Division 1 and 2 clubs.
5) For the Challenge Cup resting test squad from most games involving non SL opposition, except on a case-by-case basis if they have missed a lot of games due to injury.
6) If an Anglo French test must be played mid season, stage it on a culturally significant day - either V-E Day (first week May) or D Day.

Actually, I'd revise the model:

1) Reduce the SL to 16 rounds (from 27 rounds). If SL is not expanded from 14 teams, either
a) Each club plays all the others once, three other clubs a second time. OR
b) SL is split into two conferences (east and west) of 7 clubs. Play clubs in own conference at home and away, play 4 of 7 clubs in other conference once
2) SL Finals series = 3 weekends, comprising top 7 on a straight knockout basis. The minor premiers would move straight to a semi-final as a reward for finishing top, the Quarter Finals would be 2nd vs 7th, 3rd vs 6th, 4th vs 5th. SL would run from late Feb to a Grand Final on last weekend of August.

3) The Challenge Cup (and Northern Rail Cup) would be completely revamped. The Challenge Cup would be transformed from being a knockout competition to a pool based competition only involving the 32 SL, Championship and C1 English clubs. 4 pools of 8 clubs - Lancashire and Yorkshire pools of SL clubs, Yorkshire pool of SL clubs, Lancashire and Yorkshire pools of Champ/C1 clubs. The first 8 rounds would be staged from September to October, where a SL pool would play all teams in the Champ/C1 pool of same county. So a team like Wigan would play Championship clubs west of the Pennines, such as Leigh, Widnes, Rochdale, Oldham, Workington, Whitehaven, Barrow. Leeds would play clubs like Hunslet, Dewsbury, York, Featherstone, Doncaster, Sheffield etc.

International players would not play in these rounds if they have played all SL games.

4) Rounds 9/10 would be held in late Feb and early March of next calendar season. SL clubs would play 2 other SL clubs from their pool, Champ clubs would play C1 clubs from either pool and vice versa. The top 8 clubs (invariably will be SL clubs) would go on to play in Challenge Cup QFs, SFs and Finals on three bank holiday weekends in April and May. The top 8 from Champ/C1 pools would play in Northern Rail Cup finals on the same weekends. All test players would be available for these games. The Magic weekend would be held on bank holiday weekend in early April, hosting the 4 CC Quarter Finals and 4 NRC QFs.

5) Amateur clubs would play for a national knockout trophy.

Basically, England international players could be involved in a maximum 32 games, down from the current 38 to 41 many have been involved in over the last decade:
Pre-season = 2 games
Challenge Cup last 2 regular rounds = 2 games
CC finals = 3 games
Super League = 16 games
SL finals = 3 games
(Internationals that don't play in all finals games can play in tests against France and Wales)
Roses = 2 games
Kiwis = 2 games
Kangaroos = 2 games
TOTAL = 32 games

That's just not going to happen. Clubs should be responsible for resting players througout the year, problem solved.
In a few years we'll go to about 16 clubs, 2 conferences - h&a your conferene, alternate the other conference, 22 games + magic if need be, playoffs, cup and internationals, 34 tops.

It should happen if England want a chance of winning a trophy in Rugby League. In Rugby Union, national governing bodies manage their players to achieve domestic and international success





The clubs don't rest the players now, even when the result is not in doubt. Last weekend, most SL clubs selected their England test players, even in games against Championship clubs.
* Wigan 2009 England internationals Sam Tomkins and Sean O'Loughlin to beat Widnes 64-10.
* Leeds picked internationals Sinfield, Peacock, Hall, Smith against Blackpool! Result 70-22
* Bradford picked England 2009 back Paul Sykes for the 58-16 win over Leigh.



With at least 2 pre-season games, 22 SL games, 4 SL finals, 5 Challenge Cup games, 1 mid-season test, 1 post-season warm up test and 4 Four Nations tests, a player could play up to 39 matches. Still little improvement.

Its a huge improvement, they play 5 less league games!
Plus the international players dont tend to play in all the pre season games as they're still in r+r lastly any players in the GF dont play in the warm up test, so.. no. Adding to that the chances of any player playing in all playoff/final and CC games year after year is slim. Make no mistake, it's the 27 league games we need to cut down really.
Or just be smarter in your rotation which some coaches can do.

]

Why do you think that a restructuring of SL and the Challenge Cup, as recommended, is "just not going to happen"? Super League switched the elite game to summer in 1996. The Challenge Cup switched to summer in 2003. Both were enormous moves that would have been unthinkable. Nevertheless, they happened. If English Rugby Union could do it with the Anglo Welsh Cup (which runs on November test and Six Nations weekends, and thus has no access to test players), that provides even more precedent for the RFL.



It would still yield more fixtures than NRL players would be subjected to. In any event, the SL clubs need at least 13 fixtures at home to meet their financial obligations, so that's why they have not agreed before to reduce to 22 fixtures.



The club coaches will only rotate players if it benefits them or their club, or doesn't affect their chances of maximising their play-off place. So basically, if they are outright leaders in SL, they may consider it. A club coach won't do it for the test team's interest. So the responsibility for rotation would be left to the national team coach, which would not work - he can't rest any players against Aus or NZ.



Test players need to not be involved in 27 league games for their club. I have counted the large number of England/GB players whose season workload has approached or exceeded 40 games.

Australian, NZ, South African and Japan Rugby Union players all play a 13 game regular season in the SANZAR Super 14 and Japan Top League (features former RL players like Roosters/Souths/Kangaroo test utility Craig Wing plays, former Cronulla/Tonga back Fraser Anderson, and was to feature Benji Marshall in an off-season stint). Super Rugby will move to 16 regular round games in 2011 with the introduction of conferences. There is precedent in Rugby for a 16 round SL and 10 round Challenge Cup.