I don't care about your criticism of myself, I thought I already made that clear.
Tim Sheens does not think differently he said

"If we pick off the top 10 per cent of their players and they're playing over here, in some ways it's a fair trade"
The thread was related to signing players form the English CURRENT Test team (at the right price)

Australia does develop its own Juniors and regularly supples dozens of players to other Test countries and Leagues, have a look at how many Aussies played for other nations in the last World Cup, including the winning team.

I am not looking forward to the demise of Rugby League in England but I can be critical about how they go about their business.
Even when new criteria is applied by a weak governing body (the RFL) all the Clubs look for loopholes to get around the system rather than plough some money into a solid Junior system.
Any League that has around 30-50 % of their first team players imported should ring alarm bells.

the average tournament crowds for the 1995 RLWC,04,05 tri nations & 09 4nations held up here are more or less the same as the 08 RLWC & 06 tri nations held down under.....hth


and please tell us all the reason why the ARL have decided to a australia test @ parramatta

also why only 27,000 turned upto watch the 2006 tri nations final @ the SFS between OZ & NZ

Is it good for the Super League to lose more elite players to the NRL? Can the English game afford to lose its stars? Australian RL has never wanted to lose its star players, nor lose elite NZers, with certain Australian RL people claiming them as our own when criticising player drain to SL. English players may benefit from playing fewer games in NRL, and from receiving more pre-planned breaks in the NRL season, yet any potential boost to those exports potential performance comes at a cost to your game. Its avoiding the issue that will benefit the English game long term - restructuring that puts the national team in a peak physical and mental state the beat the Kangaoos.



IMO % of foreigners isn't the most relevant factor that negatively affects the success of the League nor the national team. English Rugby Union's Premiership has a high % of foreigners, as does the French Rugby Union's Top 14. Both are growing in popularity, their clubs are increasingly able to buy players from anywhere. England's national teams won the 2003 World Cup, contested the 07 final, and won three Six Nations titles in the last decade. France has won 5 titles in the last decade. What about English Premier League soccer? High percentage of foreigners, one of the most high profile and commercially successful leagues in the world.

Management of elite players is a significant factor. NZ Rugby does this extremely well, hence the All Blacks performing well, winning so many tests and holding a high world ranking for a long time. English Rugby Union has an agreement, hence its reasonable performance despite a long season.

Our vision is to have Israel playing in a 6 Nations RL comp.

I think that is the definition of complete ownage.
Well in Wellsey

I don't get any doom and gloom about top English players plying their trade in the NRL. Tomkins and Eastmond are good examples of players who would improve immensely playing NRL IMO. If they stay in England they'll stay star players for their clubs, but have the same sorts of issues that prevented Long, McGuire etc ever making the step up to genuine class halfbacks. I'd like to see Roby go too. Doesn't mean they should go to the NRL forever. How much bigger a star would Tomkins be if he went to the NRL for a few years, developed into a world class player and then returned to Wigan?

BTW, people should stop trying to defend the indefensible recruitment of p*ss poor Aussies. Everyone knows which imports at their own clubs are basically very average players.

I agree.
Whilst there's an argument that if they leave it would weaken the competition, they will no doubt come back better players and strengthen the competition.

Short term pain, long term gain.


There are a lot of poor imports. But there are also some very very good ones that do add to the competition. There are also some that come over as good players and end up being worse and vice versa.

James Graham
Joel Tomkins?
...who else?

Any of the England team would make regular first grade and anyone who tells you differently is talking out of their ass

Glad to be able to say I was there. And a real pity that more didn't turn up for what was the best game i've seen live, and one of the best games i've seen, fullstop. That was a game that had AFL journalists raving about it, and on a non-league message board I frequent, I had staunch AFL fans tell me they watched it and one of them, to quote, said he was "positively enthralled".

That's the potential power of international rugby league. As has been mentioned already in this thread and many times elsewhere, it is what the English game can heavily rely on if perhaps the NRL can help turn England into a genuine powerhouse. Hell, the international game is basically the only thing keeping Union alive in Australia. It can be such a powerful tool.

agreed but as you say its up to us to take their best and raise their game.

they just arent challenged enough in SL.

their elite players are talented enough in terms of the core skills of the game but mentally are weak

its why australia can always sneak a win with 5 mins to go.

ive got no doubt many SL players would thrive in the nrl, especially if they have an attitude to work hard in training.