I thought Samoa did quite well this year

I was going to say the obvious answer is that the NRL is an average comp so they fit in well

The NRL is a better competition than SL....in some cases the NSW Cup games I've seen are better too. Then again, I did dine on a diet of London Broncos/HarlequinS RL for a few years before moving out here

That's right. Because the SL clubs are so immensely successful and rich, they must do these things in order to keep their billions away from the taxman. It's the obvious explanation.

Obviously ex Hull fc player and now England coach Steve McNamara disagrees and with JH being head hunted by an NRL team to perform the hooking role for 2015 then a current NRL coach also disagrees with your view. If final league positions are viewed it would appear Houghton was playing for an even poorer team, a team incidentally that Crooks failed to make a starting position in for the majority of the season.

...ah, The Bradford method of accountancy

If you offered me either of them to play in my team though, I'd still take Houghton over Hodgson. Irrespective of what Steve McNamara thinks.

Deluded.

Aye, you can always rely on a Rovers fan to provide an impartial judgement when comparing players from the Hull clubs.

Thanks for your input.

As a neutral (in terms of the Hull clubs) I would tend to agree with this statement. Whenever I've seen them I've always regarded Houghton as better than Hodgson.

In the 2013 season, Houghton impressed me everytime I saw him. I think [iindustrious[/i would be the way I would describe him.

I think I've seen posts from Hull fans suggesting he went off the boil in 2014 but I haven't seen as much rugby in general this year, so I'm not sure.

Hodgson seems a solid choice, decent service, robust player, but I thought he was one of the players in the WC that just looked to (solid but) limited. If my club were signing one, I'd go for Houghton, I think he's more likely to [imake something happen[/i.