There seems to be a lack of good halfbacks in the league and its popular to play potentially good halfs at fullback. I also think the wrestle around the ruck is ruining the game and the officials are incapable of refereeing it. Hicks was shocking in the game this weekend. He gave penalties with absolutely no consistency. We're also starting to see superleague players diving to win penalties from incompetent referees. Get rid of the dominant tackles and have a consistant time allowed in the tackle

Rucks in RU are getting a lot quicker where rucks in Superleague are getting slower, if the trend continues we won't see much time difference between the 2 codes.
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We are also getting players from the attacking side joining in with the player with the ball to get a shove on to gain more metres, The referee has near enough lost all control in the ruck area, we quite often see 4 defenders and 2 attackers in the ruck area, the ball comes loose and it becomes a lottery whether its a strip, loose carry with quite a few "backward knock ons".

I think the main reason SL is light years behind the NRL is the lack of players in motion off the ball. I'm a now and then SL viewer, and watch nearly every NRL game. Now when I make the effort to stay up late / get up early and watch the SL - I can't get over how much slower everything in attack looks. So static at times.

I think SOL said it in his post-game interview after Wigan were thumped by Brisbane (who TBF started 2016 on fire) - something along the lines of: "They didn't do anything we haven't seen before, they just did it really well.". Brisbane were still in pre-season and playing in a British winter. Says it all for me.

Agree...I almost never watch union currently but did tune into a NZ club game on Sunday. I remember the bad old days of rucks and mauls in union but in this game as soon as the attacker hit the floor the ball was released to be picked up by a team mate and the attack continued almost instantly. Quite frankly it put our ruck and PTB to shame. We need a re think here. In fact I believe historicaly league never really solved the conversion from the RU / NU ruck to the Playing of the ball with the foot. The whole area of the PTB needs a re think, as does the awful "scrums" that blight our game.

The NRL is a hell of a lot more physical than SL as well. Hardaker, supposedly a strong defender looks as weak as water in defence for the Panthers. It took almost all year for Joe Burgess to be anything other than a liability returning kicks as well - and he's physically easily big enough.

One thing I don't think we give enough credit for though is that almost despite itself SL is producing good players. Not in enough quantities, but we seem capable of producing forwards and outside backs who are pretty good. When we look back at the supposed glory days its amazing just how reliant we were as a sport on union converts (particularly Wales) for so many of our best players. The loss of that source plus losses to union and NRL and a decline in NRL backs going to SL was always going to cause a fall in standards - I guess the only question is whether its a permanent fall or whether we can eventually produce enough quality youngsters to bring standards back up.

Oddly enough I do think we can produce enough quality kids, certainly on a numbers basis. Where we fail miserably though is in the creative positions. Right now Josh Hodgson is easily the best England-qualified halfback, and he doesn't even play there.

Oh, and I think the standard of SL coaches is dire. Which doesn't help.

Hi Smokey,

Which of our best players have we lost to RU and does anyone have a list of SL players who've moved to the NRL?

I'd say Eastmond would be a top player in SL, Myler might well have been though I accept we can't tell. I don't think Ashton was particularly that good.
Of course we've lost a few to the NRL, off the top of my head:
Graham
Hodgson
3x Burgess
Whitehead
Cooper

I think all those players would make SL a better competition. However I don't think it's the main factor as to why SL isn't as good as the NRL.

In my opinion we have to sort our clubs out. There's probably only about 5 or 6 clubs that are anywhere close to where they should be in terms of professionalism, structures and finances.

I've said it before on a few threads but I think we have to start becoming 1 sport rather than a collection of totally independent clubs. We need to start sharing best practice, facilities and resources.

Oh ffs !!

They don't need to be 'that good' even if they were the worst players in SL, they would be replaced by inferior players, bringing down the quality of the league. So we ignore the loss of Eden or McCarthy because they arent 'the best' we ignore Ashton and Joe Burgess, we will ignore Charnley and Sarginson, but we are losing players of SL quality and replacing them with players who arent. There are 10-15 players who have gone, thats the basis of a squad. That would make a massive difference.

Can never happen with P+R. Why are Wakefield going to help Hull KR become better when that could mean the end for Wakefield as a professional club?

Luckily you don't have to put up with him on the Hull FC board. He is a member of the resident cuddle club on there...

Or hull KR board

I wouldn't have P&R anyway but it would be things that would benefit all clubs, like Hull FC and Hull KR sharing an academy and presumably sharing academy facilities.

Cas, Wakefield and Fev could all share a state of the art training facility for instance. Or even better, a stadium. A third of the cost and much improved facilities.
That kind of thing could be replicated where relevant. Maybe with Salford, Swinton and Oldham? As would sharing best practice on off-field things like management and marketing.
Clubs joining together to boost amateur participation and quality for instance.
IIRC Kris Radlinski tried something like that (on the business side) and only a handful of clubs could be d to turn up. It's that kind of attitude we need to change in the clubs.

I'd also use incentives to get clubs to market RFL events. The Challenge Cup final for instance is only marketed through 2 of the 39 clubs. That could be changed very easily. Championship clubs can market the Magic Weekend, SL clubs can market the Big Bash etc etc.