Made me laugh

The SL is fantastic at the moment, look how close it has become. Just 5 years ago you'd have never dreamed of seeing Hudds and HKR 3rd and 4th. The salary cap is also working, take the challenge cup for example, there will be a new name on the cup this year which is great for the game. As for the game saturday, we blew you out of the water and if it wasn't for bad video refereeing it would have been 40 zip at half-time. Stop living in the past and look to the future as your team has a very bright one judging by the quality if youngsters you have.

The SC is working.......but just because it isn't working immediately, we get threads like this.

Since SL started and London Broncos were admitted, us southern RL fans have had to put up with "team full of Australians, not working, waste of time" arguments.
Now, 14 years on, we have thousands of kids playing the game, Internationals at under age level and 2 cockney England RL internationals. Even scouts from the hearland clubs are starting to look down here for talented RL players. London RL is a work in progress and will probably take another 10 years to really start baring fruit.

The point is, the SC will take at least another 6 or 7 years to completely level out the playing field, as will the Quota rules, but I would suspect that the Leeds/St Helens axis is close to being broken up and we will see at least 3 new teams in the GF over the next 5 years.

Lastly and this is only in my opinion, Wigan winning everything that they could afford did more damage to the game in this country than any salary cap, quota or franchise regulations ever could.
There is nothing more boring than looking at the premier league table and seeing the big 4.........and it needing some arab with a few billion to spare being the only chance of another team ever breaking through............

So who had five days in the "how long will it take XBrettKennyX to start a thread on how it's the fault of everybody else and especially the communist salary cap* that Wigan are trophyless for another year" sweepstake?


* with an extra bonus for anyone who predicted that he'd be so wound up at yet another Wigan loss that he'd confuse the salary cap (or SC) with the Challenge Cup (or CC)

In the last 6 years Saints have won one title, Bradford 2 and Leeds 3 - yet SL is a one horse Saints race?

Maybe you'd rather go back to pre-cap days and watch Saints win it more often.

you have to remember it is only the last 2 years when all clubs have been able to spend the same due to the previous 50% ruling. Over the next 5-10 years we will see the comp really even out and more clubs become reliant on their jnrs (who often clst less money than imported players)

Why wait 10 YEARS,go to bloody union now,who gives a flying duck.

Absolutely right

In the past few decades one of the biggest problems RL had was chopping and changing long term strategies when they didnt yield quick results.

The SC is just starting to bear fruit, the [icompletely level[/i salary cap is speeding the process up and that will be further compounded by no automatic relegation (meaning teams can have the security that allows young players to be tried out)

As has been said, the problems some clubs *cough*wigan*cough* face is their own over reliance on average antipodeans rather than good young British players, but then thats something other clubs *cough*Huddersfield*cough* have benifited from.

(Cue wigan fans saying how much better their current squad is than Huddersfields)

Myler came from the widnes academy, not the salford one, he was playing first team for widnes when they went t!ts up.

Perhaps true then but certainley not true now and the number of overseas players is decreasing year on year, which will lead to a larger talent pool on british players. If given time.

Indeed Pyeman, at times this season Huddersfield have fielded a starting 13 that was made soley of british players, and I think a full 17 that had no overseas players in the lineup.

Standards haven't slipped at my club. We are a million miles better in EVERY facet on on off the field than we were in the days when Wigan dominated the sport.

I'd imagine St helens fans would say the same. And the Bulls, notwithstanding slippages in on field results this year.

I'd guess a Huddersfield fan thinks standards at their club are better than they were 1985-1995.

Probably most clubs would agree, bar Wigan.

So standards are falling at Wigan compared to the era in which they completed dominated the sport. I'll give you 8that. But that doesn't mean standards in the game are falling. because, however delusional Wigan fans from that era may be, Wigan are not "the game". They're one club within it.

And a clubs form rises and falls in cycles.

As a Wigan lad brought up watching Wigan RL win everything through the late 80's and early 90's, I simply don't get this concept of falling standards

You cannot watch old videos of a Wigan team destroying everybody and say that standards have fallen - that was a full time professional team playing part timers... put that equation into any sport and the pro's will come out on top

I think that Andy Gregory and Ellery Hanley were superstars of the game and immensely talented in different ways but the rest of the Wigan team (GB Players) of that era were good pro's but not outstanding. Danny McGuire is at least as good a player as a Sean Edwards was (I think better) - parachute McGuire into the Wigan team of the 80's and he would be a superstar

Same with Phil Clarke for example... no doubt in my mind that Joe Westerman is a more talented player

I could go on - but the point is that equalising standards does not necessarily reduce them

You'll have given one or two of them heart attacks with that kind of comment.