This cry has been heard since 1982 and..................................

I will Orbit the moon from a standing jump and become Pope before that argument has any more merit!!.


Take the blinkers off for crying out loud.


Signing Orford and his like is DEAD MONEY to the game in this country can't you see that?

But he is better than anyone else who was available to Bradford. With their poor season this year you can't blame them for wanting a quick fix. It should be up to the RFL to sort out the problem and not the clubs.

Err it's the clubs that run the RFL!!!!

Yes, bar one. Cronulla's was a development squad which is to see who will play in the U18s SG Ball comp next year. The others were the exact Sydney equivalents.

As for Balmain. Balmain still play in every grade except for U20s and first grade NRL (which they now play as Wests Tigers). They still supply players into the NRL in the same way that Wests, Norths and Newtown do to this day.

Please don't presume because we beat Australian teams they couldn't possibly have been the real team to play against. Saints even beat Penrith, the largest junior dev area in Australia.

Because at youth age, us and the aussies are physically similar. But then the aussie backs grow up whilst ours remain 5"8, 13 and a half stone and with sparrow legs

The key 'missing link' - apart from the pure issue of numbers of juniors and finding genuine athletes - seems to be in turning our best 16-17 year olds into star players. The gap between Academy and SL is huge and it shows when you get kids into the first team that can't do the most basic things.

How many new young centres do you see that seem to know how to put their winger into space? How many young halfbacks have good all-round kicking and passing games? From what I've seen most young centres seem to be basically clueless in terms of setting up play, and we have halfbacks that are 'one trick' ponies without a rounded skill set - that's my worry about the future development of both Tomkins and Eastmond for example, that they have the same basic flaws they do now in 3/4 years.

Without those basic skills for their positions they wouldn't get many chances in the NRL.

Sending these kids to Australia for a year at 17 to refine their skills would make a world of difference IMO.

Re the argument about the best Aussies coming over. Playing with and against the very best will undoubtedly help everyone. What p*sses me off is the idea that young players can learn by simply watching and training with class players. That has been and always will be absolute rubbish. If watching was all that was required or 'seeing how professional' someone is then buy a subscription to watch the NRL, and at every club there will be absolute pros in the training department - I suspect there wouldn't be many better role models in terms of training than Sinfield and Peacock at Leeds for example.

Here lies part of the problem. You can't stretch our players on a torture rack, but when I cast my mind back to playing at junior level, the coach used to shout at his son for constantly doing what we know today as 'GUN SCULPTING'. Whilst completely ignoring the rest of his players.

So when people mention on here about grass roots rugby maybe the coaches out there should look around and see what their players are doing. Teach the younger lads how to squat, clean and snatch, all the things that will make a strong athlete/rugby player. There are courses out there if you don't understand what I'm talking about. England athletics do some very good courses.

Stop being so bloody pessimistic.

So training with better more experienced athletes won't help improve performance? I think you'll find a lot of research that would suggest otherwise. I aren't saying it happens ALL THE TIME, because that would be nonsense, but in a lot of cases it does. To say it has no merit is laughable.

Wellsy - we've had absolute stars from Australia in SL for decades. 'Watching' someone has very little merit as far as I can tell. PLAYING alongside/against them does.

Absolutely brilliant post.

I am amazed at how spindly a lot of English backs are when they hit first team. It's almost as if they'd never seen the inside of a gym.

That's what you look like when you don't have Polynesian genes!

A lot of it's a lack of a real pre season, juniors probably get less than seasoned pros and actually many academy players arent full time and therefore dont have the time to spend in a gym. The best one's get full time contracts but they certainly aren't brilliant and if I was living away and had bills to pay i'd be down working at the local asda in the evenings

Brian Smith said the same thing about the game in general - far too short an off-season leaving not enough time to do the kind of preseason work they do in the NRL.

I'd say it's also something to do with the Aussies picking players positions on their skill sets rather than size. If Greg Inglis was English he'd probably be playing prop now.