4 teams at once would dilute the playing standards a little though, gallop would never do 4 at once, i was just dreaming it would happen

i could live with a small dilution in playing standards for a few years to allow 4 teams in

Of the 90 players in SL only 10 would be good enough to play at the standard required to make a contribution in the NRL. Richards, Puletua, King, Tommy, Monoghan maybe

RU players - will not happen, the forwards are no use in RL and when was the last time a high profile international RU back signed for an NRL club?

England struggle to get 13 players to make an international standard side so where you get 20 capable of making the move to a much higher standard comp I cannot fathom - if there were 1/2 I would be amazed - who out of the SL would you suggest could make it in the NRL.

Juniors - sad state of SOO and the Aussie loss to NZ in the WC and the Quad nations suggests strength in depth is not what it once was. This implies youth development is also not what it was - if the likes of Riddell, Hicks, Orford and Berrigan can get a game in the NRL - then the volume of youngsters of the correct quality simply does not exist.

I think it would be a struggle to fill four more sides without a distinct drop in overall quality on the field

most of our imports in the nrl would fit right back in the nrl. riddell just got a contract with the roosters

they dont have to be super stars just part of a good team

in ru well have the money to sign their best backs like quade cooper, or some all blacks

remember we have many star rl players in union like craig wing and sonny bill williams

we have tonnes of juniors, origin form comes and goes in patches

our national under 20s comp is on tv and sometimes gets more viewers than the s15

every year many players graduate from this to the nrl

Agreed. mason is in East Hull because he couldn't get an NRL gig as he has been pi55 poor for 2 years now.

....I take it you mean players on ESL......
OK Braniac.....of the HKR overseas players, who would you say is up to playing to an NRL standard? Rhys Lovegrove
Ben Fisher
Clint Newton
Ben Galea
Mick Vella
Willie Mason
Michael Dobson
Blake Green
Joel Clinton
Jake Webster

The last Australian to go back to the NRL after SL and do well was Jamie Lyon. Trent Barrett only looks good because he was the only player in either Cronulla or NSW to have a decent game in 2010.......the majority of NRL players in ESL wouldn't make the grade. And as for Piggy......remains to be seen if he's got what it takes.

Newton, Galea, Vella, Mason, Dobson, Clinton and Webster would likely all be still in 1st teams if they had stayed in NRL. Suggest you take a look at the long list of players that have returned to starting positions in the NRL after leaving SL before making stupid comments. FFS if Fitzhenry and Tandy can get starting gigs it shows you are a fool to think at least 30 of those players wouldn't still be 1st teamers.

'in ru well have the money to sign their best backs like quade cooper, or some all blacks'

RL will have the money for players where money is not the number one incentive for those players to consider swapping codes. Cooper is a good example - right now he could (if he was not contracted) earn more money in Europe than any NRL club could pay him even if the most optimistic guess at a new TV contract proves accurate. If he comes to league, it's because he wants to play league not because it will make him richer. Where money is the principal issue for the player, NRL will be hard-pressed to go head-to-head with ARU over players the latter wants to keep. It has no chance in those circumstances against Europe, and probably Japan as well.

OTOH, every year good to very good RU schoolboy / age-group players come over to league for the simple reason that the number of pro and semi-pro RL clubs offering contracts utterly dwarfs the Oz RU equivalent. This is RL's big advantage. The advent of the Melbourne Rebels may peg this back a bit given time, but only a bit...

says a HKA fan......yeah right.
Mason was looked at by a couple of clubs and offered 1 year by the cowboys....given he was average at best last year and that was in a less than average cowboys team, I would suggest that he knew his time was up by 2012 in the NRL so he took the cash on offer.......some of which he must be spending on his around the world tour on route to East Hull........has he arrived yet?

mate you are clueless, as I said it isn't my opinion, its fact backed up by the amount, and quality, of SL players who have gone back and started in NRL teams. Wait till 2013 you will see 20+ ex NRL players returning to bolster the squads of the two new teams.

Mason would be a 1st team NRL player next year if he had stayed, FACT! What would have happened after that is just guess work.

Let's not go down that road JB......it's just starting to get nice and quiet on here :

Hey....it's my opinion that NRL players that go north aren't going to get a gig in most cases when they come back.......and it's my opinion that Mason was nothing other than average in '09 and '10.....just opinions.....not statements of accuracy, rocket surgery or brain science