Hanley's on channel 9 now, he can talk.

It will never happen but i would love to see an England under 20 team play in the Toyota Cup like the New Zealand Warriors, they could be based in Sydney for the whole season. That would be a great environment for those youngsters to progress in.

New Zealand Warriors are a NRL club side, England aren't.

What makes people think English RL should be able to compete with Australia? Let's look at a few facts:

Money
Nrl income $150million a year (and about to go up to $250mill)
Rfl income $20mill

Nrl avg club income $15mil
SL avg club income $5mill

Jnrs
Australia 50'000 (+nz)
Uk 10,000

Australia Jnr funding $tens of millions
Uk jnr funding $tens of thousands

Australia player size boosted by significant number of islander heritage players
Uk player size ltd in a nation where the avg male is 5 10" and under 85kg

Nrl 90% of players eligible to represent Australia
SL 65% of players eligible to represent England

Seriously why do you think England could or should be better?

Hanley had an interview?

I was too busy looking at Mitchell Pearce' new girlfriend!

he was saying the usaul thing about only 4 teams are good enough to win things in england, but he was also saying players like tomkins should give the nrl a go to improve their game

Woooooosh!

I think your spot on. Think this is particulary evident why we have no centres, the ones who get noticed are the big strong ones at U16's who run through people. Not the ones who pt their wingers in a gap.

The likes of Deacon, Sinfield etc probably wouldn't get scouted now. They won't the strongest, fatsest in the world, but they organsied and were superb passers and kickers.

The reality is Hanley is right and we are a long way behind the NRL and the reasons are quite obvious.

1. Rugby League in NSW and Queensland is thier national sport.

2. At Junior level most of our kids are interested in Wendyball rather than RL and so not enough kids iniitally get to play play RL thereby reducing the amount of talent available from the very beginning.

3. Investment and money in junior rugby is nothing like it is down under and simply the bigger volume of kids playing makes it more of chance for clubs to identify young players with quality and good skills which they can then hone and develop.

4. From a coaching perspective not enough emphasis is placed on passing ability in the UK. Lets be honest even some of our professional players at times don't pass the ball particularly well and many playing skills are undeveloped.

5. Far too many average overseas players in SL not giving UK players a chance.

6. Economic power. The game is awash with money in Australia whilst we struggle to find a decent sponsorship and only end up with a few players pictures stuck on the back of a Stobart Wagon.

7. Culture. The Aussie culture is more about playing sport, our culture is about watching it.

8. The weather is another major factor where its aids better player development and opportunites to train and improve fitness.

It might be worth pointing out that Deacon was a try scoring machine when he was younger.

People hark back to the 90's as when we where nearly good enough. That was mainly down to RU imports. Maybe the answer lies in the RFL signing up the 10 best Union backs from the home nations like we did in the 90's? Davies, Tait, Gibbs, Devereaux, Offiah to name a few.

Other reality is the funding into the game in Australia since that time has gone up massively whilst in the UK it hasn't.

Hanley should count himself lucky he was playing at a time when everything was in GB's favour and he could at least lose by just a few!

It's very simple...

It's down to each countries social make-up.

Sport and NRL in particular is ingrained into the National psyche. It has vast amounts of money thrown at it, huge exposure, along with solid development from grass roots level. Facilities, even for amateur Clubs are of a high standard and kids actually want to grow-up being RL stars. Ability is nurtured from a young age.

Compare it with our set-up over here...

RL is way down the pecking-order, it has problems breaking out of it's Regional base, tiny amounts of money invested in comparison. A stuttered grass roots system, poor facilities in a lot of areas. Smaller player pool to develop from, and our RL is run by sub-standard individuals.

On the face of it, we are doing well to even compete.

All the nonsense of dropping to 10 team leagues etc will do nothing. RL needs sound investment, better exposure, and quality development.