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.

To get closer to the aussies we need to get as many of our top youngsters playing in the nrl as possible.

Tomkins and eastmond should be trying to get an nrl contract now.

While this happens we can put into place longer term structures.

Isn't that what I'm getting at?

under 20%

We cannot play in the summer due to the inability to water the pitches and you cannot have a physical game like RL played on pitches the resemble concrete.

A big problem.

Games get called off in Winter for "hard frozen" ground but in Summer on some pitches its even harder and they still play on it.

Tends to be the only major set back and the main thing that puts off those who prefer winter rugby from playing in the summer.

What do they do in Aus to stop this problem? I would assume as it's a lot hotter there this will also be an issue for them.