Some very strong teams though, wouldn't you say?

What would Catalans look like?

There are indeed some very strong teams listed, and from the clubs at the top of Super League as well which is encouraging - it would be an interesting exercise to compare these to the home-grown teams of the top clubs some 5-10 years or so ago to see if the youth development is paying dividends

I'd agree with that with regards to Wigans HB's. Ive been saying on the Wigan board I want Deacons replacement to be young and british, if it's Mellor, even better.

Isn't Logan Tomkins a half back?

Hooker

Hooker. Joe Mellor is the only halfback thats close to the first team. Doing well at Widnes apparently, i'd like to see him get a couple of games before the end of this season.

Couldn't disagree more. Overseas players have for years added quality and diversity to rugby league in this country. The problem is the numbers far exceeded sustainable levels. The federation trained thing has legally started to reduce this, subsiquently we are seeing a large number of youngsters coming through. Once all the excemptions have retired or left in 4 or 5 years time i would like to see the RFL reduce the non-feds to four then three. Only permitting 1 is going too far and will detract from the competition IMO.

1. Elliot Kear
2. Stuart Reardon
3. Gareth Thomas
4. Lee Williams
5. Jamie Murphy
6. Jordan Tansey
7. Peter Lupton
8. Richard Moore
9. Lloyd White
10. Jordan James
11. Ben Flower
12. Andy Bracek
13. Paul Johnson

The bench would have to be all youth players

I agree but then if you look at Union's current England squad, they've got four Kiwis, two South African's, and two former League players in there. We're at least taking some steps in our game towards gradually weening ourselves off overseas players and we just need to be patient. Reducing quotas has to happen at the same pace as we're able to develop homegrown talent to fill the void and that'll take time. We do need a strategy but it'll take as long as it takes

1. Melling
2. O'Callaghan
3. Pryce
4. Clubb
5. Caro
6. Gale
7. Sarginson
8. Ward
9. Ellis
10. Wilkes
11. Burnett
12. Golden
13. Purdham

14. Krasniqi
15. Bolger
16. Bryan
17. Thomas

8 from Academy

1 overseas player is too few. If it was possible (and it would be if clubs didn't permanently try to bend rules to squeeze in extra overseas hacks) I'd limit it to 3 per club with no exemptions, and hope to see quality over quantity.

If the NRL does get a big uplift in TV money over the next few years, this may happen anyway, as they'll be able to pay journeymen just as much as SL clubs can. They may well do this as there's a lot of talk about player burnout and the need for bigger squads to enable players to be rested during the season.

The problem is that it is against employment law to discriminate based on nationality. This is why the RFL introduced the federation trained idea.