]

phased out over a short-term period yes IMO

Would this be one of those ' subjective ' judgements ?

I'd probably agree with that, if clubs had stuck to the spirit of the rules and only had 5 overseas signings this season I think that would be about right. That would mean 27 fewer overseas players this season (going by steve_norton's original post), as you say I don't think we'd see a significant drop in standards and we would be forced to develop more English players or further develop the English players we already have. However the coaching systems as they currently stand aren't anywhere close to good enough to deal with a much bigger drop in overseas players at the moment.


Absolutely
There needs to be much more done by the pro-clubs, especially SL clubs, at assisting and improving the coaching and player development at youth and junior level in the amateur clubs in their area. Some pro-clubs are pretty good, some are pathetic. Sadly the pretty good ones are more than outnumbered by the pathetic ones.
The general standard of coaching at junior and youth level is utter rubbish, and is patchy at scholarship and academy level. Although the scholarship and academy levels suffer from the poor skill levels of the players they receive through the doors.
Schools rugby I don't know much about, but all the signs are fairly good and that it's steadily becoming more and more widespread which is always a good thing (although how the SSP funding cut will affect this is yet to be seen).

But it's got to be joint effort from the clubs, the RFL and BARLA to attempt to massively improve the quality of coaching at junior and youth levels.

So in brushing us to one side you forgot about Patten Henry and Holdsworth ?

More ' subjective ' judgement

It gets everywhere

Holdsworth is very good, but I wouldn't make a bold statement like 'he'd walk into any team in SL'. However, if he were English, he would be a 'shoe-in' for the national team. He has a much superior kicking game to Kevin Brown, can organize a team and has that rare ability to create space for others.

I personally see him as a similar kind of player Kevin Sinfield. Before any Leeds fans get irate, i'm full aware Sini has been doing the business in SL for a lot longer, but there is a valid reason why Salford had to fight several clubs to retain his services for the forthcoming season! If Salford could find a set of forwards capable of giving the team some go forward, then he will set the league on fire.

Patten's already been mentioned. Haven't seen him play on a regular basis myself, but type his name into you tube and you'll see some quality movement and evasive play from him.

The other player I'm going to stick up for is Feka. I would rate him on his day as the most destructive runner in professional rugby league, unfortunately, he has that slight fitness issue.

The signing of Anderson and Bailey, in addition to Wild, confuses me slightly. An area where the British game is still quite strong and even Salford have some good youngsters coming through. Wigan fans seem to suggest Bailey did an excellent job of mentoring their young forwards, but I'd be upset if he was costing Adamson and Sidlow regular fist team chances.

Athlough I rate Henry, he and Nero probably highlight the lack of quality British centres that are currently around in SL.

it should be capped at 4/5 regardless of colpac or any other bending of the rules and loopholes.trouble is too many fans want instant success and as soon as a young player makes mistakes in a few games running they get on their backs and then the player loses confidence,hesitates and makes more errors.the clubs want quick success too and the easy option is seasoned players from 0z and the logic is simply that as its a stronger league their average player is better then our average player.
it might be an idea to reward teams who have fewer overseas players somehow.maybe add 50/100k to their salary cap if they have under 4 overseas players,or maybe a cash reward

or simply limit the number of overseas players for everyone - say,3 maximum for the 2012 season ! that would be brutal !

brutal it might be but it would be the same rules for everyone and would reward those who already have a small overseas contingent,as they would have less disruption to their teams.

due to motoring offence in west yorkshire so todays rugby papers say

What this thread tells me is that whatever policies the RFL put into place to limit the amount of foreign talent imported into our league, the clubs themselves will find any way possible to get around the rules and bring in overseas players... once again hindering the long term development of the national side and (ironically) the development of the competition they play in In Rugby League, the club scene is the power base and that in itself is the biggest barrier to any kind of international success Looking at Dave Hadfield’s latest blog regarding his Rugby League New Years wish list, I would have stopped at number 1 and left it there blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/12/ ... wish-list/ 1. That the lads who recently beat the Australian Schoolboys get the opportunities they deserve in Super League. They aren’t all ready, but several certainly are. Besides, if the price of playing 18 year old Englishmen rather than 33 year old Australians is that Super League gets weaker in the short term, isn’t that a price worth paying?

What this thread tells me is that whatever policies the RFL put into place to limit the amount of foreign talent imported into our league, the clubs themselves will find any way possible to get around the rules and bring in overseas players... once again hindering the long term development of the national side and (ironically) the development of the competition they play in In Rugby League, the club scene is the power base and that in itself is the biggest barrier to any kind of international success Looking at Dave Hadfield’s latest blog regarding his Rugby League New Years wish list, I would have stopped at number 1 and left it there blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/12/ ... wish-list/ 1. That the lads who recently beat the Australian Schoolboys get the opportunities they deserve in Super League. They aren’t all ready, but several certainly are. Besides, if the price of playing 18 year old Englishmen rather than 33 year old Australians is that Super League gets weaker in the short term, isn’t that a price worth paying?

i fully agree

I thought the whole Togan/Samoan/Fijian passport issue had been scraped. Does anyone know for definite what the rule is? Personally, I feel 5 overseas players is a fair limit. The current problem is that the RFL made any player playing in this country before 2008 exempt from the rule. It's just going to take a while for the quota to take it's full effect.