Oh I do know that when Warrington played Souths, the Souths officials and staff mentioned the ginger haired welsh named back (I've forgotten which one) as being blistering. So he could play here.

Burgess was pretty decent in his final half season over here imo.

A lot of SL players could have an NRL career. Being 'stars' is another thing entirely, particularly in the backs. The other thing is once you get past the better teams, the number who would get more than the odd game in the NRL shrinks dramatically. Those are the main differences between the NRL and SL - the NRL has more genuine class players and a higher overall standard across the board.

Sadly both these facts add up to Australia generally giving England a kicking - they never have to resort to below average players in any position, have a few absolute stars in the side, and the whole team is used to playing at high intensity for 80 minutes virtually every week. England by contrast have fewer stars, vastly inferior halfbacks (and until recently outside backs as well) and generally have to pick a few players who would genuinely struggle to be regulars in a mid-table NRL side.

In 91 when the seasons were at different times of the year and people could play in both comps. I recall going to games and seeing GB backs playing. Gary Connolly, Jonathan Davies and Martin Offiah are three that instantly spring to mind. There may have been more.

I've always suspected that if the seasons were still at different times, we see more players form blighty than we do now.

Course you would - there was money to be made!

That's also part of the problem - Davies, Offiah and Connolly (young version) would walk into the England side today.

Uhm. Could be Rhys Evans who is blonde. Or Chris Riley who's ginger, but not welsh Either that, or they want to nab two of our players

I think it probably would have been Evans, a very good prospect for us and fingers crossed he continues to improve under TS's coaching.

Arguably Davies would walk into the aussie team today, the guy had it all, pace, passing, vision, kicking game and was a decent defender to boot. Could play pretty much anywhere in the backs better than so called 'specialists'..

In 1989, Balmain were pinning their hopes of a finals run through to Grand Final success on their star British import – one Andy Currier. Back then as now, I need to ask the question... if that competition is so outstandingly good, how can average British players star in it?

Completely agree... and further proof that a few months of ‘magic’ coaching in the NRL has not turned him into a better player. He is simply a good rugby league player playing well in a rugby league competition (the same competition that people claim current English international players couldn’t play in!)

Luke George

Currier was the league's joint top points scorer that season. He could kick afterall. 89 GF also had Shaun Edwards in that side.

On the English theme. Canberra's fitness, strength and conditioner was the Englishman, Kelvin Giles.



I still maintain that if the seasons ran at opposite times, we'd have more poms over here like we used to.

I think pretty much all of the England Elite Training squad, plus a fair few of the Knights squad are good enough to start regularly in the NRL for at least one team, should any teams show an interest. The difference is that the talent pool in Oz is bigger and deeper than the talent pool over here so there's no need for Aussies to look over here too often, except to take a punt on the exceptional talents like Graham and Sam Burgess, and even then those two look a cut above the majority of the players they come up against over there. The NRL isn't that much better at the top of the table, as recent WCC games show. The difference is that the teams at the bottom of the pile are ten times better than in SL. There genuinely are no easy games over there and it's both rare and surprising that a team runs up a 50+ score on someone, something that is a pretty regular occurence in Super League these days

There's a gap between the top NRL sides and top SL sides as well. If Leeds were in the NRL we'd get a few wins but we'd also take a hammering or two through a season in part because our top sides aren't used to needing to be anywhere near 100% evey week. There's a huge difference between getting up for a one-off game and doing it for 20+ weeks.

Should point out that Luke Burgess wasn't a star by any means last year. He looked pretty solid in one of the worst teams in the competition. Its also notable that nearly all the players we are talking about are forwards. we have backs with real potential, but the only ones I'd bet money on being able to star today would be Tomkins and Hall.