This.

For me, we should forget the Aussies for the next decade and concentrate on getting the UK grassroots and amateur game working towards a significantly higher and more consistent standard of coaching and administration; with a national coaching curriculum, some proper oversight of the people delivering that coaching and a requirement on SL clubs to form meaningful partnerships with their local amateur clubs, we might just arrive at a point where youngsters are developed in such a way that they'll acquire the skills and athletic ability to make it as RL players.

JB and The Butcher have it nailed.

I would also love to see some Assistant coaches or some junior managers taking a year to two to go to Aus and learn how to do it. Not enough of our coaches have the nouse and ability that Aus coaches have. To be able to follow them around and learn their ways from experts down under would benefit the set up over here massively. A win at all costs attitude is great but its by using the wrong tactics and techniques. Its like watching Stoke play Barcelona at football at times when we play Australia.

Im 21 now and i don't expect to see England beat Australia in a competitive final for as long as ill watch RL.

We desperately need to improve RL at grassroots level, both in terms of skill levels and participation/enjoyment levels. At the moment we have the worst of all worlds where we don't get that many kids taking part and we don't coach the kids we do have well enough. The passing & handling skills in particular are very poor. Mainly due, in my opinion, to the "pass it to the big kid" tactic and the emphasis on winning at too many amateur clubs.
I'd like to see much stricter enforcement and punishment of clubs and coaches (for Christs sake there was an u10's game abandoned for fighting a few weeks ago) by the leagues and the RFL.

I'd like to see a league schedule where clubs only play every other week and so can have extra training sessions that don't need to be focused on the upcoming game.

Obviously a much larger emphasis on passing both in training and in games. Maybe bring in a system we used to have in the schools league I played in as a kid, where tries involving a certain number of passes scored more points.

A change to smaller teams on much smaller pitches.

A mandatory touch competition for all clubs.

Whether all those things would work I don't know, but I think it would help to encourage greater passing & handling, less physical contact, and less of the big lad running through or around the defence. So hopefully would improve both skill levels and enable the game to be enjoyed by more kids than it currently is.

..even to France at home.

I don't really buy into this beating the Aussies and the world will be our Oyster scenario so many people push.

The Union team beat them reguarly, have won their world cup recently, and they still don't get bigger crowds than us in their club game

No one thinks outside of RL, Australia! The best Rugby League playing nation in the world, if the English RL can beat them, I'll go watch them. They think, Home and away, and Bondi each and the Opera house.

We need to get a proper long term plan together, and stop trying to beat the Aussies every year, that plan must however include a way of getting English players into the NRL more.

SL needs to make itself the best all round competition it can be, week in week out and we need to simply keep a consistant international game year in year out, following the RU setup and trying to find a "Home" for RL where year in year out international are played so people get used to the format and location of international games.

And a stable club game in the same manner. Chopping and changing is confusing for the already watchung never mind new followers.

It's been an eye opener seeing the development of our U18's SG Ball team in Perth that plays in the Sydney SG Ball comp. These kids train 4 times a week and then have to travel the equivalent of a yorkshire team playing in Moscow every other week. Many of them are still at school. The professionalism and training regime they undergo at 16&17 is amazing. The budget for our one U18's team is in the region of 300,000 pounds!

When I compare that to the U18's team I played in when I was a kid in Hull the whole situation is worlds apart.

Presuming your team isn`t one of them to go?
Wonder what your thoughts would be if you followed London?

There are so many mediocre clubs which don't contribute to the national side: Widnes, Wakey, London,, Hull KR which is why RL would benefit from 2 'super leagues' with promotion and relegation

There's only 18 places up for grabs in the national side, how do you expect every team to contribute? Look back through history and see what Wakey, HKR, Widnes contributed to the GB sides in years gone by and stop making stupid statements. The more clubs = the more players getting opportunity to be FT and make a career out of the game = more chance of stars being unearthed.

How many times do the current u18's train in sl?

Th ebudgets that high because the perth reds are trying to prove their fit for the NRL, how much are other u18's side budgeting for?

$300,000 is a massive amount of money. But when you consider that NRL clubs actually fly in players interstate to train on a Friday evening, then play on a Saturday before getting flown back, you can see how they treat what is considered the better of the players in Oz. Other clubs in the NSW SG Ball (u18s) comp are not in the NRL, like Norths, Central Coast, Western Sydney, WA Reds, Illawarra, Balmain, Wests.

It's no surprise that the ones in bold finished in the bottom 4.

My thoughts presactly.

Think Daniel Anderson was referring to RL in general, not just St Helens.