Part of this has to do with the disparity concerning overseas players.

If Super League clubs were required to nominate just one of their quota players as eligible to play in ties against Championship clubs this would remove an artificial advantage and make the Challenge Cup much more competitive.

That's a great idea. Put it in your League Express column!

The big picture now, in my opinion, is that the club is broke and is losing its best players (Orr, Sharp, LMS). It no longer has the resources to compete for the signatures of today's equivalents of Edwards, Offiah, Hammond, Carroll, Young, Barnett, Hetherington, Dymock etc etc (even if they weren't all (Carroll!) a success). Even after Branson, they were a draw for big players.

The club is in a hugely perilous state, and it may have no future at all if rumours of David Hughes pulling out are true. Ian Lenagan still has shares in the club that he doesn't want which is a real mess.

People point to the number of homegrown players they have, but the truth is they can't afford to play anyone else.

This very same argument, with fewer references to football, was taking place on TMS on Radio 4 this afternoon. Jonathan Agnew and his co-commentators were talking about taking the Sky money or getting your sport/product to a massively wider audience. It's a difficult situation that many sports find themselves in.
On a side note, not one of the 72 Football League clubs made a profit last year.

The RU factor shouldn't be ignored. Look at any decent GB backline until RU went pro and you'll find probably 2/3 quality union converts 1-5. We simply don't seem to be producing many big, fast outside backs - bucketloads of smaller lads, but its very poor that players with the build and speed of Keith Senior are so rare.

The other poor thing on the field is the quality of British halfbacks. Bobby Goulding would be the last genuine class halfback GB produced. Schofield was the last genuine stand off (possibly Sculthorpe for a short while at a push but you get the point). Without real quality in the backs you're always going to struggle to beat Australia, regardless of how top notch your pack is.

I suspect the crowds for internationals went the same way as GB's competitiveness. The Tri/Four Nations is a good concept but has taken some time to replace the old Ashes series. Unfortunately there's absolutely no point in holding a 3-game series against Australia until England is reliably competitive. The Australians wouldn't dare book that sort of series in Australia for fear of the one-sided contests that would result.

Twickernam 7's in 96 with Wigan beating Wasps, on the telly on a saturday afternoon, I think it was on during Euro 96.

Ok its union (theoretically) but it was a League on the BBC on a staurday afternoon and certainly created some profile. I remember watching it and I didn't even follow league at the time.

Have to agree about the RU factor. Like it or not RU is a more interesting product than it was in the 90s. It is bigger and as a result is more of a money making machine than it was. The Heineken cup is a huge competition much bigger than SL ( the rest of the RU leagues are pretty crap though).


This means that RL and particularly at an international level is finding it hard to get any publicity.

There is only one domestic sport in this country that gets big publicity and that is football. Everyting else gets scraps. The only difference is Sport that has an international dimension can sometimes break into that. Without an international dimension RL will whither. Al those who knock Crusaders, catalans and expansion should bear that in mind.

That was becuase certain forward thinking RU types USED Wigan and RL to shock the RU dinosaurs into making changes.

It was a glorious 15 minutes of fame for Wigan and RL but potentially undermined the rest of RL becuase it gave our big competitors a wake up call which they have siezed with two hands.


It then took another 14 years for RL to wake up with a salary cap being policed, franchising, expansion and everything else that goes with it.

I think you are probably right. Someone made a point about wrestling. In the 70's BBC had a monopoly on sports coverage so ITV World of Sport coverage some really obscure sports, wrestling, speedway, stock car racing, I can even remember Eddie Kidd in some form of competitive motorbike jumping event.

It was prime time TV and although admittedly some have fallen by the wayside, look at where wrestling is today. It was 'Live from Batley Leisure Centre' with cry baby Jim breaks and some fat bloke from god knows where. Look at it today. Its top stars are now huge celebrities and cross over into movie stars.

We have 'stars' from years ago, Hanley, Offiah, Davies, but nobody from the general public knows any of the current players.

Go back to raiding RU if we want 90's success. Wasn't the 90's when:
Tait, Devereux, Gibbs, Davies, Offiah, Bishop etc were in the GB team?
wonder how close we would have been to Australia without them?

the club game today is light years ahead of the 90s

average crowds have doubled or more, many clubs have new grounds.

the competition is becomming more even and more good local talent is coming through

the success of the early 90s was down to no salary cap allowing wigan to amass the best players

this wasnt sustainable as wigan and leeds both almost went broke

But the argument is whether the competition is more even now because poor sides have got better or whether it is because the top sides aren't as good?

Then that's a misguided argument. it's clear that one major reason that the competition is more even now is that it's between 14 teams who are all full-time professional.

Agree that all clubs FT is a good thing but I can't help but think that the game is more even because the quality of the game is less than that 10-20 years ago. Success is punished and mediocrity is rewarded. How many times have we seen Grand Final winning teams having to let go players especially young players, who they can't afford increases in wages that their success should bring?

Does that really happen? I can't recall any outcry that Saints or Leeds (or anyone) have had to let go particular star players because they can't fit them into the cap. Of course players do leave every club but there are many reasons for that.