But what is his opinion? He isn't clear about anything, it's just poor rhetoric that people like because its not from a journalist, though as you know it was probably ghost written anyway. I'd take his opinion seriously if he had anything serious to say, bit like when jamie peacock "speaks" and the journos fall over themselves to say how great it is that he's voicing an opinion but its invariably just a veiled moan about something that players want. Great idea of his to start the season with the magic weekend in cardiff in february. Players have their own interests at heart, which is why i take anything they say with a pinch of salt. I suppose it is better than someone rolling out the standard idioms.

Take your point on the league and cup, but we didnt win it in 2011, we were crap in 2009 and somehow beat Wigan to get to the final and were underdogs in 2010. 2012 is probably the only year out of the 3 victories that we were any good. The Grand final is different, Saints have had a hell of a run since 2006 but fully deserved it, its a format that does well for Leeds and Saints. The league is different again with five different winners in five years, with saints dominating before that.

There are lots of things wrong with the game, mainly to do with gary hethrington and his tinkering of systems to suit, but given a chance to talk about it to a wider audience why choose to be negative?

That's nonsense to be honest. Wilkin was always there with a constructive opinion even when Saints were good. He's one player that isn't afraid to speak out and he's been banging on about SL's and international league's failings for years now.

You lot probably can't see it because you are watching your sides best team in, well, probably forever. The rest of the league (Of which 2 or 3 are as good as Warrington) look incredibly weak by comparison with some of the great teams, even of the Super League era.

The whole sport in this country is a complete mess. It's the sporting equivalent of a 15 year old car that hasn't been serviced once. Most of the regular season games are a complete shambles, not because of this myth about the playoffs killing the league games, but because the standard on the whole is so shambolic that it's impossible for the games to have any intensity or edge. The vast majority of SL teams are incapable of defending to any reasonable standard and most of them can't execute a simple, structured, gameplan properly.

The big push to slow down the play the ball and make it more like the NRL just hasn't worked. In the NRL the slow play the ball results in team's respecting possession and territory and often plays out like a game of chess until one team becomes desperate. The quality of the playmakers and the solidity of the defenses makes it good to watch. In Super League it's just painfully slow and pretty farcical in terms of quality. At least when there was a quick play the ball, teams could get some momentum and play some exciting, off the cuff rugby. But with it as slow as it is now, it just results in teams playing 5 drives and a kick, or more often than not three drives, a pass to ground and a knock on. At least half the teams in SL look incapable of scoring other than off the back of a penalty or two.

If you can point me to where he's being constructive in the interview give me a shout i'm all ears..

What a ridiculous benchmark to set. Yes, Wigan aren't as good as they were in the 90s; Hudderesfield as Wagstaff's boys; Saints as Murphy's crew; or Salford as the orginal Red Devils. But when in one season has there been a league when most clubs had sides that could compare to their greatest ever?!

If we look at the SL era, I would say Bradford have had the main period of dominance in their history; Leeds can rightly claim to have their most successful period ever, and Saints can probably say their early-mid naughties team matches that 60s side. Our current team is probably on a par with our 30s team in terms of quality/standing in the game, though more successful in trophy terms, is probably equal to the late 40s, and just falls short of the mid 50s team - which I reckon it would have matched had we won the GF (and a SL title this year probably still matches Bev, Bath, Helme et al).

So Leeds and Warrington currently have two of the best teams in their history. Wigan last season were on a par with their best SL teams (and were only out-done twice by that great Leeds team). Bradford have reverted back to historic type (i.e. insolvency!), Saints are suffering the slow decline top teams suffer after a peak. Hull seem to be getting back to their peak of the last 25 years. Catalans probably had/have the best team in their admittedly short history.

When Saints were at the height of their powers we had sides like Halifax & Leigh around who were weaker than anything on show now. We had a Bradford team capable of putting 84 on a mid-table Wire side. We had a guaranteed top 4 each season, with the rest fighting for play-off crumbs.

There is an issue of in-equality now, but let's not pretend it's worse than it has been throughout SL. And it's better that the early-mid-90s!! And as for issues over the way the game is played - that's a matter of opinion. I believe the Wire team of 2011 played the most entertaining rugby SL has seen, alongside Saints under Millward, and Leeds under Smith.

My point is, we have a World Cup coming at the end of the year - an international competition that is set up as well as it could be given the current global position of the game. I would have though Mr Wilkin would have wanted to show more positivity towards that, in his testimonial year, than to bemoan the standard of the game. As the self-appointed spokesman of SL players if he can't come up with worthwhile suggestions (and IMHO the players can only offer significant insight into matters of safety, and to some extent finer rule points) then he'd be better keeping it shut.

Well said to those knocking Wilkin. It's all too easy to moan things aren't right - we've got plenty of people queuing up to do that within and outside the game. RL has always suffered from that. What we are lacking is people identifying properly thought through, workable solutions to things. And people capable of implementing them. And ideally a lot of money to help fund actions!

And as I said earlier, I disagree that quality is lower.

There will always be games in whatever league structure you choose, whose result has little bearing on the competition. But that doesn't make the game meaningless or uninteresting to watch. Go back only a few years and we had the "big 4" who were almost guaranteed to clean up all of the finals appearances and trophies. Surely that made more games meaningless than now, yet things are supposed to be worse now?!

As I said, I'm not convinced the current top 8 system is right, but I'm encouraged that teams other than Leeds, Saints, Wigan and Bradford have been making the finals and winning trophies in the last few years. Leeds' dominance and particularly their repeated ability to win from 5th has admittedly not helped the perceptions. But my view is that the SL Trophy is reward for the dual ability to negotiate a 27 game league season plus make it through a high pressure playoff series. If we had top 5 instead of 8, then there would be more chance of getting the playoffs intensity to an appropriate level and it would make the league season more intense too.

"The game is unrecognisable to the game I played 10 years ago. Saints don't win things these days and its not fair

"Saints ruck speed is slower. The play-the-balls were much more unstructured back then. The likes of Keiron Cunningham were given a free rein to do what he liked because we were the best team.

“I want to see the game do well and I'm confident the World Cup can help”

"In my time, Saints have come full circle a few times. Saints tried to speed it up, but I think Saints are in a bit of a slow patch at the moment.

"Also, 10 years ago, you could point to every team and say they were trying to do something different to try and beat Saints. At the moment, there's an argument that quite a number of teams are doing the same kinds of things and therefore Saints aren't good enough to win things.

"I love the game, so I'll watch Batley against Whitehaven in the rain and I'll enjoy it. But as a wider spectacle, I don't think the last few years have been fantastic for Saints.

"Parts of it have been great and there are always stand-out moments but, as a whole, we need to be conscious that it's an entertainment industry Saints are in and Saints need to entertain people."

I think this is what John is actually trying to say.

awwwww diddums...did the trophy cabinet get thrown out with the ground move?..guess they don't need one at the moment.

Wilkin clearly fancies himself as the mouthpiece of the players, in much the same way as Rio Ferdinand does in football, and is trying to maneuver himself into some fanciful anti-establish maverick stance.

If he really wants to change the game in his new capacity, and not just raise his own (and Saints) profile, if he really wants to reflect the genuine concerns of players then I suggest he raises his concerns together with some constructive solutions and engages with the governing bodies. Spouting negative views without balancing them with some positivity, that just happen to coincide with the decline of his own career and Saints trophy-less career, just make him look embittered and like plenty of union "reps" ........ me-me-me-me-me

There's some childish reactions on this thread. Tony Smith has some strong opinions on things that need improving in the game and the Wigan fans are always going on like this "he's moaning again" "he can't handle it that his team are bottlers in the playoffs".

Wilkin is pretty much right in what he says. Yes we all know Saints are not what they used to be, and the other factor here which nobody is bringing up, is Wilkin isn't what he used to be either, he is a declining player like Wellens and some of his teammates. But he is right that SL is not what it was a few years ago in terms of quality.

For me the evolution of SL went like this:

1997,1998 the quality was poor. By 2000, 2001, the quality at the top had improved, but there was a big gulf in class between that and the rest of the league. SL took great strides in the next few years. The quality of coaching improved and the quality of overseas imports improved so even the teams at the bottom had good players. A great barometer for the improvement was Iestyn Harris, he was a dominant player up till he left for union in 2001, good enough to dictate matches on his own. When he came back in 2004, he had been playing quite well in union, and he wasn't too old by any means, he should have been in his prime, but from then on he was a good rather than great player. Weaker teams that would have been shredded to pieces by Harris a few years earlier were now able to deal with him. He had not had injury problems or anything that would have made him decline, I think SL caught him up rather than him slip.

2005 the game was at its peak. Not only had the smaller teams raise their standard but at the top you had three genuine top sides, Saints and Leeds more or less at their strongest in the whole of SL, and Bradford was the last throw of their great era, and they played unstoppable rugby near the end of the season. Then you had below them the likes of Hull with Swain, Kearney, Blacklock and those guys, and a resurgent Warrington with Andrew Johns at the end of the season. SL wasn't just good for quality of players then, it was brilliant for quality of rugby and excitement of the competition. I mean....Andrew Johns....would this happen today? Would you get Billy Slater or Jonathan Thurston signing for say Hull or Hudds?

Since 2006 I think there has been a decline. I think the middle/lower clubs are still decent, and stronger than they were a decade or so back, but at the top there has been a falling off. Bradford went to pieces, Saints have had a decline, even Leeds I think have been in slow decline, just with a great core of players who can win them big games at the end of the season. The teams that have risen up, are us and Wigan. Wigan from their low ebb - in that mid 2000s era when SL was at its strongest, they were crap, and they got hidings off a strong SL which was fun for us all. But is the current Wigan side a great one? I don't know if it would necessarily beat the Wigan sides of Frank Endacott or Stuart Raper. Warrington I think are a strong side but the fact we haven't pulled away from that Wigan side is a slight downer for me. I have to say had this Warrington side been around in 2005 I don't think we would have finished higher than 4th. But if you put us back to 1997 against that Bradford team that went through the season nearly undefeated the game wouldn't have been close, we would have smashed them out of sight never mind the rest of SL.

So I don't think SL is at its worst, but there has been a definite slip since the peak of 2005. Great as Leeds achievement is to have won all those titles, I think they have dominated SL because their decline since 2005 has been slower than Saints and Bradford. I don't think even Leeds have improved, they have always been on a slow downward path.

Interesting how perspectives can differ. I can't say your view is wrong SC, but I do disagree with it, as I do with Wilkin's assertion that the game isn't as exciting as 10 years ago.

I nearly crashed my trolley in Sainsburys earlier too: who should be on the front of League Express, but Jon Wilkin, calling for more positivity in the game...

I'd generally agree with sally c's overview, except there are too many games in SL where the losing side has clearly thrown in the towel half way through the game. Most of the cricket scores we see can be blamed entirely on the losing team giving up any serious attempts to continue defending for the full game (including Leeds a few times last year - some of the 'defence' against Wigan would have embarrassed an U12's side). That's an attitude that ALL clubs (including players and fans as well as coaches) ought to find unacceptable.

The overall decline in quality is down to reduced imports from the NRL and before that RU. Right now there is a real lack of quality imports across the competition (plus a few high profile departures to RU and the NRL).

The question is does this represent a permanent lowering of standards, or will things pick up once all clubs get used to having to produce their own players to make up the core of their team, and so have to focus on youth development?

The reason I ask is that if we can produce enough better young players, then standards will lift back to where they were, although it will take a few years. If we can't then standards are destined to drop even further as the few remaining quality overseas players retire.

My own view is that some of the current crop of young backs around SL (far better than a few years ago) suggests that it is possible, but I'm not sure that we won't have to decide to reduce SL to 12 if we want a long-term sustainable quality SL.