The World Cup will hammer it home to us just how far behind the English game has fallen

This is true. Looking at the Samoa squad announced this morning they will beat England first game of the tournament.

If its a fix of good hard and fast RL you want watch the NRL GF on Sunday morning from 09:00 tv subscriptions etc permitting. It wont be a waste of your time.

In my time watching RL the Aussies have always been ahead of us, there were a couple of spells where we narrowed the gap.

First was the early 90s. In the 3 Ashes series between 1990 and 1994, and the World Cup final of 1992 we were competitive, the Aussies had to work hard to beat us. They were still the best but the GB side had some great players in and we were definitely respected.

Second was the mid 2000s when Brian Noble was coach. We were competing on close to even terms for a lot of Noble's time despite the fact that on paper there was a much bigger gulf in talent between the Aussies and us than there had been in the early 90s. This was the era where SL was at its peak and our players were probably playing at a level in SL which was closer to the top international standard, and also I think Noble had a very professional set up and a lot of hard working players.

There were echoes of the Noble era in the 2017 World Cup Final where a vastly inferior England side really gave everything and made the Aussies struggle to put us away.

But the rest of the time I've been watching RL the Aussies have been miles ahead.

Yep. Actually, I would put money on Saints finishing with the wooden spoon in the NRL and they are clearly the best in SL.