Preston Campbell, how did he cope in the rough old NRL?

Avoided being tackled.

Perhaps if people spent less time studying body mass stats and a bit more time studying skills, we wouldn't be desperately trying to find an international half back pairing capable of timing a pass, and praying for Lee Briers recovery from injury.

Therein lies the very root of the problem.

If these small kids with great ball skills were so good then they would be running rings round the bigger guys and if the top clubs missed out on picking them up they would play their way through the lower leagues by showing how good they were.

Of course a few amateur coaches on here, know so much about junior RL, and unfortunately all of the professionals don't...

Light the blue touch paper, then stand well back..........

he's 100% right though.

Loads of amateur coaches looking after junior teams seem to know better than the professional scouts/coaches employed by Warrington.... somebody should tell Mr Moran the is hiring the wrong people.

I'm well aware he's right, I'm just waiting for the reaction.

I find all this body size obsession, a considerable amount of testicles.

Since the inception of SL, we've been obsessed in manufacturing a perfect RL specimen (based on NRL players), where virtually all players are 6'1" and 15 stone.

I'll give a couple of old examples
Kevin Ward (under 6 foot, and a bit "broad in the beam"icon_wink.gif
Les Boyd (WELL under 6 foot and VERY "broad in the beam"icon_wink.gif
They are hardly classic RL bodies, but, could they play RL? Too right.

Yes, the game has changed since these two played, BUT, I'm damned sure these two (under today's training regimes) would have been just as effective, if not BETTER, even though they aren't built like your identikit 21st Century RL player.

A good player is a good player, no matter what their build

You only have to look at Myler & Michael Monaghan two fairly small in height players but Monas is a tackle monster and Myler is Lao developing into a similar type of solid one on one tackler. Small is beautiful and that's a fact. Don't believe me. Look at Gareth Hock!

I don't think there's much doubt that the style of the game these days calls for a relatively uniform RL player in terms of build and skills, as opposed to distinct body sizes and attributes between backs, half-backs and forwards.

Most tries, and breaks tend to come from tackle busts or overlaps these days, as opposed to dummies, chip kicks, sidesteps AS WELL as tackle busts, overlaps.

We're more fortunate than most in Tony Smith's philosophy but players and skills generally are much more generic - that may be down to those kind of players being ignored as too small, too risky, too suspect defensively or coaches focussing on defence and weight training against skills work.

Its called full time professionalism. The game is faster and more intense than it was back then.

In the amateur game there are still players of all different sizes.

According to the book I am reading "The Gold Mine Effect", you need the correct genes to succeed, but simply having those genes is not enough. The 'correct genes' means that its not much use being 5 feet tall if you wan't to be a basketball player, or having short fingers if you wan't to be an international pianist. And if you are a runner, you need plenty of 'fast twitch muscle' for sprinting.

There are quite a few other factors that are essential, but practice / training seems to be one of the most important. A figure of 10,000 hours practice seems to be commonly required whether you wish to be world class at running or playing the violin. Then there is self belief, single-mindedness, determination,competition etc etc. The correct facilities do not seem very important at all. Kenyan runners train on poor quality grass tracks, and Brazillian footballers in Rio practice in the back streets of their slums as children.

So my naive idea that sportsmen are 'born talented' doesn't seem to be correct. Yes, you need good eye / hand coordination, but it is the coaching and hours of practice that are much more important. And MarkM's point about a school of thought that you pick the build ( ie genes) and train them up, appears to be common.

Lets be honest.. Rugby league is a relatively low skilled sport compared to alot out there.

if you're big, strong and fast, you can have a fair crack at being a professional rugby player.

There are plenty of SL players plying their trade who's skill set can best be described as 'big, strong and daft'.

It's not like cricket, golf, boxing or football (although the way football is going you could make a similar argument). You cant just pick those sports up at 14/15 and sign professional contracts 2/3 years later.

You do get your Mylers, Gouldings, Longs' coming through now and again. But these players are coming from a strong RL background and have been almost bred to play RL from an early age.

The reality is the majority of your smaller players that might might be the next Briers are off playing other sports they are good at...