Clarke is just painful.

I heard he'd had 2 ribs removed so he could smoke his own pipe

"Did you know Eddeh, if 87.6% of Wigan males could smoke their own pipes, the pubs in Wigan would be empty at nights"

phil clarke talks rubbish... to be fair to tomkins, hes the best fullback in super league... but the standard of rugby in nrl is miles better than super league... i think even the best teams from super league wouldn't even get into the playoffs if they played in the nrl

The RFL have rigged it to remove Catalans because they were looking too dangerous and so now a clapped out Wigan gets through instead just so that everybody's golden boys Warrington can get their easy route to glory so we can have a 'refreshing new face' for the game.

This

I'd agree with that. It's not just the full back dept that you can look at. Most positions have an abundance of proper talent and it's not just in Aus because the wealth of talent in NZ is growing year on year. That's two countries feeding one league with world stars. There are players miles better than England automatic starters who will never get a game at SoO/International level. And then there's even the bottom of the table teams who have top of the Super League team quality and SoO/International players.

It just takes the odd injury or suspension or lack of form and you don't make the play-offs in the NRL. Syndey were in the Grand Final last season and lost Todd Carney (who is a magic player, yes, but still...) to 'personal problems' and there are 7 teams full of stars to take advantage of it. It happens to Leeds here and they still get to the GF Eliminator next week because the teams below Leeds weren't good enough to discard of them down the table.

Yes, our teams can beat their champions in a one-off game before their season starts in the freezing cold that they're not used to, but over the course of the season I couldn't see Wire finishing above Souths Canterbury Cronulla etc.

Interesting how most fans realise when it comes down to it that English youngsters are crap and the overseas option is almost always the better one.

But they still usually harp on with populist comments like "clubs should stop looking at Aussies all the time, there's just as good home grown talent here".

If Sam Tomkins had come through our youth system our fans would be banging on about how great he was, best young player since Harris and Scully, and if we signed Minichello to play ahead of him there would be outrage.

I have learnt to never take what u say at face value but I think you have hit on the point.

There is an overlap. Eg quins new signing. Ppl would prefer a young player to be be played ahead of him at quins so one day we will be able to compete with aus and new zealand. We certainly won't by employing over 30 players who are useless (cross) over young players.

agreed... players like moi moi and gallen for example, whose teams finished near enough bottom of the nrl would walk into any super league team

we will see how good tomkins in the four nations or not