The quality of teams across eras is always hard to judge. You say the 11/12 side you had would beat our team last night, but it's impossible to tell. There has never been a side in SL that defends as well as this team or as consistently. You can see how much they enjoy doing it too, they thrive on it. The overall quality of the overseas players in SL might be dipping slightly, but there's still French, Field, Croft, Sironen, Mata'utia (Our one), Passi etc and they would all get in most sides from any era.

What is perhaps happening is Saints diverted the more open, attacking style of Super League towards the NRL style. Our success is based on defense, line speed and aggression. That doesn't translate to enjoyable RL unless you support Saints. Had it been a Salford v Wigan final it would have maybe been a more entertaining game, but the quality wouldn't have been there.

SL needs to target the play the balls next season. Stop the incessant cheating, pushing forward, holding down, diving etc and just get on with the game properly and in a calm, structured way. That's what makes SL look visibly pathetic. The players will take the ball in, crawl forward, half stand, throw the ball through their legs diagonally then jump on the floor or throw their arms up and ask for a penalty.

The peak standard of Super League IMO was 2005. You had three teams who played at an incredibly high standard: Leeds, Saints and Bradford (when they got it together in the last third of the season). Wire finished 4th that year, it was the best Wire team of the Cullen era, and we played some great rugby we just weren't at the same level as those top three.

I honestly think that 2005 Wire team which finished 4th would have been seen today as "the great entertainers". We played fast, open rugby, had some terrific strike players in the backs and a useful pack, a rapidly improving Briers plus Nat Wood. I would fancy them against any current team in SL, and that Cullen team wasn't as good as the TS teams of 5-8 years later.

Let's stop deluding ourselves, the standard of SL compared to the NRL and SL of 10 years ago is [iabysmal[/i.

Saints wouldn't get within 40 points of the Wigan team that beat Brisbane in their own backyard, and outside of Saints and Wigan none of our comp could compete with the very poorest NRL teams.

Exactly. The fact that this present Saints side ground their way to a relatively dour victory against a Leeds side that aren't anywhere near the levels of their Sinfield-era side, tells you all about the differing standards in today's league.

Sadly, I don't see anything changing anytime soon. The decline in standard is too ingrained now and I don't think the standard of player or coach is out there in the British game to change things in the drastic way needed.

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.