I would love to know when they practice the basics of playing the ball and passing. Brown's passes into row A and dummy half passes above/behind receiver are common place. This is supposed to be elite sport. We look like Rugby Union from the 70's.

You don't practice playing the ball and passing. It's like saying you are going to the shop because you need to practice walking!

RD is right, rugby players are thick. Add that to money and time and they’ll be some stories. Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s a Warrington thing, the NRL and other sports is rife with drink, drugs, gambling issues.

Give a young lad a pile of cash, afternoons and evenings off and a minor celebrity status and you’ll see a fair bit of talent poured into a urinals.

Perhaps they should practice until they can do it reliably and accurately.

that would be a good analogy if it weren't for: Billy Slater, Jonathan Thurston, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith who all came through the same junior club played together at the highest level and didn't drink,or Smoke, but acted like clean living role models, earned an absolute fortune became legends of the game won every honour known to man....meanwhile Todd Carney drank his own Wee Wee.

Good examples there biscuit.

You can argue (as I was doing) whether it's right for coaches to prefer the more limited player with the model attitude, over the kid with the rare talent who is less diligent in his preparation, but if you're the kid with the rare talent why wouldn't you have the model attitude and become the worlds best?

You see it all the time in football where players with all the ball skills become 'underappreciated geniuses' who are adored by fans: Gazza, Matt Le Tissier, David Ginola. It becomes a charming story when you hear about Ginola going for a cigarette in the showers at half time then scoring two belters in the second half, but what happens if a player with that talent turns themselves in to the ultimate athlete to play football, then you get Cristiano Ronaldo and his record of dominance over 15 years.

The Aussies seem to breed Cristiano Ronaldos in rugby league, players with stacks of natural ability that turn themselves in to the ultimate athletes to play the game.

But here's another question. If you take drive and preparation to the absolute extreme, can you actually overtake all the others with natural ability and become the world's best?

What about Ellery Hanley and Shaun Edwards for example, what talent did they have that separated them from the rest of the players of their era? I can't remember them having a great step or pass or kicking game, certainly not better than many other players. Was their entire game based around their physical attributes, mental toughness and their ability to read and understand the game? If so, could you take a player say with the ability of one of the Wire first teamers, and 'manufacture' them in to a Hanley/Edwards style all time great, if they were willing to go as far as Hanley or Edwards in terms of being driven to get there....?

How dare they have a drink & a pub lunch the day after a game. Get over it. these rumours have been around for years & only when we have a bad run. If you know something is fact take your evidence to the club. Where it belongs. Not on forums & social media. Enough phones about to take photos I am sure Mr Moran would welcome your interaction in person.

Seems to me that we are wasting a lot of money on fitness, diets and conditioning staff, they clearly are not recognising that their plans are not working and clearly not asking why?

I'd forget the diet and get them props on steak and chips for the season remained. Get some beef in them.

must admit, i haven't put much stock in this sort of stuff, its never as bad as you think.

However i started using instagram last year, and i'll admit i was quite surprised at how much pre xmas 'merriment' took place during pre season,

Another one was harvey livett getting some work done on a tattoo on his leg this week as well, that seems surprising to me, that doesn't seem 100% professional, i wouldn't imagine you can train 100% with that healing on your leg, maybe he's getting different healing advice from what i have had.

Do you really think it’s always as simple as that? I would argue that if there was a player as good as an Andy Gregory out there that he’d get cut a lot more slack and probably have to get out of line a lot more before he was shipped out. I think Danny Brough (although not fit to lace Gregory’s boots) is the nearest modern day example. Perhaps Tommy Martyn or Lee Briers are other examples of players that are a bit maverick that didn’t get a look in for GB. But would any of these players really have made much of a difference had they been picked? I’d say probably not.

Regardless of whether this story is true or not, it is clear that there is a huge gulf in how serious RL players take fitness compared to more popular sports (popular in terms of viewing figures etc).

Not saying that there aren't RL players who take this stuff really seriously, but clearly there are a large amount of them that don't.
Does this simply reflect the level of the sport though?
Other sports are so well run nowadays and are such professional environments and the cost of winning or losing is so great that fitness is one of the main priorities.

Talent and ability will not really improve with better fitness, although any of us who have played any active sport at any level, will know that the more tired you are the harder it seems to be to do the basics, let alone something special.

It is clear though that once you get to a certain level in sport, your talent and ability will no longer be enough on its own as you will be surrounded and up against equal levels of talent and ability.
At the top level of sport, you have to find advantages wherever you can and fitness is one of them areas where a real advantage can be gained.

In a sport like football, you'd probably have to say it's harder to get an advantage through fitness, because at the top level, every footballer is probably completely aware and obsessed with it and therefore they're all conditioned to be able to play for the entire 90 minutes at full intensity and if they aren't, they'll be playing in the lower divisions in no time.

In RL, there is a real advantage to be had because the culture isn't the same and there is still a lot of players who drink and maybe smoke etc, so if you are a real fitness freak, and you have better conditioning than any other player, you will stand out compared to the players who aren't as fit.
Having said that, is it not also true in RL that because the fitness and conditioning isn't as high as in other sports, then you can get away with not being in as good a condition as you could be??

It's not the fact they're drinking and smoking! I'd say for the vast majority no one could give two hoots on whether they drink or smoke. The point is that after losing the opening game of the season, to see the majority of the squad out on the lash without a care in the world doesn't look good. It gives the impression that they're not @r$ed about losing the game.

No one is begrudging them going out but why do it right where their fan base is and where everyone recognises them? take it elsewhere.

Re-open the carlton club, you'll have something to moan about then.