Quote: morrisseyisawire "That's fine, but wouldn't you rather see them breathtaken by the skill of Tomkins, Atkins, Hall etc., and dying to come and see RL every week in the flesh as a result? Shouldn't you/we be talking that up?
The perception of fans outside RL is we don't give a stuff about the international game and when we're already dumbing ourselves down and building the opposition up before a ball is kicked, they've probably got a point.'"
I would love it if England had the best team in the world, like I love it in cricket and in RU when we did ten years ago. But there's no point kidding yourselves and talking them up if they go on and get hammered.
Think how most fans on here reacted when Sinfield got the Golden Boot. That should have been great for the game but you didn't get the non-Leeds fans celebrating it, they were all quick to say it was not deserved, the Aussies are all better.
I expect on these rlfans forums what we will see is a fair bit of empty defiance before the tournament "we've got a great squad, we're gonna show those cocky Aussies whats what", then the tournament will end in an abrupt halt with a hiding at the hands of one of Aus or NZ.
Then the fun will start:
This is the sort of thing you will read on here:
- Steve McBanana (or whatever hilarious play on his name people can come up with) is to blame for us being rubbish, he is as clueless as that Aussie Smith was in the last world cup picking Paul Sykes etc.
- Adrian Morley, Jamie Peacock, too old, why are we persevering with them, we should have picked Louis McCarthy Scarsbrook etc then we would have won.
- Gareth Ellis, what has he ever done at international level? Nothing, overrated, get rid.
- Kevin Sinfield, why are we playing a loose forward at stand off, not up to it. If we had a proper standoff we'd have won.
- Bruce Didgereedoo who emerged this year in the NRL, but was discovered to have a father from Ramsbottom, why are we picking these Aussies who have no pride in the shirt, if we'd have had English players we would have won.
- Why do we just pick players from Warrington/Leeds/Saints/Wigan? If you just pick the same faces from 'big clubs' that have failed before you are always going to fail again. Why not pick the Salford/Wakey/Widnes players? They couldn't have done any worse?
- There are too many overseas players in the game, send them all back and they will be replaced by superstars in the clubs Academies that just can't get a game and end up leaving and playing football instead.
- The media has got a conspiracy against RL, when England RU won the Grand Slam earlier in the year they did a full commemorative supplement in the Times, why couldn't they have done one to commemorate us getting our backsides handed to us in the RL World Cup?
- The game is dying, the RFL is a joke, Tomkins is going to go to Saracens, there's some dual registration thing that no one understands, nobody saw the pictures on the Stobart lorries
But hey don't have nightmares people maybe I'm just a cynic and maybe none of that will happen...
