Slugger, The thread is about the state of SL as a whole, not that Wigan don't win. The original poster stated that all clubs have the same tactics and that is boring. I have followed Wigan for around 25 years and have seen them in division 2. I now live in the midlands but am a season ticket holder and still go to every home game, but I do find SL is far worse than the NRL and I do prefer watching NRL. You only have to see how many English players are in the NRL. 1. Our players are so far behind the Aussies it is untrue. People over here say can't over expose youngsters bring them on slowly, to the point where they are in their early 20's and still not getting regular 1st team games. look at Israel Falous, 19 and played SOO and for the green and golds.
I can't think of a single NRL team that Long, Pryce, Roby, Graham, Burrow, McGuire etc would get anywhere near a starting jersey.

Hmm....I suspect if you'd bothered to check your RL history before posting, you might not have made that comment.



Howard Wilkinson? Leeds? Yep...Just look at them now.
Possibly not the best example you could have used really.

I think RL is going through a transitional period. Clubs now have pressure on them to bring youth through which takes time to set up service areas and for the players to develop. More juniors are getting games now that would normally. In time when this becomes the norm and they get older and the throughput increases we will see more and better GB players.

The other thing is clubs are all fully professional now and therefore will be a lot fitter. In the days of the Leeds/Wigan dominant period these clubs had the majority of the better players and played against part timers which naturally created in balanced games. Great if you like seeing big scores and what appears to look like great rugby. Now all teams are as fit as each other and can defend for long periods.

We look on the past as great days. Crowds at Wilderspool were 3-4000 and equally as low at other clubs.

The game is moving in the right direction it will just take time.

The days of a player scoring 10 tries in a game have long gone thank God. Now most games finish with a 10 points difference which is exciting.

The main thing is, the GB team is no different than it was 6 years ago, bar a few retirements.

Still the likes of Wellens, Senior, Gleeson, Peacock etc etc.

With these old players still in the team it just shows how deep the lack of talent is. Newer GB 'stars' such as Graham, Burrow, McGuire etc have failed to perform.

7/8 years ago we could give the Aussies one hell of a game, even though they were always favourites - it was never a walkover. These days we're lucky if they don't put 50 past us every time.

There is no quality in depth. I think in 5 years time or longer, we shall get some skill back into the game as there seems to be a lot of young talent on the brink of 1st team rugby in SL. The ideas of clubs now seems to be blood the youngsters. Soon we'll have at least 13 players in each 17 from England - which may give us more GB variation. But at the moment, the rugby is boring.

How on earth are we going to attract talent into our game with a £1.6m Communist Cap?

£1.6m for the ENTIRE team.

Any standout player if he has any sense at all will move to RU. We will be left with the dross.


As I have said before, the real issue is that any talented player won't even bother with RL in the first place, or "switch" at 11, 12 or 13 (or 17 as in the cases of Owen Farrell and George Ford).

I have watched the game again and it's dross. No creativity, lot's of effort yes, but little class.


What's worse is to listen to that plastic scouser babble on about it being "great" that the games are close.

Talk about missing the point. Does he actually know ANYTHING about the game?

Is that because the teams are fitter, defend better and maybe prevent opportunities? Skill just hasn't disappeared.

I think it was Clarky who said the average wage in SL is £60 K that is only 3K less than an MP- a reasonable wage I suspect-yes inferior to the worlds biggest game-football

I cant think of that many players that have flipped to RU. In fact some have failed and return to the game they prefer.

Im not going to throw in provocative statements such as its difficult for Wigan fans to accept they have deteriorated but as Clarky once again said teams have ups and downs. Maybe you are suffering from poor management under Lindsey and its taking time to turn around.

...and no I'm not a fan of Clarky as he is as biased as they come

Much like Eddie, Barrie etc then.

If that is all you can offer should I take it you accept the points above!!

Lets blame everything other than what goes on in Wigan. To make it worse you've now got a chairman who thinks he is a font of RL knowledge and to make it worse is a spend thrift.

Happy days

This thread is embarrasing. Talk about sour grapes.

Yeah look at Leeds now.

and Howard Wilkinson



There you go again trying to rubbish our history and success, we are proud of our past! We are not living in the past and expect us to win everything 100 nil every match don't be so daft. Just because a Wigan fan gets upset they lose and expected to win we always get clowns from small clubs coming on stating' Its not 1990, you can't win everything anymore, you were the only full time club, the rest of RL had to play with weights in their boots and Wigan had a 20 start every game, Wigan are arrogant because we expect to win'.

I can't think of a fan who doesn't expect us to win every game.

End of the day if we got rid of the salary cap and just said you can only spend half of what you earn clubs which do well both on and off the field would get rewarded with more cash to spend on players therefore teams would get better and players would get better when surrounded by better player therefore raising the standard of players.

We would have gimme games yeah but we would have blockbuster games too (Not Bob Holness no), we have no blockbuster games any more all the games are average exept Wigan v Saints/Leeds.

If Wigan averaged 20,000 fans a game, sold lots of merchandise etc they would only be able to spend the same as Celtic 1000 fans a game, Huddersfield 7000? Salford 6000?

We could easily get an average of 20,000 if we had a superstar in the team and were competitive in challenging for honours and that would be good for rugby league because Leeds, Warrington, Hull FC, Hull KR, St Helens and Bradford have the potential.

No matter how successfull Salford, Wakefield, Celtic become they will never attract more fans than the big clubs.

Let us spend what we earn, reward success on and off the field.