For me we need to seriously reduce the imports in our game in order to improve the quality of our home grown players. Under Nobby at Wigan, Sam Tomkins was in the 20,s and not going any further ( in fact nearly on his way out ) because he thought he was not big enough. Tim Smith got injured and he had to bring him in to the team, the rest they say is h.......

There are too may overseas players + coaches in our game, a lot of young players never get the correct amount of game time in their strongest position because of this, I know results, results, results ! only matter and winning trophies because its a business. The demise started when teams like Wigan, Saints, etc went looking down under in the 80,s and don,t get me wrong I loved watching Kenny, Meninnga, Miles etc, and this trend has continued ever since.

The trade off is, our own lads never get the right chances and hence we never produce the correct amount of talent we should do. There is enough playing talent round the north west alone in RL to produce enough players if they are coached correctly and more importantly given the correct chances. ( over-rated Kiwi stand off playing for England instead of ? )

Its the same in the Premier league, too many foreign players and not enough home grown lads. How many non-Aussies play in the NRL ? not many, how many non Spanish play in their football league, not many.

If they had kept the overseas quota in and reduced it to 2 players years ago, there would be a lot more players like Tomkins knocking about in SL.

Imo this is the only way we can go forward in SL in order to improve our own league + chances of competing against the Aussies. I also think the player pool is not bigger enough yet to support 14 competative teams in SL

Am I alone in thinking that the problem is not totally with SL? For me the quality of competition in the Championship is not strong enough - this should be a proving ground for young players - how many in the last five seasons have made the switch up to SL level? Barely a handful if that. Most of the teams in this league are filled with journeymen / 2nd rate imports and over the hill players.

Perhaps there is a case for having either SL clubs fielding a 2nd team in the lower levels of the game or having feeder/tie-in with teams below SL level to encourage player development. With a formal arrangement between clubs this would open up the possibility of shared training/development and player exchanges/loans.

Whilst there are many positives in the game what is needed is a thorough look at the structure of the game from reserve/U18 right through to SL level to try and produce a more structured/cohesive game. Of course this is never going to happen.

Just reduce the size of SL, that will move players down and raise the standard of the Championship, or am i being too simplistic? That would also give you a more intense SL.

Your all asking for a smaller league, dont bite my head off, but what about a bigger league?

You're all saying that clubs like widnes, cas and wakey are embarrasments, but yet all 3 of them have either beat, or run a big club close this season. If we could put 2/4 more clubs of that strength there, surly it would give more room for huge upsets, more teams for young players to break through and more competition at the bottom of the table.

ATM, the poorer clubs have about 4/6 games a season which they look at a possible win with a few upsets in there. If there was a few more clubs there, that could be doubled into 12 games they were looking for a win.

With this, surly more supporters would be attracted to these games which would increase income and popularity of the game.

But hey, thats just me, fire away

Just google NRL footy show then go on the video tab. They have the highlights of each weeks programmes