For me it's the ruck and line speed thats the key difference (among many). When I turn on SL on the back of watching NRL it's like it's in slow motion. Too many English teams coached to push the boundaries of a penalty for lying on.

I can't imagine the Aussies have dedicated sessions on how to slow down the ruck to the fraction of being penalised.

Attacking players bounce up from tackles and the defensive line will fly up and meet the ball carrier within a second of receiving the ball. The territory is won and lost by line speed vs the forwards power, as it should be.

Surely it comes down to numbers first and foremost. I think I remember the stat being there are five times as many active RL players in Australia as in the UK.

It's like comparing junior players coming through Wigan against those coming through at Warrington. Why are the Wiganers usually better....is it something in the pies or down to the differences in number of active players in local junior clubs to find talent.

From what I've seen of them in the last couple of seasons, I don't think I'd be taking any lessons in skilful handling from Canterbury!

I also think another reason the game flows better in the NRL is that their players are more disciplined than SL players, and work better with the refs, givings them (the refs) an easier time. Tackling players remaining in the ruck area are often unpenalised as dummy-halves play to the spirit of the laws and just get on with it, rather than trying to milk a penalty. Dissent seems rarer, and when it does happen over there, it is punished with an extra 10. And I think all these factors lead into why the transition to one ref has worked well for them. It will be interesting to see how SL compares.

I think thats a massive difference, how many times do you see NRL players throw themselves on the floor like superleague players have started doing