RLFANS.COM - The World's Most Popular Rugby League Website

Quote: jonh "As mentioned I said I may be wrong about your daughter. However it’s very unusual for someone to be drawn to a rugby league player without some kind of link.

You are a passionate supporter clearly of Wigan. If you had no interest in Wigan and watched football and not rugby do you think your daughter would be drawn to the game and also Smith as a player? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen by the way it does but in my 20 years of coaching kids of all ages it is a massive minority.

My son’s girlfriend is one of the top u16s players in the country and I go to watch her play as part of dad’s taxi duties. Firstly it’s a fantastic game but what’s interesting I knew most of the dads when I went down as most of them played at the same time I did.

We make the international game better by exposing our players to the best facilities coaching and competition in the game. Robin Park is a great facility, outstanding but it’s generally an exception rather than the rule at SL clubs. Was lucky enough to get a tour of the North Queensland facility a few years ago and it was like nothing I’d ever seen in the game and I’ve worked at a number of SL clubs in the S&C departments.

It’s not a strategy that sits easy with me and I appreciate it’s controversial but a rep team from these shores has not beaten the Aussies in a series since Stevo was playing….and a good few of them had Australian club experience.

Was listening to a podcast with Shane Webke the other day. He said in his opinion he was prouder to wear the Aussie shirt than he was the Queensland shirt. He mentioned how much he loved coming to England on tour and the tussles they had.

I think it was 2003 when they came and we lost all 3 games in the last 5 minutes I don’t remember us ever being that close to a series win (I recall the Carl Gibson Meninga incident in the 80’s when we really could have beaten them but not really the full series) yet we lost all 3 games in the final minutes, he was asked why he thought that happened and his response was the England players were not used to playing at such an intense contest week in week out. James Graham agreed.

When players go it’s tough but I’m not sure the standard of the competition dips noticeably.

To improve the international game and realistically close the gap in the shortest time possible in my opinion we need to see a core of our players playing in the NRL. Creating a comp that can be on a level with the NRL and have players who remain in it is the ultimate goal but I don’t see how we do that without huge injections of cash and players neither of which are going to happen any time soon.

We obviously both want the same thing a competitive England team filled with English SL based players in front of full stadium but we clearly have differing theories of how to get there. I’m 45 I love the game I will watch it at any level as much as I can but sadly at the age of 45 I’ve not seen us be World Champions or beat the Australians in a series. If I’m honest I’ve not much hope of seeing that happen in my lifetime either.'"

As I've said on a couple occasions now, you're completely wrong about our little girl yet you keep making suppositions based on no knowledge whatsoever. I'll leave it there.