tbf though there is an absolute dearth of talent in the game at the moment. Find me any player currently playing super league in their respective positions that are better than those just named?!

With SL at the moment I would say the closest you could get with current SL players is:

Offiah - Raynor
Hanley - O'Loughlin / or Sinfield if we want to really take the mick
Edwards - Burrow/ Long
Platt - Graham / Peacock
Betts - Wilkin / Galea / Lauatiti
Botica - Pryce / Mcguire
Robinson - Ainscough / Hall
Tuigamala - Senior / King / Yeaman

That to me just shows what a joke SL has become....For me the only current players who come within a mile of those of yesteryear are Platt V Graham or Peacock. The rest....its an insult to those previous players to call it a comparison (apart from giving ainny time yet )....

whether we like it or not SL is a second rate competition.......The comparison between those players at the top of the game from 15 years ago with those today is astounding....Its like comparing current SL players with NL1 and 2 level players.

No wonder standards have sliped......Eddie and Stevo can go along all they want lying though their teeth that SL is better, but the game is miles away from where we were even 15 years ago and this can be seen by how much further we are away from the aussies.

Can you Imagine a Stones Championship Select XIII 1994 V Current Super League Select XIII 2009 ?!?! The Super league team would have 80 put on them! tbh the only way it would be a match is if you brought those players back in thier retired state to play the SL select team now!!

Super League has been killed by the CC, and a lack of good development coaches in the last 10 years!

Teams are no longer talented enough to score from skill or inventiveness and the majority of tries come of the back of penalties / errors or kicks to the corner

Id say im one of the biggest Rugby fans there is and love the game - even in its current state it is still the best game in the world by a county mile....Soccer and Union dont even look like sports compared.......But if this decline continues RL will end up being overtaken by union in the not too distant future, and as much as union bores me, i can see a day under the current CC where i find union more interesting than TGG.

As always with league.....the best game in the world is being ruined by those idiots that administrate it!

Tansey isn't going bad over there is he? I thought JJB was better than Ellis but Gareth is ripping it up down under. You are deluded. In no way am I say SL is close to the NRL or getting closer but there's plenty that could make a good go of it down there.

According to the Saints board Tommy Martyn was better than Edwards and the Martyn / Long partnership was the best ever.

Tansey lacks the stones to really succeed, as soon as someone touches him he is on the deck.

If that was the case he'd have never got past their feeder team.

Murph is the best 7 I've seen, Boston and Vollenhoven two of the best wingers. Offiah is up there with them too.
Which again proves the inadequacies of the RFL and Super League Club Chairmen who make the rules.

D'oh. When I read posts like this I have to wonder whether the pro-cap posters actually believe this stuff.

There weren't many great players in the previous 10 years because RL in this country was in a shocking state. It took Wigan and Widnes' ambition to drag RL out of the stagnant mire it had got into. Even after the humiliation of the '82 Ashes series the RL establishment did nothing.

We're heading the same way now, with the same ostrich-like head in the sand mentality.

What anti-CC people want is for some of that late 80s/early 90s ambition to come back, the ambition and drive to match the Aussies, grow the game and develop world class players and attract quality players from overseas and RU. It wasn't just Wigan players, where are the players like Newlove, Mike Gregory, Davies, Ward, Sorensen, Devereux, Nikau, yes even Tommy Martyn! They simply aren't coming through any more and we aren't attracting top talent any more.

The only world class players that have come through in the last 2-3 years are Roby and Graham (and fair play to Saints for having developed them, but this thread isn't about praising or knocking one team, its about the SDL generally). The numbers of home grown players at the top level just aren't there and the overseas "talent" in SDL is killing the game, rather than providing us with genuine stars who attract people to matches.

The lack of player development in the previous 20 years can hardly be blamed on SL chairmen.

We all know the RFL have problems, they can't all be placed at the door of the cap.

Did we have a cap then? No? Yet the same problems were still there. Hmmm, strange that seeing as the cap is apparently the main problem with the game today.



You mean you want Wigan to be able to spend what they want.



I don't care about overseas or RU players, the only thing that is important is developing our own. How will we match the Aussies bringing in overseas talent?



NZ and the Aussies are producing enough talent. Again I ask you how that will mean us matching the Aussies?



No, but that is more down to clubs ignoring youth development because they could bring in overseas players far too easily. Piling all the money they've saved on wages with the cap into youth development should improve that problem, again this [iis[/i a problem within the gamer, but not the fault of the cap.




Well, bugger me backwards, we agree on something

The lack of player development IS down to the RFL and Super League Club Chairmen.
When SL started 1996 there were well over 300 British Players in SL. Two years ago that numbers had been halved. There has now been the slightest of increases.
That decline is following the introduction of the Salary cap restrictions, the scholarship restrictions, 20/20 rule restrictions (now abolished) and service area restrictions.
All those restrictions on player development have had the very obvious effect of reducing SL player numbers.
That's why we had such a humiliating World Cup. We don't have enough British players in SL to compete for International places. We also don't have the number of quality players we should have or used to have.
No it isn't all the salary cap's fault. It is the SC that provided the catalyst for the disastrous running of SL since 1996.
The Aussies have made a success of their SC, the RFL and Super League Club Chairmen have made a complete and utter mess of ours. Trouble is, apart from one or two Chairmen, no one cares.
The RFL certainly don't as proved by their abysmal report into the World Cup.
At the launch of the 2008 season the RFL announced they were to continue their successful policy of levelling. After the 2008 World Cup we then knew the level to which the RFL had sunk British Rugby League.

I don't know how anyone could possibly argue with that.

But no doubt someone will try

The point being made (quite correctly) by a previous poster was that the game had gone backwards in terms of top-level talent. You then brought in the decade prior to the one the previous poster was referring to. The underperformance of 70s and early 80s, the stagnation of the game is exactly what we are seeing now. The ambition of Wigan, Widnes and (less successfully) Leeds and others helped raise standards in RL.




This is not about Wigan. In any case we'd need to find a new chairman because there is no way IL would go on a reckless spending spree, far from it.

I'd be happy with a 50% cap, or preferably independent auditing of business plans under a live spending control regime that encouraged ambition while preventing financial problems (something the CC has failed to do). You're the one defending the indefensible status quo.



The CC exacerbates these problems. It encourages the hiring of second/third rate southern hemisphere players.

I'd like to see a small number of top quality overseas players in the SDL. That way we have star players our youngsters can be inspired by and fans will flock to see.

If you're telling me that the likes of Bell, Tuigamala, Meninga, the Iros, the Pauls (remember when the best Kiwis were here not in the NRL with its lower SC, where they can still make more money!), Nikau, Kenny, Sorensen etc did not benefit our game then I'm afraid we will have to disagree.

Of course it is, who else's fault could it be?