Well, the former are forwards whilst the latter are backs. It would help if you compared like for like. Besides, the premier athletic talent will almost always gravitate to football where the money is.

Correct. In Oz League and Ozzie rules are joint top dog, in England League is behind Football, tennis, Union, and probably cricket as well.

I can't imagine tennis being ahead of League. Since the municipal courts were choked to death by underfunding in the 80s and 90s, tennis has retreated mainly behind the walls of expensive clubs.

I'm pretty sure league more than holds its own with cricket, but comes in behind union.

End of the day noble has lost the changing room!

To be honest now i'm starting to lose intrest going watching the same **** it's depressing watching a standard of rugby league that an under 9's side can play

There are a hand full of players who turn up week in and week out but the rest just dont look intrested at all and it needs sorting asap or they can go for me, let them do a 9-5 job week in week out they wouldn't last long people would do anything to be in there position

Do i think noble will be here next season? NO il would have offered him a contract by now if he was and personal i think he went to oz with a coach on the top of his list but of course he wont come out and say that will he

Sad but true. I think we are ahead at club level in the nationwide leagues but when it comes to the fact they have the european competition and one of the best international games, they really do blow us out the water.

I hate to say it (not least because of the success he gave us) but your main problem could be Noble. Any youngsters we had moved on because they could not get a look in due to the number of imports we had. Noble seemed to concentrate solely on the first team leaving the infrastructure of the club to fall apart. It is only now that this is being put back in place but look at what rebuilding has done to us. Take it as a warning of what you may have to come. (At least we had some success to look back on but Nobby doesn't seem to have given you that)

Yep, that's why Betts played rugby and not football when the chance was given. People do the things they enjoy, if this were not the case how do you explain the number of different sports played in the UK. You chase the money argument would surely give us a very limited number of sports.

I know several talented RL players who chose apprenticeships with soccer clubs over a career in RL. You'd be daft not to if given the choice.

And yet just three off the top of somebody's head example of players who started young in counter to your original statement gets a pointless reply. If you had some science to backup your original comment maybe it would have been time to quote some.

People like Amir Kahn who won Olympic Gold when he was 17 could be quoted as being young started, but Cassius Clay (18 Olympic Gold) and managed 21 years in professional boxing or Billy Boston (first game at 19, played for 15 seasons averaging over 32 games per season for Wigan and then 31 games for GB) may be better examples of young sportsmen who went on to have a long and highly respected careers which were not blighted by injury.

I know plenty of people who chose to start work straight from school rather than gain further qualifications to gain a better paying job. I also know plenty of people who are happy in their work and don't want a promotion regardless of the additional money.

Stop being dense. No one is suggesting it is IMPOSSIBLE for a kid starting at a very young age to have a long and successful career. Just as no one would suggest it is impossible for a heavy smoker to live till he's eighty years old. What science says is the odds are stacked against you. In any case, I find it bizarre that you should use Ali as a counterpoint since it could hardly be said he was fighting fit when he hung up his gloves. The guy exhibited visible signs of brain damage 10 YEARS before retirement. Indeed, most boxing historians are of the opinion that he was never the same fighter after he was banned from the sport immediately following the Zora Foley fight in '67.

I'm not being dense, simply pointing out that you make a flippant statement about science and yet didn't backup you statement with anything scientific. I'm yet to see a strong case that a 19/20 year old prop eased into the game fares any better at the age of 30+ than one "thrown in".

And yes, Ali was a bad choice but many footballers have been proven to suffer from minor brain damage from heading the ball. Office based workers suffer RSI and so on.

I would think most Boxing Historians are also of the opinion that the 3 1/2 years out of the ring after that Fight had more to do with his decline in standards on his return to it!
The Foley fight was deemed the pinnacle of his Boxing career and who knows how many years he would have stayed at that pinnacle and could possibly have got even better if not banned?
Who knows also if he would have retired earlier (Probably Not) if he had not been banned from 67 to late 70/71???

Bar those who say they aren't going anymore?

Do you think that this is part of the problem with the current seeming malaise of some fans, the ones who say they've had enough?

You experienced a massive high that year in avoiding relegation and it brought the fans together with the club for a period, you must have been thinking that it couldn't get any worse, yet instead of carrying on improving you seem to have settled into mediocrity for most of the season, only perking up for the play offs.