Or you could say the top clubs have all got weaker and the weaker clubs have all stayed the same and not really improved at all. A race to the bottom to make things more equal isnt a good thing either neither is top clubs not taking games seriously because the result doesnt matter and losing as a consequence. I would love a NRL style competition where anyone could beat anyone but we are far from that. Next season should be a lot better mind you with 2 less team, all teams spending up to the cap and the need to avoid relegation meaning every game counts for something.

Seriously?! So Castleford, for example, haven't improved, it's just that everybody else has weakened and come down to their level?

We now have a top 6 where anyobdy could beat anybody, and the top 10 games are far from foregone conclusions, and yet this is apparently evidence that the top teams are weakening, all the while saying you would like an NRL style competition were anybody could beat anybody.

The pessimism of RL in full swing!

in what way?

In terms of intensity, fitness, quality NRL has probably never been farther in front of SL IMO. No doubt someone will come on soon and say there are quite a few SL clubs that could mix it in the NRL, but how do you think our team of kids would do down there? They would get slaughtered, yet are in with a real chance of carrying the comp over here.
I think another indication of domestic decline comes to mind very readily when you look back at some of the best players in recent history and compare them to today's equivalents. It's all opinions ateotd but the likes of Offiah, Davies, Sculthorpe, Faz, Long, Lyon, Robinson, etc, etc were miles better than their contemporaries - IMO, of course.

Edit: contemporaries? You know what I mean!

Exactly!

Can't argue with anything famous says above.
Nail on head.

Yes, I watch the NRL, and it too has it's top teams and bottom teams, and the odd drubbing too. The gap may not be as wide and the overall standard is indeed better than SL, but it's by no means like watching a different sport. That's just meaningless hyperbole.

The trouble with your argument is all the contradictions. When a top NRL side loses against a bottom side it's because the competition is close. When the same happens in SL it's because the top team didn't take it seriously. It's a doddle to get into the SL top 8 yet plenty of teams make it one year and then don't the next. Of course this isn't because teams like Cas and Widnes are improving, it's because everyone else is poor. The NRL top 8 is anyone's guess, right? Yet a few teams make it EVERY year. And the fitness and intensity of the NRL isn't just better, it's "on a different planet", yet all these SL players somehow manage to go and play in the NRL. What your doing is doggedly putting a negative spin on everything SL and a positive spin on the same things in the NRL.

The NRL is better, it's not a different sport.

Surely all we have to do is look at the international game? We (as in England/GB) aren't any closer to beating Aus/NZ than we have ever been, yet the very best English players are playing in the NRL and the supply of imported talent has all but dried up.

I'm not sure that can be disputed, in which case I don't see how it can be argued that the league is better than it was previously?

I mean if you went through the team that Madge put together, then I'm not sure that many of this years crop would make that side.

It was said back in the Kevin Brown eta that too many youngsters were put into the side, and we (and indeed the youngsters) suffered as a result. Nowadays, we do that and we still challenge for every trophy.

The truly sad thing is that we often don't even get to enjoy the fruits of that work, as if the youngsters show any sign of real top drawer talent then they tend to hop it to the NRL.

We were seconds off beating NZ last year, and have beaten them many times in the past as GB

Historically we've shown we can compete in one-off games but in a series not so much. The point is though that the quality of English/British players hasn't changed a huge amount during the Super League era. The difference is that most of the best English/British players are now not playing in Super League.

You've also got a significant reduction in the number of high quality Australian and Kiwi players in the competition. Add the two together and I'd say you've probably got a whole squads worth of top drawer talent missing from Super League compared to a decade ago.

That can't be helping the overall quality of the competition can it?

As an example, if you look at the 1995 World Cup. The English and Welsh teams had 5 players in their squad that had been recruited from Union, with just 1 player from the NRL.

Of the Australian squad that year, 6 would play in Super League, 9 of the NZ would do, plus around a dozen from Samoa and the likes of Adrian Lam too.

In contrast, in the 2013 squad, we had 0 players from Union and 7 (inc Sam and Mossop) from the NRL.

None of the Australian squad have or do play in Super League. None of the Kiwi squad do, with only Lealuia having ever done so. The SL Samoan representatives was down to around 30% of the 95 tally.

Is it really improvement?

Sam was arguably the biggest recent export to the NRL, so we may well expect his departure to lower the quality of the side and SL in general, but imo Bowen has produced more in 2014 than Sam did in 2013. Even when it comes to the youngsters, they are holding their own and often exceeding expectations when they replace established stars.

Not sure how you've come to that conclusion, but Sam scored 23 SL tries and made 21 assists in 2013, so far Bowen has got 11 tries and 12 assists. Bowen has been very good for us this season but he's not in the same league attack wise as Tomkins IMO. I've no doubt he would have been the difference in the tight game, poor performances against Bradford and Hull KR.