Think you guys got very unlucky in loosing Mclorum last night, you needed a leader in defence desperately, without him the aggression is misplaced and leads to mistakes, the last try of the first half showed the problem precisely, a player shoots out the line to look tough and smash milford (the smallest man on the pitch) who welcomes the hit with open arms and puts a man right in the hole that player had left, lucky for you there are maybe 3 or 4 halves in SL who are capable of the same vision
I wouldn't be too down on your attack as Brisbane regularly nilled teams last year and defended their lines successfully for entire halves at times

I agree. There are several ex-SL players running around for the NRL sides over here such as Moa and Eden who no one thought were world beaters when they were here and have not become so because they have more money in their wallets. The lines they ran and the questions they asked of the defence are not beyond the capabilities of our players but they do seem beyond the capabilities of the coaches to construct and coach these plays. This should be as a big a wake up call as the 1982 Kangaroo tour of GB and France but will anyone be listening? And if they are will they be able to act on it? I have my doubts and there is no excuse because there is no salary cap applied to coaching or the resources you can put into coaching (and player) development.

Agreed. You could say the same about Josh Hodgson; nobody thought he was all that when he was in SL, but week in ,week out, he looks a top player now in the NRL, with Aussie critics not famous for Anglophilia praising him.

It's a perfect example of Catch-22 isn't it? We've not got the depth of talent in the UK to secure continuity because there's no real consistent route from pre-teens through to top flight (& what there is, is fragmented) and thus as a result, kids are pulled to union or soccer where there are more opportunities to succeed.
Thanks to a pathetic run of incompetence in the governance of the game, where short-sightedness and penny-pinching have ruled for far too long, the game is slowly spiralling to inconsequentiality (I don't think we're there yet, but the event-horizon is looming).
It's always going to be an uphill struggle against the old boys' network run from Twickenham and the bribery & corruption of soccer, but with the RFL as it is we've got one hand tied behind our back before we even start.

I don't know if expanding the WCC to 8 teams and make it a proper competition will work (when would it fit into the schedule for a start?). But we've got to have more representative competition if the game is ever going to survive (I'm not going to hold my breath though).

I think the SL needs to increase the cap if we want our top teams to compete, the cap relative to inflation has gone down in recent years and the poorer teams are holding us back
Theres enough quality in SL to beat NRL teams but it gets spread out by the salary cap, if the top players all played for the 5/6 teams who could afford it then they would be as good as NRL teams
If the NRL is the premier league then we should aim at being La Liga, where the league on the whole isnt that good but the top teams in the world are in that league
It would mean a less competitive SL but the players would improve by playing superior opposition on a regular basis every other game, leading to a better international team as well
If the international tea got better then there would be more TV money in SL and eventually the weaker teams would catch up

The problem is with the amount of money in the game (or lack of it rather) how many clubs could realistically spend more than the salary cap at the moment and do it in a sustainable way? unless clubs get the likes of koukash who like to just throw money at a team and not really seem to be bothered about getting any profit or atleast running without a loss then I don't see how we can do it.

I'm not sure what Leeds look like financially but I don't seem to recall wigan making massive profits and I'm sure saints havent been doing great financially either.

The truth of the matter is that we have been rumbled. Our defence can be OK for short periods, but we don't have the discipline to stick to the plan for extended periods.

Going forward, we have no problem getting into the oppositions 20, but very little clue as to what to do when we get there.

Most worrying of all is our execution. The Aussies may be bigger, stronger and faster, and their environment may very well play a large role in that, but does it also mean that they can catch better? Every time Wigan forced a pass it went down, Brisbane picked them up, and scored.

I have always been a supporter of Shaun Wane, but the lack of progression in the last two years is beginning to highlight the guy's limitations.

Defence was poor, decision making poor, intensity poor. Annoying about the injuries, including Charnley - when MM went off (and Lockers went off for quite a while) we were always going to struggle...

Players in top aussie teams know their roles, are always backing up and are much more organised intense and powerful. Broncos even looked fitter than us for large parts of the game...

Super league plan to expand and develop the world club challenge

rlhttp://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/feb/22/super-league-develop-world-club-seriesrl

Blake Solly takes positives from an aggregate attendance of 53,000 (slightly up on last year) despite an aggregate score of 118-28 across all three games.

I enjoy seeing the NRL teams playing in the UK as much as the next spectator - but the novelty will wear thin if we're going to see one-way scores year after year. Leeds did very well to make the first half competitive on Sunday but the other two games were lost at half-time.

I'm not sure why Red Hall are talking about expanding the tournament until we see more signs of genuine competition - aside from short-term profiteering from an increased gate.

An expanded comp will simply further highlight the strength of the NRL and the weakness of Superleague - whilst that's not exactly a secret, having it pushed in our faces every year can't be good for the long-term health of the game in the UK.

I'm not as down on the concept as many seem to be because I don't think this year's results were genuinely reflective of the quality of our top teams, and fully expect SL to win at least a game next year. However, I'm less convinced of the ability of the likes of Cas, Huddersfield and Catalans to drum up a sufficient crowd or have a dig at winning. These are teams that consistently fall short in the play offs, after all. Lets stick with three, work at winning a game, then our first series, then look at taking it to Aus. After that perhaps the competitiveness of the new Super 8s fornat will have improved the rest of the league to the point were expanding the competition could ve viable

I agree with this. Take James Roby out of Saints and they are not half the team. Put him back in and they compete. Take Sam and Joel Tomkins plus Josh Charnley and Micky Mac out of Wigan and we only have kids and journeymen in reserve. Leeds have been decimated by injury, aside from losing JP and Sinfield, take Briscoe, McGuire, Ward, JJB & Ablett out and that's a lot to cover, especially as the Cowboys were at full strength.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Even our newly relaid pitch took out the mudbath equaliser from last year, when the conditions worked in our favour. (And fair play the Broncos were a delight to watch last Saturday - they gave us a real lesson)

I don't think it will get any worse for Super League teams. Plus, Warrington competed well last year and on current form they probably would have done better than Saints or us. I also agree that outside of those four we wouldn't get the crowds or the quality to compete.

We should start by ditching 2 teams from Super League. There just isn't the breadth of talent to create the same level of intensity week in, week out...

Agreed. If we want to improve we have to take hard decisions and it the number of clubs in the top flight. Less volume, more quality. Less easy games, better depth of squads.

That's the way to improve standards and increase competition, not a low salary cap across too many teams.

I'm not sure how reducing the number of teams makes the game better, maybe we just drop it down to two teams as they will be the best teams ever.

The bigger the gene pool the better the chance of finding superstars. The more teams trying different methods the more chance of a better system emerging.

As for all this "we were found out", the Aussie centres are as big as our props. Their execution is better all around. It's not a case of being found out and so on, it's simply a case the the Australian teams are better, drop Wigan back into SL with the team the started and wins happen.

Maybe the ideal would be a year long 3 leagues of 8, play each other home and away twice (28 games) then the top four play off and the bottom of the top leagued plays the top of the middle league, winner in the top league next year
It would mean higher intensity games week in week out, the big difference between SL and Nrl teams is they they are used to being in a grind and are able to absorb huge amounts of pressure and then switch straight to attack once they have an opportunity