Australia will always have an advantage because of the popularity of the game over there. You tend to find that people who are good at one sport are good at other ones they play as well, and in England people who are "good at sport" will gravitate towards football. There are other issues, and I know it's not as simple as this, but the pool of kids who are just good at sport will be smaller for English rugby league than in Aus, and so gives them depth, and so the cream that rises to the top in Aus will be the absolute creme de la creme.

the game is played for 80 mins not 60 just face it england are poor no class no speed, no backs

and no support in the final from the fans, that stadium should of been full for those that was there they did raise their voice until the Aussies took control and there was a deadly hush, the booing at their national anthem embarrassed me personally I can find better ways to wind them up and the leaving early before the teams presentations baffles me people travel far and wide and can't stop 15 mins to show their appreciation

Class shone in the end...Aussies have the cutting edge that we dont possess..
Again big up to our forwards for 60 mins, they dropped off late on, and hats off to Sam Burgess who is a class act. 5 years in NRL will turn him into probably the best forward in world..

Finally hope we appoint a new coach who is English, full time and not with a club.

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Very Poor, didn't we beat the world champions the week before!!!!!!!!

you are david blunkett/stevie wonder and I claim my five pounds

lol brought back some memories that, no wonder i always tried to get out of going

I fully agree, but to blame BARLA and the RFL is way out. The RFL have tried to implement summer rugby this year, and most of the teams involved did not show any interest at all. BARLA have tried, and even the district chairman Roger Fagge prepared a very interesting and well thought out summer rugby league plan, but again was dismissed by our clubs (local)

The problem is at club (amateur ) level. The clubs Stanley, Eastmoor, Westgate, Normanton ect, ect ect, dont give a toss about the junior sections, all they are bothered about is the open age. I can only see any change when clubs have the same respect for 7 year olds as the open age players, and IMHO that will never happen.
I know each club have people like Emma King, Aidy Flemming, Katrina Daw, and many more like these hard working people, but its at the chairman level the junior direction goes flying out of the window.

Stanley have at last a Chairman inviolved at junior level, I hope it works for that club, and every other club follow suit.

Very true, they don't give a monkeys about the junior sections and i can't see it changing, have tried in vain to change this at a couple of those clubs but the beer drinking culture wins the day everytime.

I'll open a can of worms here but could it possibly not be the weather,wrong handling of juniors,could it possibly be clubs like ours that have 8 or 9 overseas players in the first team?Just a thought.