as a youth coach i gotta disagree - development does exist, just on a much smaller scale. there are clubs that have kids as young as 5 learning the game, and lots of dedicated coaches prepared to teach them. the problem lies that RL in this country is a minority sport and the majority of kids want to play soccer or RU. hardly any schools teach rugby until secondary, and then its mainly RU. you can bet that aussie kids get RL as soon as they start school. Everybody wants us to compete with and beat the best but what are people prepared to do about it other than bleat on these boards that we are no nearer to the aussies. get your boots out and get out in the community and do something about it.

i am a youth coach and im also johny's Dad. i played RL at a decent amateur level for 20 odd years. ive been on every coaching course i can. im not saying that im the best by any means, but just who do you expect is going to coach the youngsters for nothing ? morgan, tony smith ect?
we do do our best and you question weather that is good enough. probably not good enough to beat the aussies in the next few years, but i doubt any other system would get different results with the small pool of players that we have to work with. as i said in a previous post, when we are dealing with a minority sport as RL is in this country, we are always going to struggle against the aussies when RL is there national sport. also as a nation the aussies are very sport consious across the board, were as we as a nation have a big obesity problem compared to them. then there is the issue of our school children being taught that competing is more important than winning. from what i know in aussie they are taught to be winners from an early age.

Have been there for many years myself so i include myself and its not ment to be disrepectfull to the army of people who give time freely.

No its not good enough i'm afraid and despite the best efforts (of people like you and me) we fall down at the first stage of development and the skill levels are lost.

I would guess that they are taught that way and thats partly down to the schools ideals.

I don't have the answers to these problems but NO coach at Senior level can work with sub standard players and expect to be the best.

Have tried several times to get a answer from local schools about why this happens and drawn a blank, i can only conclude its the none contact or at least less contact side of it that attracts the schools to it.


Thats fair comment and i have struggled at various clubs to get the "bodies" to help out, but we need the quallity to go with it.

And that is why we will always be second fiddle. Over here RL is 3rd or 4th in the sporting stakes (if that) in Aus it's up there as a national sport. The junior set up is second to none (which lays the foundations for years to come) ours? some schools in RL hotbed areas don't play RL!!!

It is all a little depressing.

been thinking why we could compete and beat the aussies 30 odd years ago. was it because they have changed there methods since then, or was it a change here. i think probably a bit of both. 30 years ago kids were taught to look after thmselves from an early age and most developed a street wise mentality that gave them a certain toughness. look at the last GB team that beat the aussies and ill gaurantee that all the squad was as hard as nails and as tough as old boot. im not saying todays players arnt tough, but perhaps they dont have that 'nasty toughness' of days gone by.
in the hull area, ill bet the vast majority of players that go on and play pro are from the inner city estates and not the 'posh' areas of the city. in my experience coaching youngsters, the kids from the councel estates and the like have an inbuilt toughness and are far more street wise. unfortunatly these type of kids are getting fewer.
my wife is a primary school teacher and the school policy is to go to a teacher if you are bullied. fighting back is a big no.
maybe im barking up the wrong tree, but i think that these kind of values go on to mould people for life.
just my thoughts

hanley coach with radlinski and sculthorpe assistant's

Half tongue-in-cheek this answer but... the Aussies have changed the rules in the areas where we used to beat them - particularly competitive scrums. We always had the best hookers and they often could not win the ball off us and you can't win without the ball. Now you don't even have to be a forward to pack down.... etc... etc.... etc...

The other thing that changed their fortunes was taking advantage of the kick chase. It took the Brits about 8 years to figure out what the Aussies were doing. Before then, if a full back kicked a long kick you would often end up with a full-back kicking duel. If the rule was that you could not be in advance of the kicker (which is kind of how we used to interpret the rule) then the game would be a lot different.

ooh ooh yes and then there's the handing over the ball after x plays. Again, the Aussies could never get the ball off our pack once we had it...

I'm having this discussion with myself lol. I don't know which game was better the old or new but there were definitely some very dour encounters in the game before the current 5 drives and a kick version that we watch at all levels of the game - which includes the Aussie NZ game that many were raving about being the best they'd seen on British soil btw.

Think you are spot on with that Andy