No, Aussie Rules is not the national sport.

On the Australian mainland you have 3 major cities Sydney, Brisbane & Canberra where Rugby League is the dominant winter sport and you have 3 major cities Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth where Aussie rules is the dominant winter sport. Each sport has tried to expand into the others area but with only limited success.

The point is that in the 3 cities I mention Rugby League is massive, on a scale umpteen times bigger than in Britain and top sportsmen tend to gravitate to the sport.

IMO Rugby League in Britain cannot and will not ever come close to matching the standard in Australia.

But New Zealand can?

Which suggests the problem isn't merely about Australians playing here but getting more Brits playing in Oz perhaps....?

i think there should be more of a balance, to give young british kids a chance. id gladly go back to 5 overseas players, non of this fed trained/club trained/kolpak stuff.

the teams in the national leagues have mostly home grown players' but not many get to super league standard.

Big gap between part-time and full-time - that was part of why P&R didn't work too well after the advent of SL. On the other hand, Joel Clinton talked at the fans forum about how he was an apprentice plumber while playing 2nd grade. I guess in Aus 2nd grade is seen as a step towards 1st, rather than usually being a step away.

We have not always been poop as you put it! untill the 1980,s Australia & the Kiwis struggled to beat us at all, that is a period of 85 years we had the wood on them. What broke the mould was the amount of cash that went into the game down under alowing them to be full time pro. Then at first they took loads of top British players to start them off ( Mike stevenson, Phill Lowe & Knocker Norton to name a few). After only 16 years of full time pro players we are still a way behind & will be untill kids in the UK (& parents) see sport as a worthwhile career path. To our shame Union has made a better fist of pro sport than League. We will just have to hope we can improve the national side as if we dont the club game will die as it will be starved of cash & publicity except in a few places like Hull, with the lack of cash kids will go to other sports to earn a living.

Making it three in total would be better,
with only three spaces each club would only be interested in signing world class players which our youngsters can watch and learn from.

Yes because nearly all the Kiwi team have the benefit of being groomed in the NRL and then playing there week in week out. There is even a New Zealand team playing in the NRL.

Also New Zealand as a nation is obsessed with rugby. Union is the dominant sport but Rugby League is easily second.

I'm afraid Rugby League in our country is a minor sport. That is why we can't compete but luckily we can still watch a quality product thanks mainly to the overseas imports.

Between 1990-92 there was little between GB and Oz a time when iirc we were limited to 3 overseas players per team.

We need quality not quantity from overseas recruitment in SL IMO.

Not particularly compelling evidence that the gap was briefly narrowed [ibecause[/i of that limit. A correlation is not necessarily evidence of a cause.

Our closeness can be overstated too. Here is the record in the 1989-1992 World Cuphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989%E2%80%931992_Rugby_League_World_Cuprl

Australia won all their games, beating GB 3 times. Even then New Zealand were capable of turning us over and GB only finished ahead of them in the group stage on points difference thanks to more comprehensive wins against PNG and France. Across the whole tournament GB won 5 from 9, but 4 of those wins came against France and PNG.

Not claiming this to be the sole reason why but the last time I believe we were genuinely close to the Ozzies at international level that was the state of play domestically and IMO it is one of the contributing factors. Less overseas players and of a higher quality I think would benefit the national game in this country.

Dont agree that our closeness is overstated. The games were very competitive and the crowds very high in this country. International RL was a big thing and 50-70k crowds were achieved at Wembley compared to our struggle to fill the DW in 2009!

20k vs Nwz at Central Park in '89. 19k vs Nwz at Huddersfield twenty years later. 23k at the DW and 31k at Elland Rd vs Australia in 2009, compared with 32.5k at Headingley in 1990. Fair enough the 73k at Wembley was great.

My point is that their is no silver bullet of a plan that can get us competing with the Kangaroos. More Brits going to the NRL would help. It'd leave behind a weaker SL, at least initially, but personally I'm more interested in having a competitive, entertaining domestic comp than a high quality one.

There is no quick fix and certainly no fool proof plan to become competitive I fully agree but i do feel the attraction of International RU as one example should be reason to try to improve the international standing of the game in this country.

Less overseas players in SL, more English players in the NRL, the national team playing against the Anzacs each year (maybe in a series) will all help chip away at the gulf between the nations IMO.

Bottom line is players do want to represent their country on the biggest stage of that I am pretty sure and the RL version of this is currently not that attractive.

Nowt wrong with him, he was looking very good in the hooker position at the end, if he hadn't been quota he would have stayed.