Australia v England

[cpwigan]

The officials made less mistakes than the players from either side. Thomas Burgess alone made some very important mistakes and on his own as many as the match officials. To be honest the Hick call was 50/50. the so called obstruction was fine.

We had a brilliant opportunity to beat Aus and blew it. It has always been so in my lifetime.

[Owd Codger]

The officials made less mistakes than the players from either side. Thomas Burgess alone made some very important mistakes and on his own as many as the match officials. To be honest the Hick call was 50/50. the so called obstruction was fine.

We had a brilliant opportunity to beat Aus and blew it. It has always been so in my lifetime.

It sure has, but the difference is that they are not running up cricket scores like in the past. The problem has been that we have had too many overseas players in key positions in our game, especially at half back.

[cpwigan]

The officials made less mistakes than the players from either side. Thomas Burgess alone made some very important mistakes and on his own as many as the match officials. To be honest the Hick call was 50/50. the so called obstruction was fine.

We had a brilliant opportunity to beat Aus and blew it. It has always been so in my lifetime.

It sure has, but the difference is that they are not running up cricket scores like in the past. The problem has been that we have had too many overseas players in key positions in our game, especially at half back.

Yes and No WW. The quality of the overseas players is the key. As you allude we do tend to flood our teams then with 'poorer quality' overseas players or Too Many. The International Transfer Ban of the 70s was the worse thing to ever happen to British RL and it was then that the huge gap opened up.

Today, the Aussies have to play well to beat us. As the game in the WC shows if the Aussies play poorly then we have the ability to take advantage albeit not clinically.

[up the junction]

The officials made less mistakes than the players from either side. Thomas Burgess alone made some very important mistakes and on his own as many as the match officials. To be honest the Hick call was 50/50. the so called obstruction was fine.

We had a brilliant opportunity to beat Aus and blew it. It has always been so in my lifetime.

It sure has, but the difference is that they are not running up cricket scores like in the past. The problem has been that we have had too many overseas players in key positions in our game, especially at half back.

Yes and No WW. The quality of the overseas players is the key. As you allude we do tend to flood our teams then with 'poorer quality' overseas players or Too Many. The International Transfer Ban of the 70s was the worse thing to ever happen to British RL and it was then that the huge gap opened up.

Today, the Aussies have to play well to beat us. As the game in the WC shows if the Aussies play poorly then we have the ability to take advantage albeit not clinically.

Got to disagree on the oversees players argument everytime it's mentioned.I had this discussion with a top ex international friend of mine and his friend who was also an ex international and also G.B tour manager at one time ,now a T.v summarizer ( no need to name names )anyway my argument was that if oversees players mean so much as to why we are lagging on the international stage, then how do you explain how good the Kiwis are at that level when their own domestic competition is way inferior to super league and the majority of them play oversees .Also why are the kumuls so poor when they don't have any oversees players in there domestic competition and its there national sport ?There's far more to it than oversees players being the problem.By the way the ex pros both agreed with me in the end ,saying that they had never thought of it like that .

[cpwigan]

Not quite sure what your point is UpTheJunction or that you perhaps misunderstand my POV.

RL Globally benefitted enormously from the exchange of players across nations. The great St George team was coached IIRC by Harry Bath whose ideas were brought back from a spell in British RL. Our own Bill Ashurst is a Penrith Panther Hall Of Famer.

GB last truly dominated RL in 1962. Afterwards, it still largely maintained competitiveness with Australia UNTIL the international transfer ban. That ban, that period of ignorance was 'fine' as long as we never played internationally. 1982 comes along and we suddenly realised the TRUTH, Australia had moved way way beyond British RL. We were in the dark ages and our ignorance was fine. I still have the great and the good of the time like Colin Hutton stating they may be fitter but we will show them how to play rugby. Earlier than 82, 79 an ex Wigan Director, Summer ? (odd Name) was spouted exactly the same garbage.

The transfer ban and dark age ignorance was the biggest reason why British RL fell so far behind. Ever since 82 we have been playing catch up. The Australians have never stood still though.

You then add the nature of the game has changed with rule making etc and the main drivers of that changes are Australia. Like Turkeys / Christmas they do not control rule changes to their own detriment.

We needed the Australian / NZ players to improve our competition, to market our sport. The 80's / early 90's Tours by the Roos / Kiwis sold/marketed our sport. More importantly, particularly the coaches UPDATED our methods / techniques.

The big problem we have is engaging sufficient young players to our sport to produce sufficient world class players. Ideally, the present argument between the pro clubs should not be about how many penny they each receive but rather how much funding can we reinvest in the grassroots of our sport. Never forget, some world class British RL players will never emerge because they will never even get an opportunity to play the game.

Even worse, football after once being in a malaise has become really industrious in terms of grass root investment and junior development. Even Union has got it act fairly well together.

The additional question is if we do get youngsters into our sport then there need to be opportunities for them. However, they need fantastic peer teaching. Trent B educated so many players when he was here. The modern term is 'tipping up' I believe. You will always need overseas players to add quality to any competition. Even the NRL wants to add quality. The positive side is that those British players gain a RL education which they can then feed back into our game and they also leave behind an opportunity for a younger player whilst increasing our pool of talent. Signing players just because they are antipodean is never a long term solution or the road to 'Utopia' BUT equally you need to be able to attract sufficient high quality players to raise the standard of your domestic competition and to help sell your sport.

We need a root and branch approach to improving British RL

[up the junction]

BAFFLED ME!