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cpwigan posted:
Fielding sub standard teams is the road to ruin. The implications had that game been against a potential relegated club are massive, likewise if it had been v a team vying for 6th spot.

Hypothetical. In this instance no other team was affected.

It is unfair to the opposing team facing them in the forthcoming final.

They also had the choice of doing the same. Saints have done the hard work in getting to a position where they could afford to rest players.

It damages the credibility of the game. Catalan is supposed to be an area we are promoting the game and we give them what, a team of academy players.

I suspect they prefer the win to what would probably been an embarrassing defeat.

What about Saints supporters who paid hard earned money to travel to France?

The Saints fans aren't complaining. All the comments I've seen and heard from Saints fans are completely in support of Anderson.

The whole episode leaves a sour taste and incredibly Anderson wonders why nobody focuses upon the top of SL when he and the club he represents denegrate the competition.

Bottom line. Not in the spirit of the game.

It sucks in football too but they call it squad rotation.

As Phil Clarke and others have said on SKY, it would be unenforceable if a rule was brought in to try and prevent it. Who else is to say what a club's strongest team is? Lowest squad numbers? we wouldn't be allowed to play Ashton/Fielden/McAvoy ahead of the Academy lads. Age? Experience? Salary? Number of games? New players would never come through.

This is where people are getting it wrong for me. They argue it was Catalan so it does not matter. If that is the case we may as well dispense with SL altogether. The ruling applies to every game. Why should it matter that Catalan are exempt from relegation. If Saints had been playing Wakefield or Castleford there would have been uproar and the RFL would have had to act. that hypocrisy and double standard initself shows the RFL up in a very bad light.

The rule is enforceable. If it was not the case why have clubs been punished previously. Worse, in this case, the RFL did not need to prove it, Saints admitted it blatantly and openly. Had they not it is absolute rubbish that you cannot ascertain whether players are fit or unfit. Just like you and I, our employees can ask for a second opinion. Anybody supposedly unfit can be tested. If they present injuries and feign injury the RFL should simply say player X has been presented with a hamstring strain, he will not be fit to play for X weeks and is therefore inelligible for not only the next match but the next X matches. Ultimately though lets be honest, statistically when does any team suddenly lose such a high percentage of players unfit. It's not rocket science.

Anderson needs to be brought into line. He is constantly whining about players playing too much. He whined about the Easter programme showing no regard or understanding as to the importance of this period in the RL calendar. Easter fixtures are a lasting link with the winter game.

Todays players are full time professionals. They have the advantages of huge improvements in science as regards medical treatment, conditioning, diet etc etc. The game should exert pressure upon their bodies. That is how we find players capable of fronting up in Tri-Nations competitions and so on.

cpwigan that was a good post. Hit the nail on the head.

cpwigan posted:
The ruling applies to every game. Why should it matter that Catalan are exempt from relegation. If Saints had been playing Wakefield or Castleford there would have been uproar and the RFL would have had to act. that hypocrisy and double standard initself shows the RFL up in a very bad light.

I am with you 100% on this but the fact of the matter is Saints didn't break any rules in resting so many players v Les Cats so the RFL will not act. The reason is the rule changed a few seasons ago.

It's actually an RL by-law that used to say it was necessary to always field your strongest side (for the reasons you argue) but it was changed to say you must always field players out of your SL squad. Not the same thing by any means.

When Saints controversially did this v Bradford under Millward some of their fans were not best pleased (despite what they may be saying today) and neither was the RFL.

They fined them £25K but were made to dismiss the fine due to a threat of legal action from Saints who cited the fact they had actually stuck to the new rule.

The rule change is what has lead to this and it is inevitable IMO that at some stage a side will rest players in what is a crucial game because the rule stands as it does IMO.

I don't agree with Geoff who posted earlier in the thread about not being able to determine what a teams strongest side really is. Its pretty obvious for all teams.

The by-law was in force for over 100 years saying you must field your strongest side and it worked because the clubs knew what their strongest side was and put that side out.

They did this because even though they may have rested one or two players they were not unscrupulous enough to try and subvert the by-law to the degree we see teams resting players now.

That's the difference. In our current era its all about exploiting the rules as opposed to abiding by them to do well for your club as opposed to being part of a league as a collective and playing the game in the right spirit.

Ultimately though lets be honest, statistically when does any team suddenly lose such a high percentage of players unfit. It's not rocket science.

I didn't think they were claiming they were all unfit because they don't need to due to the rule having been changed. If they are claiming that then its a bit pathetic.

Dave

cpwigan posted:
This is where people are getting it wrong for me. They argue it was Catalan so it does not matter. If that is the case we may as well dispense with SL altogether. The ruling applies to every game. Why should it matter that Catalan are exempt from relegation. If Saints had been playing Wakefield or Castleford there would have been uproar and the RFL would have had to act. that hypocrisy and double standard initself shows the RFL up in a very bad light.

The rule is enforceable. If it was not the case why have clubs been punished previously. Worse, in this case, the RFL did not need to prove it, Saints admitted it blatantly and openly. Had they not it is absolute rubbish that you cannot ascertain whether players are fit or unfit. Just like you and I, our employees can ask for a second opinion. Anybody supposedly unfit can be tested. If they present injuries and feign injury the RFL should simply say player X has been presented with a hamstring strain, he will not be fit to play for X weeks and is therefore inelligible for not only the next match but the next X matches. Ultimately though lets be honest, statistically when does any team suddenly lose such a high percentage of players unfit. It's not rocket science.

Anderson needs to be brought into line. He is constantly whining about players playing too much. He whined about the Easter programme showing no regard or understanding as to the importance of this period in the RL calendar. Easter fixtures are a lasting link with the winter game.

Todays players are full time professionals. They have the advantages of huge improvements in science as regards medical treatment, conditioning, diet etc etc. The game should exert pressure upon their bodies. That is how we find players capable of fronting up in Tri-Nations competitions and so on.

How (and when) exactly would you enforce it? 4 players out? 6? 8? We've had more than that out (genuinely injured) earlier this season. How would you distinguish between dropping players for performing poorly, as we've done at times with Calderwood, Brown, DV, Orr, Moran and Richards (all from our 20/20), and resting them. What about deciding which game to bring back an injured player, if say, the injury is almost, but not quite, healed?
Who's to decide what our strongest team is? Even we argue over that! Shirt numbers #1-#17? Hmmm.

GeoffN posted:
How (and when) exactly would you enforce it? 4 players out? 6? 8? We've had more than that out (genuinely injured) earlier this season. How would you distinguish between dropping players for performing poorly, as we've done at times with Calderwood, Brown, DV, Orr, Moran and Richards (all from our 20/20), and resting them. What about deciding which game to bring back an injured player, if say, the injury is almost, but not quite, healed?
Who's to decide what our strongest team is? Even we argue over that! Shirt numbers #1-#17? Hmmm.

For over 100 years the game had a rule that said you must always field your strongest side and it worked. Most team sports do I believe still have this rule.

We don't have this rule anymore and it was a mistake to change it. I think the RFL made one of their mistakes over tinkering with rule changes as they did not envisage it being abused. When it was they tried to fine Saints but failed.

Look at it this way. We are all trying to predict the results of the last three games. We see Wakey away at Saints and based on form assume a Saints win especially after their loss today. But we are making that assumption on Saints putting out a strong side. We don't know what they will do.

We are doing this as we try and predict who will go down assuming each team (including Wigan) will face a full strenght opposition side and the games go to form.

We can't assume this and the current rule would allow Ssints to deliberately throw the Wakey game by putting out another weak side if they so wished and wanted us relegated. I am not suggesting they would do this but the rule would allow it.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I never realised they had changed the rule. It is an absolute disgrace that they did so.

I appreciate all that Dave; I'm not saying it wouldn't be desirable, just that there are too many ways round it for such a rule to work. Sadly, there isn't the same attitude to rules these days as there used to be; people now look for loopholes, or ways to bend them.
You still haven't suggested how such a rule could be framed. Just saying "strongest team" wouldn't work nowadays, it's not specific enough. Does our strongest team include DV or McAvoy? Rads or Ashton at FB? Godwin or Higham? Tickle or O'Carroll? Richards or Dallas?
How many "rested" players might be allowed? Could we drop off-form players?
How would genuine injuries be allowed for?
It would be a good idea in theory, but I still don't see how it could be enforced.

GeoffN posted:
I appreciate all that Dave; I'm not saying it wouldn't be desirable, just that there are too many ways round it for such a rule to work. Sadly, there isn't the same attitude to rules these days as there used to be; people now look for loopholes, or ways to bend them.

I agree that is what they do. Unfortunately.

You still haven't suggested how such a rule could be framed.

The same way it was framed before it was changed. I don't know what that is (the wording) but it worked for a long time so I dn't see why the wording would not suffice again.

Just saying "strongest team" wouldn't work nowadays, it's not specific enough. Does our strongest team include DV or McAvoy? Rads or Ashton at FB? Godwin or Higham? Tickle or O'Carroll? Richards or Dallas?
How many "rested" players might be allowed? Could we drop off-form players?
How would genuine injuries be allowed for?
It would be a good idea in theory, but I still don't see how it could be enforced.

In the era of the 20/25 I think you ought to be able to say if all team members of the 20 are fit you are not alowed to play less than 14 out of the 17 required for a game. That gives three players leeway for resting or blooding new players. It would mean resting more than three players was not allowed which would have forced Saints to take at least five more 1st team players to Les Cats. That seems fair.

Injuries obviously need to be taken into account and I am sure somone would try to say half the squad was injured but they would have to be able to back it up.

Dave

GeoffN posted:

robjoenz posted:

beryl posted:
i did not mean the players cheated.but the club did feilding that team.iam sure they will not put that team out next week.

Why shouldn't they be able to do that though? It isn't cheating. Saints have had a fantastic season and have enough points in SL to be able to field a




weakened side. They're in the cup final next week, they'll want to rest some players, as they did last week (Graham and Gilmour).

If you consider the wellfare of players; players pick up bumps and bruises this week then push themselve 100% next week increasing their chances of injuring themselves. As it happens though the majority of them didn't play today so there's less chance they'll pick an injury from over exertion next week.

Correct. The big difference between this game and the Bradford scenario is the timing. Everyone knew well in advance this time what they were going to do.

Rubbish, we all knew what team was playing but the people that got tickets, booked hotels, paid for flights (need i go on) had no clue what team was taking to the field that day, how would you fancy paying out all that money to watch an A side?, don't forget that trip was pre booked a while ago, get real fellas, if i was a Stains fan i would be asking for my money back.
I understand totally the reason they put that team out, but it still does not make it right. defend them all you will, but not to me thank you.