Honesty & effort is just not enough

[georgeorwell]

It's only a pre-season warm up game when you lose! When you win it's a prestigious game that gives you "best team in the world" bragging rights. Look how dejected the Wigan players were after the game, they clearly didn't regard it as a pre-season warm up. Truth is, as mentioned before, we have lost too many good players over the past two or three seasons, and their replacements are not as good. After saying that we have some very bright young prospects in the squad, so maybe things will get better as the season progresses.

[DaveO]

It's worth noting that its the world CLUB challenge and not the TEAM challenge.

IMO no it's not. That is an argument based on semantics and club or team are often used interchangeably to mean the same thing.

[Kittwazzer]

It's worth noting that its the world CLUB challenge and not the TEAM challenge.

IMO no it's not. That is an argument based on semantics and club or team are often used interchangeably to mean the same thing.

The irony is that theoretically, Sam could have been playing for Roosters today!

[DaveO]

It's worth noting that its the world CLUB challenge and not the TEAM challenge.

IMO no it's not. That is an argument based on semantics and club or team are often used interchangeably to mean the same thing.

The irony is that theoretically, Sam could have been playing for Roosters today!

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had he signed for them.

I think almost certainly he would have been left out but if so then you could argue the opposition were not fielding their best side. If not, having to face your best ex-player in a WCC seems to me quite a silly potential consequence of when the fixture is played.

Neither in nor out of the opposing side would be satisfactory so this is the best argument to have it at the end of the season IMO.

[weststand-rich]

IMO it is. So we'll have to beg to differ.

The team that won the right to enter that match has been disbanded. The team that played today was a ways different, so you're not comparing like with like. Last years Wigans - beaten but much closer??

But so what. What a great game of rugby.

[xbrettkennyx]

IL , I believe was non too complimentary about the RFL during the club function in Sydney, i think he will be even more scathing of the RFL now he has seen what is being achieved by ambition and cash being injected into a sport.

That's fair enough and I agree wholeheartedly with criticism of the RFL, however IL has consistently voted against an increase in the salary cap.

Of course he has!

It enables him to play at Chairman on the cheap.

Such narrowmindedness and self interest can only be rivalled by Red Hall..........

[Owd Codger]

IL , I believe was non too complimentary about the RFL during the club function in Sydney, i think he will be even more scathing of the RFL now he has seen what is being achieved by ambition and cash being injected into a sport.

That's fair enough and I agree wholeheartedly with criticism of the RFL, however IL has consistently voted against an increase in the salary cap.

Of course he has!

It enables him to play at Chairman on the cheap.

Such narrowmindedness and self interest can only be rivalled by Red Hall..........

Its called keeping the Bank Manager from the door while at the same time still be successful with producing your own good young players and supplementing the squad with a few from elsewhere like Wigan, Leeds and St Helens have been doing for the past few seasons of the Salary Cap and remained not only solvent, but also successful at all levels.

Would not like to think that some on here were running my financial affairs!

[Owd Codger]

This fixture needs to be moved to 2 or 3 weeks after the Grand Final so it can be played by the team that won that Grand Final and it needs to be played under international rules, it would have been a far better spectacle if the actual champion side had played instead of a young side that has lost so many of those players, we probably still would have lost but there wouldn't have been that much in it

Exactly, otherwise what is the point of the fixture at the beginning of the season when during the close season, players of both clubs come and go more than they use to due to there now being yearly contracts which start on the 1st November.

The game should be played two weeks after both Grand Finals but I suspect the reason it is not is because of the planning involved in getting people to the other side of the world at short notice?

Should it even be scrapped altogether?

[Kittwazzer]

This fixture needs to be moved to 2 or 3 weeks after the Grand Final so it can be played by the team that won that Grand Final and it needs to be played under international rules, it would have been a far better spectacle if the actual champion side had played instead of a young side that has lost so many of those players, we probably still would have lost but there wouldn't have been that much in it

Exactly, otherwise what is the point of the fixture at the beginning of the season when during the close season, players of both clubs come and go more than they use to due to there now being yearly contracts which start on the 1st November.

The game should be played two weeks after both Grand Finals but I suspect the reason it is not is because of the planning involved in getting people to the other side of the world at short notice?

Should it even be scrapped altogether?

I'd say there is a greater argument to scrap it than have it played out by two different teams which won their respective Grand Finals!

[i'm spartacus]

There were some solid performances in the team yesterday, but it wasn't joined up. The roosters ran in hard, and when tackled made sure they landed face down which allowed them to stand up and play the ball very quickly. The defence was panicking in retreat while trying to reset and number up, and a one on one defence against the likes of SBW, Hargreaves, Nuuausala and the rest, is always going to struggle. Even Remi Casty was smashing people about in attack and looked like he's something much more special than he was at Catalan.

There is a very wide gulf between the NRL and SL that the new league system isn't going to narrow. There will be a revolving door with the same players going round in it at the bottom of the league. Cutting the number of SL was the right idea, but the rest of the idea does nothing to add to the quality of the competition as a whole. The simple fact is that there aren't enough really good players to go round, and as long as there are too many sides, with not enough quality to fill them, the competition will not improve.

Another issue then is the drain of our quality players to the NRL who are attracted by the big numbers; big numbers that are not going to materialise here anytime soon. Quite how you would increase the salary cap here I do not know, as there are SL clubs competing at the moment who cannot afford to pay the current salary cap. In short, the RFL has undersold the game, and underperformed in its management of the game; it is not, and has not been up to the task for a very long time, and it has created the majority of issues affecting SL. IL and Kashkow know that this is so and have been carping on about it. The problem is that they appear to have very lacklustre support from the other SL chairmen despite the fact that it seemed at first they were forming a band of rebels.