cpwigan

[georgeorwell]

cp, I haven't learned to do quotes, so I will have to summarise your comments. These are in relation to Sunday's game against Cas.
" If I see much more RL like SL, I and many others will do so" (watch the round ball game). " Something need to be done re SL. The standard is atrocious"

I've read enough posts and comments from you cp to know you are always considered in what you say. I also have a lot of respect for your knowledge of the game. Put these two together and I worry for the future of the game. I'm still very new to League, but have seen a hell of a lot of games this season and have formed some views of my own.
I would find it educational if you could open a debate by clarifying why you conclude that the standard is atrocious, and offering your opinions as to what could and should be done to make the game better.

I would love to see other peoples feed from this.

Thanks in anticipation.

[wigwan]

hi ive been on here a while but tend not to comment much, my personal opinion is very much similar to good old cpwigan in regards to wigan and superleague itself, i think its second rate compared to the nrl. Now im the kind of person that likes all sports football, basketball, amercan football, darts, tennis, aussie rules basically anything, rugby league is easily the best sport on the planet bar none. Now i dont want to argue cos im not very good at it but cp was moaning at the standard of rugby because of all the errors that was made during the wigan an cas game which i agree with but then says that he found more enjoyment from the manchester derby which had just as many errors defensively and technically was rubbish, all goals were scored through pathetic defense. Plus dont forget that utd are the champions of england and city are the richest club in the world and for that standard that game was rubbish. thanks for reading

[Kittwazzer]

I have never been able to get excited about soccerball, but I have to admit, due to all the pre-match spin, I decided to get a little more value from my Sky subscription.

As a neutral, I thought it was an excellent display although I might have enjoyed it a little more if it had been City getting the winner in 'suspect' extra time because Fergie's reaction would have been far more entertaining than Sparky's!!

BTW, as reported in today's paper, was Bellamy's final contribution a perfect example of the sh1t hitting the fan!! :eusa17:

[DaveO]

I would love to see other peoples feed from this.

Thanks in anticipation.

It's a very hard question to answer as to why the standard of play is down on what it was. I was going to say many of the rule changes over the years have changed the nature of the game for the worsen BUT while that may be a valid observation depending on your opinion the Aussies play to the same rules (just about) yet the standard is higher.

So I think it is more fundamental and I think the biggest issue is lack of money in the sport. I don't just mean for players wages but for running the entire back room activities of a club such as physio and so on right up to employing sprint coaches, conditioners etc.

We are trying to run a professional sport on a shoe string.

The salary cap is an emotive subject but with a cap of £1.6m and a sensible application of it you are capping the maximum earnings of the players. Have we lost players as a result of the cap? A few but pro-cap people say its only a handful and so not a problem. While true the numbers are small what you can't measure is the number of quality young athletes who look elsewhere and never even enter the RL professional ranks.

For a long time now we have also only run junior sides outside of the 1st team. There has not been a proper reserve team for years. It was scrapped because it cost too much and when you have a salary cap you can hardly run two teams. This may also be a factor in lack of quality because most teams have about 20 experienced players tops and the rest junior players as a result.

Years ago before this forum existed I was on Usenet (GeoffN was there also) and one of things I posted way back then was could the sport afford to leave behind semi-professionalism? It seemed obvious to me if you wanted players to be full time and not have a job elsewhere as they used to then you would need to pay them a professional athletes wage, which for top players is a six figure salary minimum due to the short career. I was saying this before the salary cap was even thought of and I don't think anyone understood the full implication of changing the sport to full time across the board.

Most clubs can't afford to pay to their to 25 players up the £1.6m cap so things like the old A team were doomed when it went full time. We have nothing like the Toyota cup in Oz and the Oz country sides are miles better than our NL sides. Celtics ex-coach has just got a job with one of them.

So basically if you want one reason it is lack of money in the sport. Most NRL teams seem to employ several reserve coaches and a full back room staff but we hear things like Foreshaw has no staff to help the conditioning and I don't see us as being unique in that respect.

Dave

[BriH]

Couldn't have put it better myself Davo!
I wrote to Maurice Lyndsay, way back, about the Salary Cap playing to the lowest common denominator i.e. bringing Clubs with potentially high revenue down to the lowest level.
"Poor" Clubs will always vote for a lower Salary Cap - the login is inescapable. But doesn't this stifle growth? Of course it does!
The principle of the Salary Cap is OK, but I think it should also encourage 'poorer' Clubs to seek out sponsership etc. to generate extra income, better marketing, etc.
We live in a highly competitive entertainment world and the Salary Cap has to reflect this.
One as only to look at the money RU has compared to RL to see this. From memory, I think the RU has 10x more cash than RL has.

[pedro]

Forshaw does have an assistant according to IL at the fans forum but he didnt make it public.

I agree God they are non comparable really but we have to compete at the end of the year.

Its the same for NZ as its their second sport after RU but they seem to compete better.

[cpwigan]

When I have time I will put a proper response together. However;

Wigan Assistant Conditioner is called Mick Turner

However, it is important we do not make excuses or ignore the truth which is the prevalent habit of British citizens today IMO.

National Sport is a red herring God. The facts are Australia is a much smaller country population wise than the UK. The total population of Australia is 21 million approx. The two states were RL is the most popular sport are NSW with a population of 7 million and Queensland with a population of 4 million. Is it the National Sport? Victorians, Southern, Western australians would say not. Victorias now has the Storm but they are miniscule in the sporting psyche of Victorians compared to Aussie Rules.

The UK has a population of 61 million, 61 million compared to 21 million and yet Australia regularly out peform the U.K at numerous sports. It defies logic that a country with a population so much bigger cannot compete with a young country like Australia. Sport after sport the Australians do better than the U.K If it was simply money, profile, facilities then why have they done so much better at say Tennis? IIRC Netball/Hockey ?

Something is badly wrong with the British Psyche. We have become limp wristed bar our armed forces who stay true to their old standards. Everything is dumbed down, look at Education, GCSEs are worthless now. Look at the mentality of sport. Inclusion/participation is everything. The pursuit of excellence has been lost in the U.K. British people accept their lot far too readily. As far as sport goes we are desperate people. We cheer anything and everything, a single effort is rewarded and hailed as miraculous, individuals are elevated to God like status for doing very little. The majority of people are in denial. They would rather not face the truth. Especially when the truth is not pleasant. So before we do anything we have to change the mentality.

[DaveO]

I dont think anybody listens to me.

In a nutshell DaveO The Nrl is the number 1 sport in Australia like our Football over here. The NRL gets the money,Sponsership,Tv coverage = money into the club,Government backing,the crowds,the stadiums therefore they can afford the best money can buy. Hollywood actors as owners for gods sake.

The reasons why we don't have the same money do not alter the fact we don't have enough money in the sport. Lack of money is what I was saying was a major reason we have lower standards.

SuperLeague on the other hand is a 4th class sport just like soccer is in there country our clubs cannot compete, as you say "No assistants to Foreshaw" the aussies will have about 6 assistants. Therefore it doesnt take the brain of an archbishop to predict there standard of Rugby is better than ours its bound to be, and if its not theres something seriously wrong.

Which if you had read my post properly is exactly what I was saying. The O/P was asking for reasons why the standards are lower here so you are agreeing with me as to why. I offer no solution to getting more money in the sport here but am simply stating a simple fact there is not enough money in the game here to generate higher standards.

We need to get behind what we have in this country instead of knocking it, because thats all this site does nowadays is knock everything. Players, coaches, chairman and now bloody SuperLeague. We have enough problems from Latics fans,DW,Union and every other tom dick and harry having a pop at our beautiful game without Wigan fans getting in on the act. We need to sort ourselves out pronto because i dont see any other clubs fans moaning about the standard of Superleague.

You have just spent half a page telling me why the NRL have higher standards then we do because they are the number one sport so the above paragraph is just putting your head in the sand.

The trouble is many of us think the standard has got worse not better since the 80's and we are entitled to discuss why thank you very much.

Dave

[weststand-rich]

CP, there's nothing wrong with promoting or pursuing an inclusionist agenda when it comes to participation in sport. You only have to look at the sheer volume of fat kids to see that getting kids involved in activity for fun regardless of ability is a good thing. If you can get kids enjoying sport at any ability level that has to be a positive.

Where I think we as a national pschye have come unstuck is that the development of inclusion and participation has come at the expense of recognising elite ability. The 2 things shouldn't be mutally exclusive. I can't understand why it is unpopular to encourage athletic performance and competition, if you are capable.

As a kid I could run fast. I could shift the 100m in less than 12 seconds uncoached. I was faster than most at school but promptly got put in my place running at county school competition. There were scores of runners faster than me. It's not scarred me, I just recognise that lots of people were better athletes than me. That's life.

[KOOCH]

So the game is crap compared to the standard of the Aussie game.But lets get a grip can we.We are playing super league.Super league consist's of British teams.Teams we love to hate.We are not playing nrl.Of which the standard of play is far superior to ours and of course something we can only envy.We at Wigan are guiltier than most for the aussie imports.And often we say they are crap and should be let go in favour of the youth.I for one advocate the playing of our youth but would that bring up the standards of super league? Or do we stick with bringing through the aussie imports hoping that they bring with them experience that can influence our own players.This is an age old problem that gets mulled over season in and season out.No it is not good rugby but it's what we have on display.So instead of going on and on about it can we just not accept it for what it is worth?We and I include myself are not coaches and whilst I have my own thoughts on the game I say to myself if I know better than those in the game then why did I not become a coach.And yes I do think Noble is useless but could I do better?I think not.Rant over.