What an awful weekend of RL!!

Bradford and Wire started the weekend off with a right old treat of skillful and classy rugby on show. Followed by another close game between 2 of the top 4 on Saturday. Sundays games where all very tight and went to the final hooters !!

ONE close game out of SEVEN league fixtures, Hull v Wakefield. Winning teams scored 295 points and the losing teams scored 92.

This weekend has shown that the SL as a competition is a million miles behind anything in the NRL and a million miles behind where it needs to be to attract new supporters and sponsors.

Been saying it for a while now, over the last 5 seasons in my opinion standards have dropped consistantly season by season.

Whenever i happen to accidently catch the union highlights on ITV I have to say the union code has come on leaps and bounds while we regress and as much as it pains me to say it the skills and pace on display in have now overtaken what is on offer on League, thankfully the game is designed to be dull so they do not get a chance to show these off as much as we can in League, but it is a pretty sad state of affairs.

Its fair to say this weekends results are probably a result of the 2 games last weekend.

Some teams seem to struggle. I went to the Quins game yesterday and we didn't play second half,(Not that that is unusual) but the players looked tired. I did say to the missus before the game we had used the same 17 roughly for all 3 games and could probably have freshened it up with some new faces. Fisrt half was tight. Anyway we lost!!!

Sadly it is a continuing trend - the game in this country is slowly going backwards - I dread to think what would happen if we had another World Club Challenge like the one a few years ago when several NRL clubs came over and basically thrashed our teams. Add in several top clubs in SL going backwards (Wigan/Bradford/Warrington etc) and too many journeymen players and poor coaches and it is not difficult to see why.

Add in a lack of skills - world class players according to Eddie and Stevo - where? Didn't the world cup show us how "world class" our players are and a totally pathetic RFL response - a 7 point plan for more mediocrity.

Until we have a bottom up revamp the game will continue to stagnate or regress. The RFL need a shake up with some new blood in there with fresh ideas.

For some fresh ideas involve reverting to type ie keep it in the M62

Are the following not innovation

Salary cap ensuring clubs stay solvent
Introduction of Catalans thus opening up a new player market ie France
Franchising giving clubs 3 years to build
7 or so local players in each squad
Reduction in overseas players, steadily reducing
Investment in NL1 to bring through better players thus expanding the player pool

What ideas would you suggest? Transitions dont happen over night

Gotta love the salary cap and the fact the rules have been changed to favour "scoot" so much in the last couple of years.

Nathan Brown will change that theory single handedly and others will follow

The points mentioned are a beginning - but some are too slow such as the overseas reduction it was meant to be faster but got watered down. Expansion is fine as long as it is sustainable - for every Catalan there are the Gatesheads/Sheffields etc that fail so it has to be done properly and why no Cumbrian teams? The franchise idea is fine as long as it is done fairly.


Reverting to type and keep it in the m62 area - where have I said that?

By a bottom up revamp I would like to see as a start

Academy/junior levels are no where never strong enough to develop players, there needs to be a major push into this area to develop as stronger competiition.

More investment into coaching staff - professional standards/training and accreditiation.

Official link ups between SL and NL teams - not a feeder situation but a planned system where younger players breaking through in SL clubs can go on loan - this is a great idea but at the moment is too hapazard and needs to be formalised (maybe even some kind of pre-season franchise system??)

I am sure there are many more areas - but the RFL need to take the lead more rather than be lead by clubs.

You haven't it was more a general statement and one you hear time and time again.

The point you make regarding loaning young players is valid. Last year Quins lent Skolars some players including Clubb. We then had an injury "crisis" and wanted Clubb back but couldn't recall him due to some rule regarding length of loan!!!! Bizarre

I think if you look around some clubs do loan players. Saints seem to use it well. Quins loaned LMS and Clubb to Hull when they were younger which helped there development. As you say it could be formalised a little better

Good call. I think the standards of superleague are dropping by the year anyway to be honest. Think back to around 2000 and look at some of the players about