Is this another we are St Helens and love ourselfs thread ?

Maybe half the clubs you listed weren't good examples.

Yeah, but you get his drift?

Interesting stuff. Shame about the typos, undermines it a bit.

What the heck is he spouting for he could atleast get his facts correct.

Hull KR's Reserves are 4th in the table our U18's are joint top with a 100% record. It makes it worse as our foundation team played St Helens in there 1st match at weekend losing 34-36.

Is the guy a clown?

All credit where it's due, that was a very interesting read and very professionally set out. Very easy to navigate and sponsor links very easily accessible. Well done, Saints.

As for the articles. Eamon McMannus has made some good point, but I don't necessarily agree with them. He talks about the league becoming an afterthought to the play-offs due to the size of them, but if the play-offs only involved the top three then the league wouldn't even be a thought to many teams. If there were a greater number of professional clubs in many leagues like there is in football and to an extent RU, then yeah this may be viable as you could have UEFA Cup and European CC style competitions for those not in the top. But we don't, and have to play to what we've got at the moment. I don't think he would think the same if he didn't run a team that consistently finishes in the top 3.

The Abi Ekoku piece was interesting also, but in some areas I don't think it was very well thought out (and there were a few glaring errors: i.e. Leeds vs Canterbury last year? That was 2004, Abi! Melbourne last year, mate!). Expanding the WCC is interesting, but is it possible and how? He didn't really offer many ways it would be viable. Playing the game in London I am an advocate of, but ONLY if it is announced a year in advance and consistently there so fans can grow attatched to it. More Aussie fans would go (many expats there), more media attention and more prestigious venues there than up here. One possible way to expand it would be to give the top 2 SL teams (or CC winners and GF winners) a bye in the Challenge Cup to the 5th round, freeing them up for one more week. Food for thought?

Yes
An ignorant one.
Gardner - Barrow
Gilmore - Wigan
Pryce - Bradford
Long - Wigan
Hargreaves - Wigan
Wilkin - HKR
Meli, Gidley, Puletua, Cayless and Flannery overseas.

Q.E.D.

As he said any promising youngsters of note.

Ainscough is useless in defence and under the high bomb. Yes he may have scored a lot of tries but the vast majority of these have been walk in tries. I seem to remember Colbon scoring loads of walk in tries last year but where is he now... Sam Tomkins is not a patch on Myler and Eastmond and apart from pace hasnt got much to his game. These two players in particular are your typical overated Wigan youngsters who wont be there in a few years time.

O'Loughlin works hard but seemingly many Wigan fans dont even rate him.

Hock is more often poor than he is good.

Joel Tomkins, O'Carroll, Prescott, McIlorum, Hansen are all average at best.

You are basically just listing all the average british players that Wigan kept hold of.

St Helens could have kept Smith, Tyrer, Hardman etc, played them in the first team and patted ourselves on the back about our youth policy, whilst languishing mid table like Wigan.

The key is quality, not quantity

And which "quality" Saints youngsters would these be?