I agree with almost everything you say bar the going to Aussie clubs bit. Personally I'd be going to any other sport, be it football, NFL, etc. In fact almost anywhere but the NRL.

I don't think Australian clubs will ever give us the benefit of up full access to up to date thinking and techniques. I may be being a touch cynical, but they will do almost anything to stay ahead of us (Christ, they even whine about referees and rules when they have far better players) and by copying them we will always be a step behind. We aren't in as direct competition with other sports.

Other sports implement extremely professional attitudes and techniques that would improve our game, I don't think we must always follow what the Aussies do, bar that increased professionalism and constant improvement, but we should be looking at doing that anyway.

I agree with that, those are pretty much my reasons for not being as enthused for RL as I used to be, I hope it passes, because its still the GREATEST GAME!

As per today's Wigan Observer (back page)

The Australian (Michael Maguire) says he will be employing the same tactics and same training techniques that made Melbourne Storm the undisputed kings down under.

I agree with you about looking outside at other sports to, which is why i'm really pleased that Maguire has been over looking at NFL, NHL and NBA teams as well as Aussie Rules and is a regular at sports coaching symposiums. Wane has expressed the desire to do the same.

From what I understand the Storm were a club who were happy to show IL around and talk about what they'd built there. Whilst I agree the Aussies will do whatever they can to stay ahead, I think individual NRL clubs aren't quite so parochial - but hey i'm an optimistic guy unless you get me on the subject of our 3/4 line against the aussies at the coming 4 nations

I think the main thing that the visits to NRL clubs did for our chairman was really open up his eyes about the gulf in class, so whether other chairman would be given any pointers or not it would be good for them to see first hand what we're up against.

Exactly.

Whilst I can see why SL teams want the most up to date experience and techniques from the NRL by the time they’ve managed to implement them at their own clubs they’ll be out of date. It’s a vicious circle.

There’s no point in the long run constantly playing catch up. In order to truly catch up with them you’ve got to be at the forefront by looking at other sports and pioneering new techniques.

One area I’d personally love Wigan to look at is the AC Milan training facilities which are apparently state of the art in the way it designs specific training regimes for players based on how the computer analyses them on that morning!

When you compare something like that to what was in place at Wigan last season it’s scary the benefits that could truly be had by looking into these areas.

I really, really, really can’t see why coaches in SL don’t look at stuff like this? Why stick with the old boy network instead of getting true pro’s in to improve their teams. At the end of the day it’s their jobs what are on the line

That's the reason why the enjoyment of the game has gone down - all teams concentrate on possession and territory. Keeping the ball, getting in your opponents half, trying to force an error or a repeat set, waiting for the defence to break down or a mistake.

Thats the general game plan of most if not all teams - and it usually delivers results; play % rugby, don't give away possession and at some point the opposition make a mistake.

Look at the majority of tries scored - almost all come from position gifted to the attack through a mistake.

This was certainly Nobles approach, play safe, get in the opposition half, force a mistake, and when we lost it was usually down to players not 'playing safe' losing the ball in the tackle, etc. That's why we never really hammered a team even when we were on top for most of a game, why we usually let a team back at us in the 2nd half, we never cut loose in attack - and possible we didn't have the players with the skill or concentration levels to do this consistently (e.g. the number of times coley/prescott lose the ball in the tackle looking for an offload).

I think in Aus, you have to work harder to create a gap, as the defence don't make as many mistakes, you can't just camp out in their half waiting for possession, otherwise you end up on the end of a 30 - 0 loss.

We have to get back to defending extremely well when we haven't got the ball and creating a real attacking threat when we do have the ball, not just for 10 mins of the game when we're in the oppositions 30 metre zone.