I disagree. Look at the finishing positions of teams coached by English coaches this past season.

Only the very experienced ones (Noble and Kear) made any real impression on the competition. By contrast the likes of Morgan and Matterson have made their more limited coaching experience go further - probably because of their backgrounds in the Australian competition.

At the moment we need a steady influx and rotation of Australian coaches from the NRL, just as it is desirable for the best English players to test themselves over there.

As G1 has stated, cutting back on overseas players in the key positions is what is needed. Perhaps an overall competition quota for the number of half-backs, hookers, and full-backs is needed. It could be tweaked every now and then according to other perceived weaknesses (i.e. outside backs). Hopefully the new quota rules will start to bite soon so this may not be necessary - although as Leeds now have the highest number of overseas players in their squad than they have done for some time I think we still have a way to go yet.

Easier said than done though isn't it, I have no idea what the numbers in difference is between here and Australia but football will always massively dominate over here, not much the rfl can do about that.

True, but theres still plenty of the country left that isnt really playing RL. There are many more lads in Wales playing RL now thanks to the effort the RFL has put in there.
The difficulty will always be overcoming the rugby union bias in certain regions, and as always the lack of cash available to the RFL compared to Union and Football.

Thanks for ignoring the first half of my post. I never said there was a better option. And I didn't even mention any of the other players there so I'm not sure what your point is. I was responding to someone talking about how Senior used to get stick a couple of years ago (and last year) and now McGuire is in the firing line.
You can easily go back a few years on the Virtual Terrace and find pages and pages of Long bashing.

Some of whom, if they get the right opportunities and coaching, could turn out to be a bit special if that second forty against Ireland is anything to go by.

It'll be really hard given the competition over here from other sports. However if we get our own house in order and bring in new areas we can get much closer. It wasn't so long ago that we were almost there (the early 90s). It'll take time though, there's no overnight solution to this.

I think you have taken that a bit too personaly flower.

My point was about the best British player looking poor on the international stage and I was agreeing with you more than anything.

Of course there is. Its' called Sam Tomkins.

Just keep the useless Leeds players out of his way and the 4 nations, ashes and World Cup are ours for the taking.

However, all the kiwis have to do is button up their shirt collars and he won't be able to make a tackle.

No offence taken, and glad to hear someone agrees with me. Maybe I should have clarified by putting "particularly w**k". Long in particular was less able than most to translate club form to international level IMO.
Myabe that's the difficulty all halves have?

Work is ongoing, but it takes time. I know in Nottingham, a lot of the guys at the club do work in schools, and are actually getting the schools playing the game.

But this is mainly due to dedication of certain individuals to get the word spread about the game. A large proportion of guys who come down to Outlaws are union converts, who very quickly realise that League is a game worth playing.

However, I am tempted to think that although stuff works well in Nottingham, its a fairly rare case, certainly outside of the heartlands.

the RFL needs to target clubs in cities like Nottingham, and get more kids playing the game.

Indeed. Ours is one of the biggest comp schools in the area and attracts kids from all our neighbouring villages from 5 years to leaving school including a 6th form college and even though their are a few in the school who support Leeds and Saints they school only plays Union. My lad has even asked the school if they could try it only to be told no one would understand it.

I went to school in Pudsey in the 80s and the head of PE would only allow union to be played. It put a lot of us off playing completely. This was in Pudsey FFS not somewhere outside of the RL heartlands.

In the end a protest by lads a few years younger than me meant he had to give in as they refused to play union for him and the school team was seriously weakened. One of them went on to join the Rhinos.

judas.

The comp in Garforth also only plays Union.. it's a disgrace. It's a huge school in a Rugby League hot bed and it plays fecking Union.....

I was never a disciple in the first place

Does anyone know actually why these highschools play Union not League ?? Especially those located in RL hearlands.........It baffles me...

Because Union they have to teach in PE or offer a club for. Some schools do not have the resources to offer both Union and League so stick with just the one code.

Where you get schools with League is where it is the only interest from the pupils.

I doubt pupils are ever really consulted, it's more a case of "we play union here" and that's it. That was my experience anyway!

Same here BOTH our P.E teachers at Horsforth school played Union and that's what we played.
From time to time we were allowed to play league after constant asking but because we competed against other schools at union,league was dismissed .

Quote ="leicester_rhino"Work is ongoing, but it takes time. I know in Nottingham, a lot of the guys at the club do work in schools, and are actually getting the schools playing the game. But this is mainly due to dedication of certain individuals to get the word spread about the game. A large proportion of guys who come down to Outlaws are union converts, who very quickly realise that League is a game worth playing. However, I am tempted to think that although stuff works well in Nottingham, its a fairly rare case, certainly outside of the heartlands. the RFL needs to target clubs in cities like Nottingham, and get more kids playing the game.'" They should get some support though. We certainly do. Not so much financial, but do get help. We got our first player to England level at U18s this week www.midlandsrugbyleague.co.uk/article.php?id=92 and three others to the last stages of the trials, one of which is now signed to Harlequins U18s academy.

Quote ="leicester_rhino"Work is ongoing, but it takes time. I know in Nottingham, a lot of the guys at the club do work in schools, and are actually getting the schools playing the game. But this is mainly due to dedication of certain individuals to get the word spread about the game. A large proportion of guys who come down to Outlaws are union converts, who very quickly realise that League is a game worth playing. However, I am tempted to think that although stuff works well in Nottingham, its a fairly rare case, certainly outside of the heartlands. the RFL needs to target clubs in cities like Nottingham, and get more kids playing the game.'" They should get some support though. We certainly do. Not so much financial, but do get help. We got our first player to England level at U18s this week www.midlandsrugbyleague.co.uk/article.php?id=92 and three others to the last stages of the trials, one of which is now signed to Harlequins U18s academy.

My school in York only played Union and not League, that was simply because the head of PE was an ex Union player. Its not that he hated League or anything but it would have meant him giving up another night a week to do both a League team as well and he couldn't be bothered. Dont blame him but it meant that virtually all my mates at school, bar the 1 or 2 I could convert, ended up either playing or watching or at the very least taking an interest in Union and knew almost nothing about League.

The importance of getting schools playing League cant be overstated. Thats 50 or so lads from my school who would have at the least gone to the odd league game either in York or Leeds if theyd played League at my school instead of Union. Instead they often went to Twickers.

We offer free coaching of league in games lessons to schools. Games teacher gets a lesson off or joins in and learns something themselves. We get league to kids and encourage them to join the club. That's a bit slower to show results, because we're getting to kids at 11 to 14.

We played very little extra curricular sport at high school, despite the fact we could have had probably one of the best rugby league sides in Leeds if we had - a fair few kids in my year played up at East Leeds as well as representing the District.

Both PE teachers played Union for the lower grades at Otley, so running teams on a Saturday was out of the question.