On the Australia v England living thing, the countries are so different it's difficult to compare.

I'm no beach person, ive been here nearly 4 months and havent been to the beach yet, well Ive been to Manly beach, but that was only because the had a wine festival on



I live in the Inner West (near Balmain!) and what appeals to me are all the harbours and the rivers that are round here, it is absolutely beautiful, but saying that England can be just as beautiful, and I think it is at it's most beautiful in Winter. It's winter here at the moment and its 22degrees and not a cloud in the sky, seems a bit weird actually!

Food is tons better here, the quality of the produce is far better, especially seafood.

TV is quite simply terrible over here, apart from the amount of RL on that is



And the wine is far better, you can't get most of whats produced from here in England, I think they just send all the sh@t!

One hing I do like over here is their attitude, very friendly and very down to earth and I havent seen anything that resembles a chav, allthough there are a few 'bogans' as they say round these parts!

The signing on fee won't count on the cap (of which atkins gets a %) so i suppose wire are happy to have a more generous sugar daddy than caddick.
They could apparently have 21 palayers on the same salary as atkins, his agent must try harder! Plus some of the WAGS allegedly get paid handsomely for working (or not working) behind the scenes, i know it an old one but it goes on.
Like 1 poster said earlier you always need that hardcore of local players or players that have progressed through youth system.
took leeds a long time to realize,
must admit i did used to look forward to the next big signing in those barron years, giving me false hope leeds would progress from also rans, as they nearly went bust.

I'm really coming from the point of view that no SL side should sign any Aussie/Kiwi unless they are real quality, if at all possible. An overseas rosta of Webb, Donald, Delaney, Leuluai, Buderus, Lauti'iti and possibly Eastwood is far, far too many IMO and frankly depressing. We have after all managed to win the GF three times with never with more than five overseas players - last year only three.

If Delaney turns out to be solid but not spectacular, will people care that Coady, Ratu, Watkins or whoever are being kept out of the team by him? TBH it smacks of the sort of signing that a coach may like as it gives him an easy selection option.

As I say, I'll support him and Leeds, but it's just depressing. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with the salary cap.

Totally agree, to have 3 of the back 5 as overseas players is not how I would want it and (assuming Eastwood comes over next season) 7 of the 17 being overseas does not help the game in this country.

BTW not sure if you were talking about the GF or the season but if the latter there were 4 last season including Toopi.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... Leeds.html

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... Leeds.html

And ? i think you just might possibly have missed all the quotes and links in the early part of the thread...

I think you are correct

Can't be a[irse[/id reading all 19 pages - have we written him off yet ?

How did you guess



(I haven't though)

Does seem from various sources/opinions that the Bulldogs centre (Millard) that we were looking to bring in for this season until Idris got injured and is now rumoured to be signing for the Bulls is the much better prospect of the two,so I guess we'll have to see who has done the better bit of business.

completely agree, players like Webb, Lauiti'iti, Eastwood and Buderus would add to any league, all four are world class players (imo), it is, as you say, depressing that we cannot bring through a british player the quality of Donald or Lueluai, who are, im sorry to say, pretty average antipodeans who have come over here and been among the best.

I would however disagree that it isnt down to the SC, i think it is, i think the SC encourages this type of signing, or certainly this format of SC.

if we had no SC, then leeds could have spend more to keep smith (and he deserves it, the lad is a fantastic prospect, to expect him not to earn as much as he can in his short career is crazy) or they could have spent more bringing in a hodges, inglis,

or if we had ans SC that actively encouraged british players, then we could have stuck with Coady, Watkins and Ratu, because everyone else would be doing the same

as it is, we probably didnt really have a choice other than to go for a player like this, throwing one of those three in against experienced pros (how many young centres are currently playing SL, very few) would have meant leeds were playing with one hand behind their back, and the money simply isnt available to sign a better standard

for some reason we always seem to be offering clubs a way out, we should be saying, produce your own or pay the price, but we dont because people seem obsessed with equalling out the game, regardless of the fact it is damaging it

these are the reasons why the best two centres in this comp are a past it Aussie in Gidley and a past it Brit in Senior,

we should be either forced to be playing, Watkins or Coady or Ratu or we should be allowed to bring in the best,

Rather like McF, I ain't reading 19 pages.
Whatever you think about overseas players, just remember, it could be worse, you could watch soccer, no f***ing chance of seeing a home-grown player!!!!!!

What should happen is that a player who comes through the clubs academy system AND is from their own service area then only a percentage of their salary should be counted against the salary cap.

It would encourage clubs to invest in their own youth in their own areas.

why? some service areas are naturally better than others, some bigger some smaller?

what if a youngster moves house from one to another? what about those on the boundries?

surely if a club is poor and bringing through players wasting a whole service area on them is a bad thing?

what would be wrong with competition in youth development? surely that is what will drive success and evolution not protectionism?

It is monies earned by the player paid by his new employer so why doesn't it count?

it might, although it's only a one off 10% payment.

I hear what you say about Smith, but the salary cap's not the sole reason for him going. Ignoring his personal reasons for wanting to move to London, Leeds would never have made him a mega-offer as he's second choice fullback and at the time of the negotiations was probably third choice winger and totally unproven as a centre.

Back on topic, you could easily argue that rather than have 7 overseas players next year, we could go for 3 absolute stars for the same cost - e.g. instead of Donald, Delaney, Eastwood and Leuluai we could possibly have two exceptional players for the same expense, with youngsters/try-hards having to fill the gaps.

Also Toopi didn't play in last year's GF - the only overseas players in the 17 were Donald, Leuluai and Lauti'iti. Webb obviously would have been there if fit.

Sadly and slightly OT, I think Donald as a finisher is far better than just average - way better than any current British winger I'm afraid.



Anyway, my rant's over. I just find it a touch sad that a side which many have held out as an example of what can be achieved by backing homegrown talent now seems to have embarked down the road of going for a much larger squad (understandable I suppose) including a shedload of overseas players.

20 pages on the signing of a cheap NRL club man that the Titans supporters didn't give toss about losing.

Leeds, currently, are taking the paying punters for a ride, having said that GH must look at threads like this and laugh his nuts off, I can see his line now "these mugs are happy with anything, put the prices up!!"

Have you straw poled everyone on that?

Its a ride I'm happy with, It's a much better ride than the pre 1996 ride.

Who cares if the NRL only consider him "Average"?

I seem to remember Andrew Dunemann not being well thought of when we bought him. It didn't stop him having a great effect on the team. Then in the previous generation we had people like Tony Currie; a little known centre we bought from Redcliffe who took the opportunity to show what he was capable of and ended up going back to Australia with both the Bulldogs and the Broncos.

Whilst its always nice to have a superstar in every position, Rugby League is a team game and you need players capable of gelling and playing well as a team. All of the best teams are those which are better than the sum of their parts. All too frequently in the 80's and 90's we went out and tried to fill every spot with superstars only to be left with teams that frequently performed less than their parts. Hopefully this is a lesson that the management have learnt, even if some of our fans haven't.

Solid signing I hope.

If he can add a bit of defensive grit that got lost with Ellis + McKenna then that is good news.

I haven't seen much of him when I watch NRL, but he's always looked solid.

Solid seems to be under rated these days.

He will directly replace Smith not only in the 3 shirt but as a back goal kicker.

I totally agree. Our league has been littered with "average" Aussies who have made a tremendous impact over here.

Who knows, his game may be more suited to SL. His try stats are poor, but as long as he puts his winger in for plenty of tries (like Keef S and Gidley at Saints) then he will do a good job.

Never took to Toopi, just didn't rate the bloke. It's also a shame that the management don't feel any of our reserve centres could step up to the plate, but they know better than me which is why we have to trust them that Delaney will cut it next season.

Bit difficult to compare across eras though, at that time the Queensland competition Currie was playing in was barely known in the UK where even the stronger NSWRL competition wasn't that well publicised (IIRC the only way you could get to see full games was on videos, there was a shop in Chapel Allerton used to import tapes of each week with one main game and some highlights on).

These days if a player is playing regularly in the NRL everyone is going to have seen something of him and will have formed an opinion, rightly or wrongly.

We used to watch the NSWRL tapes each week upstairs at the World's End public house in Pudsey, seedy lot we were.

Then we used to hire them from a video shop in Headingley.