It wouldn't.

Brisbane are nearly as far behind Souths as we are. Saints forwards got man handled and ours are smaller.

Over reactions aren't needed by Saints fans tonight. It's tough to take but the issue doesn't sit at Saints door, it sits at the door of the RFL. Our league had been allowed to fall further behind then it's ever been.

Yeah it would have finished Wigan 0 v 60 Souths

Hopefully this will be a wake up call for some at the rfl to bring in some new rules/ up the cap more generally as well.

Fair point mate. Good post.

Very decent posts from you tonight Nicky. Out of interest, what would you do to close the gap and improve Super League? Is it just a simple case of increasing the salary cap? If so, is there not a risk we'd lose several clubs as the crowds and sponsorship just isn't sufficient to make them sustainable.

I don't think the RFL can win in this situation. The only way to stop promising British players from leaving SL and heading to the NRL is by raising the cap to similar levels to which the NRL operates at. Even then, players will still leave because of the attraction of the climate and surroundings.
Clubs like Saints will always have a decent production line of academy prospects, but other clubs are not in the same position and they would undoubtedly use the extra cap space to bring ageing australian players over to SL and consequently prevent British players from getting a spot in the side.
This is before we even consider the clubs who simply cannot afford to spend to a higher cap. Combining a higher cap with the threat of relegation is simply a disaster waiting to happen.

The Aussies are just fitter athletes, it's their national sport over there (in some states), they have a much bigger player pool to produce talent from, and the sport is booming over there.

this rule is currently in place in the championship:



This is the rule that can (and should of been by now) brought in that can at least start e tide. Tomkins and Graham are lost to us imo, what we need is to start the process to protect the next in the production line. That combined with slow, regular and planned cap increases will start to turn the tide, limits the risk to smaller clubs, and rewards clubs for producing talent as opposed to buying in.

Isn't that rule already in place for SL? I thought it was £100k for club trained in SL?
If not, then I agree it should certainly be brought in.

It was lesson in Rugby League. Souths were untouchable.

Nope. It was supposed to be, but clubs refused to vote it in for this year. I'm hoping to God the rfl don't let them dig their feet in too long and it's due to come in next year...

100k is also too high - should be 100k normally, 75k upon an England knight appearance and 60k after a full England cap.

That and a cap increase to £2m in 2016, and an agreement to increase it by ~100k per year for every year after that for 5 years is step 2

Stuff the Aussies and stuff their salary caps.

We beat Wigan in a Grand Final last year with a young side and then the aussie champs came over to play us in our new stadium, we sold out and we made some money out of it.

Come on, let's not get too down hearted. On the showing of Wigan and Warrington, there is not this gulf people are talking about between the SL and the NRL. Brisbane and St George will both fly back knowing they've been in a game as intense as their own league.

We know what rugby league is like sometimes. If one team doesn't do the basics right, and the other team gets it all right, then they will potentially pummel them.

Last season, Catalans tore us a new backside at their place. They turned up and we didn't. That 42-0 score line wasn't a reflection of the gulf between the two teams in general.

These things happen, it's not nice to be on the receiving end. It's just what happened on the night unfortunately. I guarantee South Sydney will have a few big defeats put on them this season because it's impossible to get it right in every game The lads will learn an awful lot from it.

Good post. It was fine margins. We had identified our starts as a problem but we hadn't fixed the problem. We didn't have the personnel to recover. But we came so close to scoring twice (held up/dropped ball) - had just one of those stuck our confidence would have grown and things might have been different.

The Dogs conceded 30 points to Souths in the GF and they're in the same league. This was just a bad night for Saints, and disappointing for the fans not least IMO because I thought we now had a better defence than that!

Lomax has lost so much pace it's unreal. Massively out of position as well.

I think we are good super league side but we have NO world class players so when we come up against teams like Souths it sticks out like sore thumb. Wilkin was awful and again shows he's ok in halves in super league but not against world class teams.

Not going to go into this in depth but ......Mose!

The gap between NRL and super league is as big as ever. At times in the first half we held our own but the min they upper their gear we looked so poor.

I expected a hammering and we got one.

I didn,t think we were that far away with our pack it was just our backline that was exposed as men against boys. With the execption of Percival all our backs were fully exposed for all to see not enough size, stamina, strength speed etc. Johnny Lomax looked a little boy lost last night.

Also we must not forget that this NRL team where head and shoulders above all the teams in the comp and put 30 points on a very good Canterbury Bulldogs side in the grand final.

If we ask where do we go from here, we don't, I can't see any superleague side having a back line like the Rabbitoh's at there disposal, there backline would probably demolish an all england side let alone a superleague one.
Could we have beaten St George or Brisbane probably yes, but the reality check is that not many teams will beat Sydney Rabbitoh's never mind a superleague one.

I went last night, after watching the first two games was really looking forward to the game. Souths were just too good.
As for salary cap, I don't think that's the issue. If we raised it, it would only mean average and poor players would command a higher salary. For me the issue is the lack of pure talent, competition for places and the lack of numbers playing the sport in comparison to Aus.
All IMHO of course.

Lomax's positioning is what disappoints me more than anything. As Wellens proved, you can make up physical flaws by being in the right place at the right time and Lomax just hasn't been able to grasp that. The first try was very poor and the try after the clash of heads just had an ominous sense of foreboding about it. I've always worried he was too short to be effective at fullback ... But again is there a SL side out there who could exploit it, because I'm not sure ...

Wilkin wasn't great, but he allowed Burns to at least create some space (even if it was closed near enough immediately!) but a fully fit Walsh would of been incredibly useful I agree. Thing is, would matty smith or Richie Myler done any better than Wilkin tonight?

I was expecting more from Mose tonight, the eyes of the NRL and a chance to improve his next contract should of seen him trying to go blow for blow... But he didn't. When you compare him to George Rose's performance for example, you wonder how the Aussie conditioning teams are so far ahead of our own ... On the other hand, I don't think we need to worry about Savelio leaving for aus any time soon, he was out of his depth from the minute he stepped on the pitch.

I think we have potential world class players at the minute. But potential doesn't beat the real thing. We're as young a team as any, and providing they learn the lessons, will be better for it, as hard as it is to see right now. I also think there's 1 maybe 2 players in SL who are world class, so it's not a problem localised to Saints.

SL clubs are full time and are quite capable of matching fitness levels so that is clutching at straws. Wigan matched Brisbane's fitness levels. For me the issue is that SL clubs do not play at that intensity often enough. It didn't do Saints any favours playing Salford last week and winning so easy. SL needs high intensity week in week out as this develops the speed of thought and composure in that intensity.

If that deluded thought helps you get over a bad night at the office then dream on. Wigan are not good enough to beat Souths but they would not have lost by that score!

To be fair to lomax he's probably still a little rusty, he hasn't played rugby for long long time and that's only his 3rd competitive match since June last year. Look at kevin Locke last week!

For me, I'm not bothered mose going next year. He's easiky replaceable.

Just need to draw a line under this and get back to our league form.

I'm more than happy to give Lomax time, but I think it's the first time I feel his place in the team should be under threat.

Mose's main advantage of drawing players in and creating space on the edges was completely nullified yesterday, but after years of an undersized pack I'm not prepared to give up his size so easily! Wonder if Tom Burgess fancies a stint over in SL



Thing is, against SL opposition I reckon we'd of scored 6 tries if not more - we just can't let it affect our confidence...

Having watched it back again, there are more than shades of Melbourne about Souths now. They are so utterly dominant in the NRL that it does become a little suspicious. They won the Grand Final 30-6 against Canterbury and beat us 39-0. No real shame there for us IMO, especially when there were a couple of tries that were just pure luck. Either they are in a completely unsustainable position of having a heap of players earning way less than their potential earnings could be and they will gradually weaken as their current contracts come up for renewal, or all the other clubs in the NRL are doing a terrible job.

I'd cut Lomax a bit of slack. He's having things tough at the moment.

To give balance, the top 3 teams (1-2-3) in superleague should be playing the bottom play off teams (6-7-icon_cool.gif in NRL. The top 3 teams in the NRL would probably beat an England International side.

I'm not bagging him as he's a good player but I think he's lost pace and obviously he's a little rusty with not playing for long time.