Yeah it has to be made note thqt the aussies are coming in after training in summer tekps and sts in winters shoite.

Thats a yard or 2 difference right there.

Saints trained at Rivington in deep mud, hail, rain and freezing temperatures, while Roosters trained on hard ground, beach with the sun on there backs. It didn't matter that we were 2 games to the good Roosters were fitter, faster and better conditioned without playing a game.

Could write a book of excuses on here to why we lost. Simple fact, they are better than us by miles. I predicted 56-6 to roosters so we did better than I thought.

Let's see how Wigan do tonight. They will have trained in mud and they will be handicapped by the NRL bigger salary cap.

People need to realise, we are miles away from the NRL.

Do you really believe that we have the players needed to be successful? No strike players, awful half backs and a pack with no backbone? We don't have the players or the coaching staff required to be a top SL side.

I said "compete."

We won the grand final two years ago, surely thst should have been a platform to challenge for trophies rather than just compete?

I don't think you can differentiate from excuses and facts, yes there are many factors why Sydney Roosters are much better than us. Sydney Roosters beat Canterbury Bulldogs in the semis last year [size=15038-12[/size does that mean we can be excused by having experienced the same outcome, no its just a factual occurrence.

The fact they flew 12,000 miles, played in cold wet conditions and haven't played one game since the end of the NRL season makes your comparison laughable.

Also they are not the same team as last year. Only Tupou was in the same position as last year in their backs. Their Captain didn't make the trip and JWH didn't make the trip .

In comparison we didn't fly 12,000 miles, we have played to super league games plus 2 other practice games, we only had percy out injured and we are very familiar with the weather conditions. In fact we had Richards and Theo who didn't even make our 17.

Nah, I'm not buying into this at all (20+ years ago maybe), you make it sound as though they have driven here in a mini bus, don't know each other and haven't held a rugby ball for months. Roosters would have been professionally well prepared for this match, fit and well conditioned, they would have used the journey over here as a recovery phase from hard training sessions and probably would have used the trip as a bonding exercise opportunity with just one single focus on the game, Robinson covered it on the Sky interview calling it removal of external distraction. They also wouldn't have been here long enough for the weather conditions to kick into there mindset.
Roosters are obviously not match fit and neither are Saints unless you think after a couple of games we hit the supreme match fitness button. Roosters played steady basic rugby and fed off most of our errors, there was only the roosters stand off who went full on as he had very much to prove for future selection.

Yes your right. Obviously 12,000 mile flight, the jet lag, the freezing conditions they ain't used to and the fact not had full contact game in 5 month worked in our favour.

We should be asking to play the next world series games in Australia as it's not fair they have the advantage of travel, jet lag and unfamiliar weather conditions every year

The roosters wouldn't have suffered any jet lag on two 6 hour flights going east to west. Jet lag is suffered going west to east as you are flying against time not with it. They will suffer it on their return to Australia as would any Brit team going to Aus for a WCC. Even then jet lag lasts a maximum of 72 hours before the body is adjusted to the new time zone.

Australia to Britain in 12 hours, what's that in, a Tardis?

They would have jet lag both ways. One way is worse than the other but they will still get it.

When I flew it took us 19 hours and all of us suffered bad from the flight 48hr later it hit us.

Also didn't the Aussie National side used to blame jet lag on them constantly losing the first test ?

They didn't fly in one go they stopped in Dubai. I may have underestimated each flight a little, each flight should take around 6-7 hours from take off to landing. Which is when jet lag starts/finishes. This means that on both flights the players days would experience an extension of 2 hours to their day, this is not a long enough period to bring on jet lag.

Aussie players will always have an advantage in comparison to Brit players in this respect, especially if they have a camp half way

Roosters didn't fly Sydney to the UK in one go though, they wanted to eliminate any jet lag by setting up a training camp in Dubai. They then got a daylight flight to the UK to reduce jet lag and where in the UK for around 60 hours before match play. They only had a 4 hour time zone adjustment to overcome.
Like I said Sydney Roosters were well prepared and analysed it as an easier focus option.

Quote from the coach:=#BF0040Robinson, who had taken his squad to Dubai for a training camp as part of their pre-season preparations, saw his side quickly shake off the rust against a side already feeling wear and tear from the opening fortnight of Super League.
"It's hard for the Australian teams coming over but we've only had one focus," Robinson said. "The Super League teams have to play a couple of games. I f you train a whole off season and play that game as your sole focus,
[usometimes it's easier[/u.

We really needed Luke Walsh to have got over his issues at the start of this season. Right now it looks like he hasn't (although I did think his defence was much improved). Which leaves us in a tough situation because last season Jon Wilkin was our best playmaking option. By using him in a supplementary role when Walsh isn't offering anything better we lose twice over.

I feel some sympathy with Cunningham bemoaning Sydney City's fortune with the bounce of the ball. It really is mentally tough when the opposition scores two or three tries in such fashion. That said, you've just got to deal with it and some of our players looked beaten before the halftime hooter.

I just don't understand all this messing about with Turner. He's not a stand-off. He's not a loose-forward. Yes - he can PLAY THERE. But only as a fill-in. By moving him out of his favoured position we lose the attacking threat he unquestionably possesses for no gain whatsoever. Indeed, I'd say it's a net loss. With Percival out we just can't afford to be weakening our back line even further.

As for Cunningham's tactics. I don't know what he's telling the players - but the fact that the opposition seem to gain every time we try to expand the play to a completely flat backline suggests that something is going wrong somewhere.

To be honest I'm not fussed about us keeping the ball tight. We don't have exceptional strength in the backs so it's simply crazy to think we should be throwing it about like a basketball team. But if we are going to stay narrow then it's imperative that the forwards interlink with each other - either offloading repeatedly or working little off-the-shoulder passes to the back-rowers running in close support.

Cunningham is inexperienced. But I can't imagine he's instructing his players to be this conservative. I think questions need to be asked about our playmaking unit. It isn't functioning. Which brings us right back to Walsh & Wilkin. Of course it doesn't help with Roby out. But worse still is the perennial problem at full-back. It's such an influential position and yet again we aren't offering anything. I'm not going to start bashing Owens because he's young and only has a couple of games under his belt for the club. But you have to question the sense in putting someone like Owens in such a tough spot when we have so many issues in the creative department.

The club seems to be putting an awful lot of faith in Lomax and McDonnell's abilities to overcome what are very serious injuries. I just hope that faith pays off.

I should also add - it's probably not a good idea to make too much of a big deal over being outplayed by a good NRL side. Certainly Wigan don't seem to be proving that they are capable of offering a great deal more. Indeed, watching the game now Brisbane could easily stick sixty on them if they keep the pedal flat to the floor.

They at least have the excuse of McIllorum's broken leg and Clubb's injury at a time in the game when they were competing very well.

I think all SL sides are inferior to the NRL, but we'll get similar scorelines against SL sides as well.

They made more breaks than us. But then I'd expect them to. Wigan have more options outside than we do. But if folk thought our forwards looked bad against the Roosters - Wigan showed they had the same "soft centre" which has dogged them ever since they won SL.

I mean, at least our lads were getting knocked back by some quality forwards. I've never seen as many yards made by backs carrying the ball up the middle as I did tonight. Even Brisbane's wingers seemed to be making ten yards a carry against the meat of Wigan's pack.

Whilst we have some headaches to deal with it's patently obvious Wigan have plenty of their own.

Broncos winger Corey Oats is former backrow. He's 110kg and 6ft 3 in so easy to see why he's making 10 meters a carry.

Just showed the Aussie game is years head of ours now, are we going backwards? did feel that Wigan looked more confident before the injuries set in, but no way did they compete with the Broncos, watching them move into positions to trick the defence was a lesson how to play rugby league. Not really expecting much difference tonight?

If Leeds have watched the Friday + Saturday games, you would think they would make some adjustment to make it a damage limitation one, by concentrating on minimum handling errors and not being pulled out of position too much. Saying that the best side in the NRL is on show tonight with Thurston running the show if Leeds allow it.

I think if Thurston plays well the Saints and Pies results will look like close contests in comparison. The NRL is light years ahead of Super League. It's a simple fact. To say Saints are not very good WRT the rest of Super league is ludicrous. Saints got beat by last seasons Minor Premiers who play games at the same intensity week after week as a Derby game. They are battle hardened to a degree we can only dream of. They don't make mistakes because, in their competition, they can't make mistakes.

Are Saints the best team in Super league - No
Are they as bad as some on here would have us believe - No
Will they be in the top 4 at the end of the season - Probably

This is down to the competition and lack of junior talent coming through. 3 clubs pretty much bring through the majority of the juniors, Saints, Wigan and Leeds. The rest of the Super League clubs should be forced to adopt the junior policy of these 3 clubs. Only then will we see an improvement in Quality and standards.

Three games played at the start of two hectic competitions is NOT a good qualitative indicator.

Whilst the NRL clearly has access to a larger pool of players and greater wealth - this alone cannot explain GB/Eng's shockingly poor record in internationals.

Between 1978 and the beginning of SL I could understand why we fared so badly. The standard of coaching in the UK was demonstrably abysmal and the Kangaroos, who'd looked outside the game to find new ideas and techniques, capitalised every time.

But ever since we turned fully pro it's become harder and harder to explain our ineptitude. I mean, it's all well and good that there are ten or twenty times the number of juniors playing league in Australia. [iThey can only field thirteen at any one time[/i.

If the size of a player pool was the deciding factor in international competition - Brazil would have won every World Cup. England would have dominated world cricket for years. Shouldn't NZ have a far better record in the RWC? Conversely, shouldn't Australia have a far WORSE record? The last time I checked you'd struggle to fill Wembley stadium with the total number of Aussies playing Union.

We love to create narratives which explain our dysmal performance against the Aussies. They certainly sound plausible. But how many of them are true?

From my experiences playing Union in South Africa I'd argue that the WEATHER is a far bigger factor than the size of the player pool.

A warm/hot & dry climate is beneficial in so many ways. Naturally talented players can practice the full panoply of their skills (could Jamie Lyon have developed his soft hands equally well slogging through the mud and dog turds at Blackbrook?). It encourages not just fast hands but expressive play. Kickers can gauge the contours of individual pitches better and don't have to worry as much about the kinds of wild weather variations which are the norm over here. Harder pitches bring out the best in quicker players and don't sap the strength of the bigger guys down the middle.

A sub-tropical climate makes hard training almost enjoyable whereas it's tough to motivate anyone in the type of weather conditions we've endured over the last three months. You get less muscle tears, injuries heal faster ... the list goes on and on.

I'm not saying weather is the deciding factor. But I think there's plenty of observable evidence that it's a far bigger issue than many think.

I also suspect that much of the problem is psychological. After living abroad I quickly realised that English people have an inexplicable inferiority complex which you just don't find in South Africa or Australia. I think this mindset is endemic within SL and contributes significantly to our downfall.

We already know that mindset plays an important role in professional sport. You can't tell me that British fans consistently proclaiming their inferiority and a submissive media which treats Australians like visiting gods from Mount Olympus doesn't leave some kind of imprint on the minds of players.