[url=http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/09/07/04/RUGBYL_Hull_OMeley.htmlO'Meley signed for Hull on 3 year deal.[/url

Big sqaud overhaul for next season then.

In: Long, Tansey, Fitzgibbon, O'Meley
Out (Rumoured): Thorman, G.Horne, King, Thackray, Tickle.

Players coming in are far better than those going out.

Private Pyle

Brilliant.

I've never been convinced by O'Meley!

He's one of those players who only does well when surrounded by champion players. He excelled in a world-class Bulldogs back which saw him play for Australia and again he did ok in the green and gold.

Whenever I've seen him in a team where the responsibility lies with him to assert some dominance he's gone missing. He is a self-professed hard man who has come up short every time he's picked on someone who can actually defend themselves.

IMO he is more Mark Caroll than Paul Harrogan and may well find the size and physicality of super league doesn't suit his game.

He has gone backwards for 2 or 3 years.
Playing park football recently and released from his contract suggests he is a shot Duck.

Don't think size will bother him, he's no lightweight.

it's not about his size is about the size of the players is used to playing against. I've lost count of the number of Australian NRL players will come over to the UK and are then absolutely shocked by the average size and physicality of the players over here.

I'm not suggesting that they don't have big physical players in Australia it's just that the nature of super league seems to lean more towards physicality and brute strength and that's what seems to find a few of the NRL players out.

Neither's David Mills. It's what you do with it that counts.

Yet another waste of time space and money that could be used in development but hey since when has that stopped stupidity in the top echelons of club?

Whilst I agree in principle, you can't blame clubs for filling overseas spots whilst they are available. Some more than others smack of desperation over actual quality, but I also think it's fair to say hull have a good record of developing and promoting youngsters.

Do you actually watch the NRL? This is a stupid statement.

In your opinion!

As I've said there are a lot of NRL players have come to the UK and are shocked by the physicality and the size of many of the players in the super league.

As for Mark O'Meley, we'll see when he gets over here!

We have got enough young home grown players within the team; we needed a big, powerful prop with experience - there are not too many of them around and for me he is a good signing

Even on this seasons form he is better than what we already have; Thackaray and King are both liabilities

Hopefully he can bring on the likes of Dominic Maloney into great players

sorry I forgot to do this:

And there I was thinking that that was a coaches job.

Don't you learn something every day.

Mind you the coaching development scheme is proving it's worth isn't it!

An Ian Millward anyone?

What, like this in-house development (SL games this season):

Yeaman (18 )
R Horne (17)
Radford (17)
Whiting (10)
Washbrook (7 -serious injury)
G Horne (14)
King (10)
Houghton (15)
Briscoe (8 - serious injury)
Burnett (12)
Lee (16)
Hall (7)

One of our problems is that we've not had enough overseas players compared to the competition as we were silly enough to believe the RFL would actually implement what it said it was going to do in terms of increasing homegrown requirements and reducing overseas quotas. Building a team around our own youth has bitten us in the bum now that virtually everyone counts as fed trained thanks to the latest RFL fudge.

If what you say is true, it does not seem to count for much when the best big physical players meet their counterparts in Test matches.
I recall the threads last year that had 9 out of 10 English posters suggesting Englands forwards were superior to Australia and New Zealands.
It did not appear that way, nor has it for over three decades.

On average the size of most Australian players is larger than their English counterparts massively so in the backs but also in the forwards.

Petero Civoniceva 110kg
Steve Price 107kg
Josh Perry 114 Kg
Anthony Laffranchi 102 Kg
Brent Kite 110kg
Cameron Smith 90Kg



England

Adrian Morley 105 Kg
Jamie Peacock 104 Kg
James Roby 86 Kg
James Graham 106 Kg
Gareth Hock 92 Kg
Jon Wilkin 97 Kg
Sean O'Loughlin 93 Kg
Maurie Fa'asavalu 104 Kg


I don't see bigger players there, not much in it really.
Eorl may be a lump when/if he gets a chance against Oz and the Kiwis but I doubt he will be left in long.
Maybe the Super league players hit harder?

we need shreck in the cockroache team

I don't remember mentioning the England pack, but just to humour you.

Of course the Australians can pick a pack of forwards who are physically as big or bigger than the England forwards. They also have the advantage of being better skilled, better prepared and more mobile than their England counterparts. Add to this the dominance of their halfbacks who steer them around the pitch for the 80 minutes and you begin to understand why we lost the forward battle.

Now, back to what I did say:
In super league the packs tend to be more physical than the NRL packs. We tend to put more emphasis on the head-on confrontations that our forwards will encounter during a game. We look to overpower our opposition in a battle of attrition and brute force as opposed to using more subtle skills like footwork in front of the line.

Take a look at the world club challenge between Leeds & Manly earlier this year where forwards like Anthony Watmough and Glenn Stewart found gaps in the Leeds defence with speed and footwork. The Rhinos defence found it difficult to adjust to the way the Manly Pack was playing the game.

Australian forwards that come over to the super league often find the opposite to be true, the sheer straight on forward confrontations often find them out.

I'm not suggesting that the bigger and more physical is necessarily better nor am I saying that the bigger and more physical is a recipe for winning Test matches in fact the very opposite is true.

Someone like Steve Price or Petero Civoniciva would have no problem in super league they have built their careers on their physicality, their intestinal fortitude is not in question.
Mark O'Meley on the other hand, IMO, is a pseudo-tough man who will get found out in the more head-on physical game that exists in the super league.

But like I said this is just my observation in my opinion only time will really tell

Look what has happened when the Hull board decided to appoint dumb and dumber, who are supposed to be up and coming British coaches.

While in an ideal world it would be nice to be able to field fully homegrown sides, it is a results game and the Aussies are just better at rugby league then us, the root of this problem goes much futher down the levels then to blame it on imports in SL, the sooner people realise this the sooner we might to be able to compete with the Aussies again.

This is just a dumb argument whichever way you come at it, anybody can select particular combinations of players to "prove" one set is bigger than another.

O'Meeley has been out of form for years, and has struggled more since the NRL cut out a lot of the slowing down with 2 refs. SL has always been faster than the NRL (although we've allowed more messing about this season), so it might not be the best move. Having said that, at one point he was a decent forward, so providing he's not being paid big money he might be worth a shot.

Great signing he only needs a knee reconstruction before coming over

Not heard much of him since he was at the Bulldogs. That was a long time ago, when he had players like Sonny Bill Williams, Willie Mason and Steve Price with him

Are you really trying to suggest that 100% of the development of players comes from the coaches?

None at all from playing around top players with international honours? Not even a little?

Think you need to look more into sport development, fella.