Yes they have good teams, Melbourne, Wests, etc.

Yes they have bad teams, as I've already alluded to, Sharks, Titans et al.

But you won't get me to believe out top clubs are on a par with the Aussies, in fact.







You are Nigel Wood, and I claim my £5

.

Indeed, NRL clubs play at an NRL intensity level week in, week out which is higher than pre-season warm-up fixtures including the WCC.


This is correct to a degree, notwithstanding the superior differences in quality, intensity and competition apparent in the NRL in comparison to SL. Good teams and bad teams in the NRL are transient in nature due to the intense competition. Nine different clubs have been NRL champions in the past 14 seasons. 12 different clubs have made the Grand Final in the same period. Of the 4 teams that haven't, they've all qualified for the play-offs at one stage or another. A bad NRL team one season can be a good team and Grand Finalists or Champions a year or two later. Roosters went from wooden spooners in 2009 to Grand Finalists in 2010. Wests Tigers won the comp the first time they qualified for the play-offs. Penrith went from wooden spooners in 2001, 3rd from bottom in 2002 to champions in 2003. Titans finished 3rd in 2009, 4th in 2010 and wooden spooners in 2011.


But only if those fixtures are played in the UK under the current format and at a time corresponding to pre-season warm-up games for NRL teams. Should the WCC be expanded on a home and away basis with an on-season or off-season level playing field format applying equally to both, the results will be an embarrassment for the SL clubs on a scale of 1997 all over again.

The other top clubs would also spend up to the cap, so the real top quality players would be just as evenly split as they are now. Being able to cream off some of the better players from the lower clubs would certainly increase squad depth, but it wouldn't make a significant difference to the quality of the first 17 the top sides are putting out.

So, in the game actually played, the Super League team won but in the games played in your imagination the NRL teams win? It’s really difficult to win an argument when you are arguing against facts with opinions isn’t it

So the rich get richer and the poor please themselves. The less successful clubs already get "cherry picked" and you are advocating creaming off more players.
That may held a faux WCC, but will not help the domestic game.

Quote ="Dwayne Dibley"Regarding Leeds World Club Challenge victory, is 2 SL games really an adequate preparation for such a game? May be Leeds need 10 SL games in preparation to get their defence bob on . After all SL is by far inferior to the NRL, so we keep being told. Unlike a few people on this topic, the Manly coach has no excuses www.therhinos.co.uk/news/18747.php Well Done Leeds '" Its not about excuses it's just more of accepting that the SL clubs have an advantage. I dont see how that can be disputed. As for the difference in quality between the top sides from sl and the nrl I can agree with that but what sets them apart is they can't have days off and still win. In the nrl u need to be up to scratch every week or you come unstuck. The gap between top and bottom is so much smaller and u see less blowouts. I would like to see the wcc expanded but 4 teams maximum or it will be embarrassing.

Quote ="Dwayne Dibley"Regarding Leeds World Club Challenge victory, is 2 SL games really an adequate preparation for such a game? May be Leeds need 10 SL games in preparation to get their defence bob on . After all SL is by far inferior to the NRL, so we keep being told. Unlike a few people on this topic, the Manly coach has no excuses www.therhinos.co.uk/news/18747.php Well Done Leeds '" Its not about excuses it's just more of accepting that the SL clubs have an advantage. I dont see how that can be disputed. As for the difference in quality between the top sides from sl and the nrl I can agree with that but what sets them apart is they can't have days off and still win. In the nrl u need to be up to scratch every week or you come unstuck. The gap between top and bottom is so much smaller and u see less blowouts. I would like to see the wcc expanded but 4 teams maximum or it will be embarrassing.

Er, I think you need to read my post(s) again. I'm advocating no such thing.

Australian Clubs had won the last 3 WCCs including a Manly win over Leeds if it escaped your attention.

That Manly win came when they came over 2 weeks before and played a warm up game. The Manly coaching staff and players made a conscious decision not to do that this time. They considred their preparation would be sufficient to beat Leeds. They were wrong.

Maybe they should have consulted you as you clearly know about how to prepare for a WCC than Geoff Toovey and his team.

Or perhaps they decided that coming over two weeks early and playing a warm up game would have been too disruptive to their preparations for the (more important) NRL season, so they would risk playing the game without a warm up.

In a one off match? there is no question. Would they be able to play with that intensity for a full season? Probably not, but then not even Manly play with full intensity every week.

If they were that good they wouldnt need to pick and choose.

Pick and choose what?

When they were ready to play RL. If the NRL is this competition of ubermensch where games as intense as fridays nights are played every week as some people pretend then two weeks before the season starts Manly would be ready to play and beat whatever lowly SL opposition is put in front of them.

Im interested to know what you actually think Manly will do over the next 2 weeks which is going to raise their performance levels so much that would have been damaging to have done 2 weeks ago, especially when we remember that whatever level of performance Manly hit they will apparently be able to perform to for the next 7 months uninterrupted.

Any team, however good they are, needs game time to be ready for competition. The NRL is more important to any Aussie team, so their preparations will be focused on that rather than the WCC. It's really not difficult.

So the NRL team chooses to enter the WCC unprepared and then, when they lose, their apologists moan that they were unprepared while adding the caveat that if they'd been prepared they would've won easily.

FFS!

You’re of the opinion that quite a few SL teams, four or five you say, could compete in the NRL whereas I don’t think any of those would make the top eight in the NRL.

I suppose it all depends on what you mean by competing, Cronulla compete, but, they’ll never win jack.

So they are going to play one game between now and the start of the NRL and that will be the magical cure all, the silver bullet which takes Manly from the team which was beaten by Leeds to the ubermensch of NRL champions.

Is there a reason they couldnt have played a game last week? Or would being 'ready' now mean they would struggle for the next 7 months?

I think all 4 would be close and we would probably see at least two of those make the 8. Do you really think Newcastle last year were comfortably better than Wire and Wigan were in the regular season?

Hardly a 'magic cure all', but a second pre-season game that will get them nearer to being ready for competition.

There could be any number of reasons why they didn't/couldn't play a game before the WCC.

What they'll do over the next two weeks is arrive back in Australia spending 2 weeks to acclimatise, get over jetlag and prepare a lot better for their opening Round 1 NRL fixture. Such preparation will be more conducive to the raising of their level of performance. This would be not dissimilar to them spending 2 weeks to acclimatise, get over jetlag and preparing a lot better for their WCC fixture against Leeds back in 2009. Such preparation was more conducive to the raising of their level of performance on that occasion. What they won't do is arrive back in Australia from the UK only 6 days prior to their opening NRL Round 1 fixture because that kind of preparation would not be conducive to raising their level of performance to the standard required.

Preparing properly is essential to a champion sides.

But they were in control of that. There wasnt an external reason they couldnt play a game before the WCC. They did choose not to. Thats a failing on their part.

Couldn't agree more. That's why the WCC should always be played in the UK during the NRL off season. It's the ideal preparation and conditions for champion SL sides to win. Well, most of the time.

Im not sure the date came as a surprise to Manly. I see no reason they couldnt have prepared properly.