Can’t believe a Rovers victory is the only game you haven’t enjoyed this season. Who’d have thought?

Salary Cap a quarter of century out of date... NRL SC much higher, Aviva Prem and especially French RU SCs are much higher... Therefore the quality are going to NRL and sometimes to Union.

Fifteen years ago I think we only had Adrian Morley over in the NRL. All our other stars were in SL.

That’s like leaving Sam Burgess down in Aus but Saints having Graham, Hudds having George Burgess, Wire having Tom, Wigan having Hodgson, Hull having Whitehead, Leeds with Widdop and Charnley Solomona and whoever else has gone to Union staying put... all in SL.

Reduce the quality pool of players and you reduce the quality of games.

What also doesn’t help is the NRL becoming a much more robotic, one-out hit-up game and SL trying to copy it. With worse players playing a more boring style the quality of games is even further reduced.

SL needs to operate at what Leeds Saints Hull Wire Toronto Catalans and Wigan can afford to operate at and hopefully the money will trickle down the clubs. Keep our players, sod the NRL, sod Union, sod robotic one-out rugby and play some expansive rugby with superstars of the game.

In terms of spectacle and on pitch skill, rugby league has been overtaken by rugby union.

Regards

King James

I saw a bit of one of the Union internationals last week and it was embarrassingly poor. You are talking tripe.

I think the quality has dropped in the last couple of years, more down to ever decreasing standards of imports than Brits in the NRL (the Burgii and Graham have been there for years anyway). However, comparisons to 95 have to include what passed for defence back then, particularly once fatigue set in. Almost a completely different sport.

Where I think SL falls down particularly is error rates being way too high. Nothing kills continuity in a game quicker than a dropped ball. SL just doesn't punish teams and individuals enough for these basic errors, which we also suffer from at international level.

Funny how these threads are usuall started by fans of teams who are not doing as well as their egotistic fans expect. Such has been their boasting through the years they can't bare it when teir teams form blips. So rather than man up they try and spin a negative on the game to cover their loss of kudos - oldest trick in the book.

Last season Hull, Cas, Wakefield and even Salford for a while played some great RL all season - not there fault if others didn't. People couldn't ecept a bit of a power shift though luckily for there own sanity Saints and Leeds made a late push to 'normalize' the season a little.

Up until that point it was Saints fans in particular deriding the game, funny how they an't doing it now.

This season has startrd off like every season I can ever remember. Tight edgy stop start games with the better reams grinding out results untill they find their true form.

So nothing to see here other than a sad and bitter moaner.

Give what a rest the ability to think? Ah SL is great because Wakey are now competing. Maybe just maybe thats a lagging indicator and says more about game than is obvious.

You trott this line out every time this debate comes up, that the fans of big clubs are just nervous or jealous of the smaller clubs, and its garbage. Do you genuinely think that the standard of the league is improving? Do you honestly feel that the game is attracting the same quality of talent? Do you honestly think that the performances of Wakefield and Salford are due to them growing to reach the standards of Leeds and Wigan, rather than using the salary cap to stifle their growth? There are good reasons why clubs like yours have voted to give our players real-terms pay cuts, and it isn't to raise your standards to that of the top clubs.

If you want stats to quantify it, take a look at the RFL website. Last season saw the highest number of errors per game since the RFL started publishing the data in 2004. So as a spectator, I'm paying to watch more error-prone players than I ever have been. That's not a sign of standards improving.

Broncos where i've been a ST holder for 20 years are flying.

The best games I have watched this year was fax v Toronto , the bulls v York game via live stream or the fev lions challenge cup match on bbc. The sl games have been poor so far this year

His team are top of the Championship

Games at the start of a new season have historically been arm wrestles due to the cold, wet conditions. Many new players will still be finding their feet or working up to match fitness, and teams with new signings are still trying to gel in competitive games after a preseason run of meaningless friendlies.

I don't see any reason to panic.

Whilst some teams were putting on some champagne stuff which was a joy to watch, I think on the whole the basic skills have gotten worse and the error count is higher. I can't prove any of that of course but it seems more stop start these days which is leaving me feeling a little bored when watching over the last 3-4 years.

I think this is somewhat linked to the decline of the amateur game, the messing around with summer / winter leagues has meant there are less teams and less players playing, meaning theres a smaller player pool going from juniors to open age. Thus there is no defined player path to pro level.

I myself have left playing league (i do play some summer games) and now play union, the set up in union is much more professional, leagues are defined way in advance, support form the RFU is clear. The RFL need to really sit down and consider the game as a whole, get the junior, amateur game in order either in winter or summer, set this in stone and increase player participation, then the player pool will be larger, better players can be picked up by pro clubs and eventually this will work up to pro level.

I don't doubt that's part of the problem - but a much deeper issue is the parlous state of the grassroots game; junior clubs are run on the goodwill of enthusiastic amateurs, so attracting players and training them properly is a matter of luck and happenstance - and most of them compete in a stupid league structure that eschews player development for a win at all costs mentality that favours competitive dads, but leaves behind small lads, late developers and those with subtle skills that are less useful in an amateur setting, where bash and barge by the freakishly big lads wins the day. Add to that the toxic atmosphere at many junior games, and you have a recipe for a diminished player pool of academy ready young players - with the ones who do make it through often needing to be deprogrammed of all their bad habits and retrained in the basic skills of the modern game.

And that's before we even get to the way the sport has been hijacked by the boring, unedifying tactics of some Aussie coaches - such that we're now in an arms race; the only way to disarm is unilateral, because if one team decides to play fairly and avoid wrestling, slowing down the ruck, begging for penalties and all the other horrid things we can thank Messrs Maguire and Brown for, they'll get battered by the ones who do.

So I'd say that yes, RL is losing its sparkle; it's fixable, but it requires some visionary and transformative leadership at the RFL - which I don't see Ralph Rimmer having either the desire or the ability to deliver.

Most sensible post I have read on here for a long time, Just about hits the problem square on. Just add one fact that everyone seems to miss the dramatic drop in the numbers of kids that are of the age to play. that's down to mine & my kids generation not breeding fast/often enough.

Because it's the truth so it never needs to change - I stopped reading your drivel after that.

Except it isn't the truth in the slightest. Keep delluding yourself about it, but no Leeds or Wigan fan is nervous about nor jealous of Wakefield.

We have smaller crowds, less amateur talent, less money in the game, less interest from sponsors and broadcasters and we're imposing pay cuts on our players. By any definition, that a race to the bottom and the smaller clubs have been engaging in it for the best part of 20 years - and dragging the top clubs into it is the only way they can keep up with them.

Apart from football, most sports are going through similar difficulties, particularly with regard to attracting more youngsters.
Do we need to work harder on the image of the sport, who's only press seems to be players getting arrested or failing drug tests.
SL has for a while been happy to take some of the "bad boys" of the Aussie game and perhaps we should be trying to clean up our act ?
Also, maybe we should be more selective about who gets in front of the camera/ talks to the press & TV.
Everything in the modern world is style over substance and when you look at some of the stuff that has been made popular, it's all about hype.

No it's you who've chosen to interpret it that way - I've never said any such thing. The real problem you have and those similar to yourself is that you just don't like people disagreeing with you - it's that simple, you're like spoilt children.

Society is a VERY different place to what it was 20 years ago when Summer rugby was in its infancy. When there are pranksters on YouTube with more followers than the population of the UK, it's kind of telling what youngsters are more interested in these days. Sport must be so far down the list of the social media generation's interests, I'd be surprised if it even registers.

Can I interest you in a mirror?

I absolutely agree with that. But where I think I'm at odds with some is that I think it is up to each and every club to make an equal contribution to that solution, rather than looking to the RFL to do it, or expecting bigger clubs to run at the pace of the slowest man.

The clubs should be investing in media training, they should be engaging with their communities and community clubs in their area better and they should be thinking much more carefully about whether a player who sticks his appendage into a dog's mouth is the sort of player who should be representing them.

The launch of Super League was all about the word you used - hype. It was about the event, the experience and something that people couldn't get elsewhere. But since then, we've stood still. We haven't progressed, we haven't developed that experience and we haven't tried anything new, because it has been cheaper not to and because it was easier to just let the RFL be the lighting rod. As a result, other sports have overtaken us.

That's the 'race to the bottom' that I talk about, and it's disapointing that some people want to take that observation and see it as an attack on their club. In truth, it's a commentary on any club that has failed to move on from the mid-late 90s, because that's ultimately why the sport is still struggling.

Whilst the clubs do hold individual responsibility, I dont agree with the race to the bottom and blaming the smaller clubs.
The round ball game seems to cope well enough with having unfashionable clubs in the top flight
When you compare Man U at the top averaging 75000 to Bournemouth 11182 or Burnley 20558
and in RL Leeds with 14418, with Salford 3842 and Widnes 5592 and yet, nobody calls out the smaller Football clubs for "holding the sport back" or a "race to the bottom".
In Football, they embrace the diversity of clubs with their different grounds and history.
Of course, they dont have the salary cap and this is probably where the biggest gripe is from supporters of Wigan and Leeds etc

As I said in a previous post, when you look at some of the crap that people become interested in, it boils down to clever publicity and marketing.
If we doubled the salary cap overnight and jettisoned the clubs with lower attendances, do you really think it would change ANYONE'S perception of the game, would it hell.
Time to stop looking for excuses and focus on the positives of the sport, a game played by the toughest athletes on the planet, a hard fought contact sport, with strength, skill, fitness etc, etc

Dont moan about what we haven't got, promote what we have, it's that simple and stop looking for gimmicks, which rarely last, and have a short, medium and long term plan for the game with some focus on lifting participation numbers at the bottom end 6,7,8 year olds.

Getting rid of the shoulder charge has had a huge negative impact on the game too.

Late, high and from behind shoulder charges were already banned which was correct. However, fair, firm and spectacular to watch shoulder charges should never have been banned. When you think, a player running with the ball can shoulder charge defenders at will but defenders cannot shoulder charge an attacker - that’s just stupid!

It’s taken a lot of excitement of big hits out of the game and is sorely missing!