ipswich is only a matter of time

interesting links those jb.

jeeze even CQ is a better bid than cronulla

if the qld govt want to build another stadium like robina we should add them asap, its a sure fired success.

if it were up to me id do an ARL @ 1995 and add perth, central coast, ipswich and central queensland

give us a massive boost

Where would you get enough quality players to fill a further four sides without a significant drop in standards. To be honest the greater majority of overseas players in SL struggle to make any perceivable impact in SL let alone the NRL.

1. nrl imports in sl - 90 players
2. nrl imports in ru - 20 players
3. ru players we could sign - 20 players
4. english sl players - 20 players
5. juniors - plenty

4 teams at once would dilute the playing standards a little though, gallop would never do 4 at once, i was just dreaming it would happen

i could live with a small dilution in playing standards for a few years to allow 4 teams in

Of the 90 players in SL only 10 would be good enough to play at the standard required to make a contribution in the NRL. Richards, Puletua, King, Tommy, Monoghan maybe

RU players - will not happen, the forwards are no use in RL and when was the last time a high profile international RU back signed for an NRL club?

England struggle to get 13 players to make an international standard side so where you get 20 capable of making the move to a much higher standard comp I cannot fathom - if there were 1/2 I would be amazed - who out of the SL would you suggest could make it in the NRL.

Juniors - sad state of SOO and the Aussie loss to NZ in the WC and the Quad nations suggests strength in depth is not what it once was. This implies youth development is also not what it was - if the likes of Riddell, Hicks, Orford and Berrigan can get a game in the NRL - then the volume of youngsters of the correct quality simply does not exist.

I think it would be a struggle to fill four more sides without a distinct drop in overall quality on the field

most of our imports in the nrl would fit right back in the nrl. riddell just got a contract with the roosters

they dont have to be super stars just part of a good team

in ru well have the money to sign their best backs like quade cooper, or some all blacks

remember we have many star rl players in union like craig wing and sonny bill williams

we have tonnes of juniors, origin form comes and goes in patches

our national under 20s comp is on tv and sometimes gets more viewers than the s15

every year many players graduate from this to the nrl

Agreed. mason is in East Hull because he couldn't get an NRL gig as he has been pi55 poor for 2 years now.

....I take it you mean players on ESL......
OK Braniac.....of the HKR overseas players, who would you say is up to playing to an NRL standard? Rhys Lovegrove
Ben Fisher
Clint Newton
Ben Galea
Mick Vella
Willie Mason
Michael Dobson
Blake Green
Joel Clinton
Jake Webster

The last Australian to go back to the NRL after SL and do well was Jamie Lyon. Trent Barrett only looks good because he was the only player in either Cronulla or NSW to have a decent game in 2010.......the majority of NRL players in ESL wouldn't make the grade. And as for Piggy......remains to be seen if he's got what it takes.

Newton, Galea, Vella, Mason, Dobson, Clinton and Webster would likely all be still in 1st teams if they had stayed in NRL. Suggest you take a look at the long list of players that have returned to starting positions in the NRL after leaving SL before making stupid comments. FFS if Fitzhenry and Tandy can get starting gigs it shows you are a fool to think at least 30 of those players wouldn't still be 1st teamers.

'in ru well have the money to sign their best backs like quade cooper, or some all blacks'

RL will have the money for players where money is not the number one incentive for those players to consider swapping codes. Cooper is a good example - right now he could (if he was not contracted) earn more money in Europe than any NRL club could pay him even if the most optimistic guess at a new TV contract proves accurate. If he comes to league, it's because he wants to play league not because it will make him richer. Where money is the principal issue for the player, NRL will be hard-pressed to go head-to-head with ARU over players the latter wants to keep. It has no chance in those circumstances against Europe, and probably Japan as well.

OTOH, every year good to very good RU schoolboy / age-group players come over to league for the simple reason that the number of pro and semi-pro RL clubs offering contracts utterly dwarfs the Oz RU equivalent. This is RL's big advantage. The advent of the Melbourne Rebels may peg this back a bit given time, but only a bit...

says a HKA fan......yeah right.
Mason was looked at by a couple of clubs and offered 1 year by the cowboys....given he was average at best last year and that was in a less than average cowboys team, I would suggest that he knew his time was up by 2012 in the NRL so he took the cash on offer.......some of which he must be spending on his around the world tour on route to East Hull........has he arrived yet?

mate you are clueless, as I said it isn't my opinion, its fact backed up by the amount, and quality, of SL players who have gone back and started in NRL teams. Wait till 2013 you will see 20+ ex NRL players returning to bolster the squads of the two new teams.

Mason would be a 1st team NRL player next year if he had stayed, FACT! What would have happened after that is just guess work.

Let's not go down that road JB......it's just starting to get nice and quiet on here




Yep....but he wasn't wanted...he was just all that was available. If they wanted him, he would have got more than a 1 year offer and SFA from any other team.
Mason may well do well in SL.......but in the NRL he was nothing other than average the last 2 years and not the player he was. Same can be said for the majority of the NRL players in SL.....some may come back, but very few come back better players than they went.

I always thought that London players like Dennis Moran, Mark McLinden, Steele Retchless and to a certain extent, Luke Dorn played well enough to get a gig back in the NRL......that was until I had seen a full season of NRL. The game down here is slightly faster and more intense....only slightly, but when you play a game like RL that makes a whole world of difference.

now your changing the argument. There was no mention of coming back and being the star players of the NRL or even better than when they left, only would they come back and get in a starting 17. You say there is only 10 in SL, I can name 11 just in the last two years that have gone back into starting sides.
eg. Orford, Berrigan, Fitzhenry, Tronc, Tandy, Eastwood, Mogg, Hicks, Whatuira, Walker, Riddell, just to name the latest few.

ps Mason was so poor last year he made the CityvCountry team?

there is a thread on LU pretty much the same as this one so its good to see my fellow NRL fans are getting so excited about the game again

its been a long time in between drinks since the last peak of 94 and we are nearly there again

i give the credit to david gallop, hes had one of the toughest jobs in sport and hes trodden through minefields to get to where we are today

11 players over 24 months.....er, OK...that blows the 10 in a season argument out of the water doesn't it.


...but still only got 1 offer of 1 year from 1 club.......ripping it up eh :thumb

:

Hey....it's my opinion that NRL players that go north aren't going to get a gig in most cases when they come back.......and it's my opinion that Mason was nothing other than average in '09 and '10.....just opinions.....not statements of accuracy, rocket surgery or brain science

im not saying this just to to stir you but:

1, mason was very good last year
2. probably 70% - 80% of nrl imports in sl would get a spot back in the nrl, but at much lower wages.

....




Was he f&*k......he was an OK player in a very Average side...he was nowhere near the player he was in 08.......I honestly hope the change of scenery does him good....but let's face it....he is past his prime.


Carlsberg. (ask a UK poster what I mean)

I am not in the mood for a bun fght...as I said, it's just an opinion, but I will add that the MAJORITY of NRL players who go to superleague don't get NRL gigs on their return...that's not an opinion...it's a fact.

wrong

jb is spot on with what he said

err no mention of 10 in a year (changing the argument for the third time I see!

) It was said there was ONLY 10 in SL that would get starting spots back in the NRL i have just proven that in very recent times there has already been more than 10! This proves that there are many ex NRL players in SL who would walk back into the NRL, its not opinion, its a FACT!

Look if you think making a rep side, all be it CityvCountry doesn;t put him in the top half of forwards in the NRL then fair enough, The selectors would disagree with you I am sure. Yes he is way off his 2007 form but that doesn;t make him a bad player, and yes he would still be in the NRL next year if HKR hadn;t offered him more money than any NRL club was willing to do. Therefore he is good enough to be a starting player in the NRL, he just wants to earn more money by playing in SL.

Geez just admit your wrong on both counts ffs!

It was also said that a great many of the 90 would fit right in.......you showed us 11 over 2 years......hardly 90 is it? Fact would be about 50% or more to be many....do 50% of NRL imports return to NRL starting line ups? Didn't think so.


He was offered 1 year by the cowboys and nobody else was interested............hardly a ringing endorsement....but hey, we can agree to differ on his ability now


I am not wrong on the mason issue......my opinion may differ from yours but that doesn't make me wrong. On the NRL-ESL-NRL point...unless you can name the many players...and by many I mean over 50% who walk back into the NRL after time in ESL, I don't believe am wrong there either.....

For gods sake, you don't build a team with all those players, you add a few here or there.

My god you are scrapping the bottom trying to prove a point.

Give up.

There are plenty of players over in the UK and France that will come back when and if we get new teams.

FACT: in the last two years approx 40% of ex NRL players who signed to SL in the previous 3 years have returned to the NRL. Now if you want to describe that as "many" is up to you, it does show that your comment that NRL players who move to SL are not good enough to go back and play NRL is a myth. You think only 10 players out of the entire contingent of overseas players in SL could get a game in the NRL, that is also a myth as is shown by players that have done it and continue to do it year after year. Lets see come 2013 how many return shall we.

re Mason, you seem to be on your own on that one!

My point is that the standard would take a dip if the competition saw a large influx of the players currently running around SL. A high % of these players are barely good enough for SL let alone the NRL. Most are here because SL coaches are too lazy to develop talented young players preferring to play very average NRL players who have been developed by better coaches in Aus.

The whole point of the franchise system in SL was to increase the quantities of GB qualified players by removing the threat of relegation - sadly we now have as many if not more non GB qualified players than we have ever had.

Wigan had a whole backline of overseas players when Noble was there, they still had 5/6 under McGuire!!!
Roberts, Richards, Tommy, Carmont, Phelps, Bailey

The franchising system has only been in use for a handful of years. You won't start seeing benefits for a while yet.