Everyone talks about the 'big four' days but lets be honest it's always been Saints/Bradford, who have now been replaced by Leeds and Wigan popping up in the early SL era to win the odd trophy.

And without relegation [uall excuses[/u have been taken away.

SL isn't poor this season because of the salary cap, or the restrictions placed on whatever. It's poor because Wigan couldn't run a up in a brewery, Bradford - because of terminal mismanagement - are hiring clowns like Sherriffe who wouldn't get anywhere near their reserves four years ago, Warrington showed lunatic loyalty to a coach who everybody apart from them (I hope) knew wasn't up to it ... and then gave the reigns to Cullen Mk. II, Hull (who have [isome[/i excuse for tragic luck with injuries) have done their best to emulate Warrington etc. etc.

What if you hire crap British coaches and DO invest in youth? What do you deserve?

And are their any GOOD British coaches?!

Which is basically the point I'm getting at.

Some people have tried accusing me of saying that it's due to the salary cap and the big clubs should be allowed to spend more money and buy the best players, which is not what I'm saying at all. There are some quality players at the 4/5 clubs I mentioned that are doing poor now and I think they all spend to the full SC. It's because they are run by muppets. You could sign the best players in the world, but if you coaching set-up is cr*p then they will play crap.

The pool of players at the bottom clubs have gotten better. The pool of quality players has dropped. The first thing is good, the second thing is not, and it's NOT to do with the SC IMO, rather the lack of quality coaching set-ups. We are so far behind the Aussies in this area it is unreal, and I don't think this situation will ever change until this is addressed.

WAY too much is emphasised on physiological aspects of development. We have squads filled with super athletes. We're good in this area.
What about technical aspects? Are we teaching our athletes the skills they need to go with the bodies?
What about tactical aspects? Are they being taught as a team well enough? Some clubs have brilliant tactics. Some don't seem to have any! How do coaches with no tactical sense get a job in the elite of the sport?! Baffles me!
And what about psychological aspects? How little emphasis is put on this in our game? Teams just stop performing some times. Why? Are our players mentally tough enough? Can this be changed? Are they trying to change it?

Salary cap has nothing to do with this. MAJOR money needs to be put into coaching development as well as player development if we are to improve in this country and make a better competition. Coaches make players. Players shouldn't make coaches.

Bunch of whingeing moaning SL fans

Whats the saying " Be careful what you wish for , you just might get it "

That's actually a really fair post even though I disagree with your overall argument.
One other thing I think to describe Englands poor performance may be that Australia are improving at a much faster rate than we are.

Exactly, If you believed the 2 resident clowns on cherry&whine, BrettKenny and Deano G, Its all the salary caps fault that wigan are so pathetically crap. I mean, wigan have spent more on transfer fees in the last 3 years than the rest of SL combined in the last 10 and they are still awful lol

the quality coaching needs to begin when players are 12, not 20!

a 1st grade coach shouldn't need to be teaching players how to pass and defend.

Yes but dont forget over here we are more bothered about winning and knocking the oppositions heads off at 12 than actually learning all the players all the skills

I'd be intrigued to know what you disagree with for arguments sake?

As for the WC performance, there are a lot of reasons why we did rubbish. As a national team, I don't think England/GB have improved at all in the time I've been watching them (which is only a decade to be fair). In my experience on my sports course at uni, if there's one thing I've had constantly reiterated to me it's that the Aussies are so far in front of us in pretty much every sports department there is it's scarey. There are things we are doing now that they were doing 5-10 years ago. It's gonna take a hell of a lot of money to be able to set up decent systems to catch them up which is something we don't have at the moment. And not only is it going to take money to impliment these set-ups, it's going to take time and money to actually find out WHERE to impliment it, which is something we just don't look like we know how to do.

Failure is its own reward.



There a lots of poor ones and a handful of average ones.

They don't!

Its that obvious

Think the true focus of your disappointment should be directed at the lack of balls by our Head Honchos!! Sky tell them they want to see a 'faster game and to tell the refs to let the game flow'....so instead of Headquarters telling them that the game has its basic rules, and if the rules are infringed then a penalty is due. If this has been upheld right through, then after a few games of over plenty of stoppages due to the refs actually obeying the rules of our game, the coaches would have adjusted their training to improve the speed and freeflowing action,without the cheating of 'bending' the same rules. I am, I admit an old grannyfan, but thankful that I have spent most of my life seeing the game played by teams sticking to the rules. If I wanted to see wrestling, I'd watch their games, and remember the fun of Big Daddy et al, which was great as it was all done as ENTERTAINMENT. And no matter how many times Stevo brings his MOMENTUM rule into conversation, as far as I'm concerned they are not covered by blatent forward passes. This, in my opinion, is why Saints are the great champions that they are, watch their games when you have the chance if they are on TV, and so many of their trys come from well passed BACKWARD flowing moves that flash them out along the lines to their flanks and usually onward to the try line.
Come on refs, play the game you should have been taught as a boy, and not the waffle that you are now instructed to, penalise infringements from wherever they come, as often as they occur. I know, just pretend that all teams are Hull FC....then you would get all the forward passes, all the lying on, grapple tacklesd......and eventually all teams then would play to the proper rules and not Sky's own rules. .....grannyfan Cindy

Sorry mate but I think you`ve got that back to front. It isn`t a question of how good the international player`s own team is, or whether he `looks good`, but how good the opposition is, and without doubt the strongest individual sides were during the `big four` days. The intensity and level of competition needed by the best players if they are to improve was far greater in the matches between the `big four` than it is now. Leeds/Saints the obvious exception.

International games aren`t played by average players plus the odd `star` but by all star teams and more importantly are played [iagainst[/i all star teams. It`s far more difficult to replicate those conditions when the league has been diluted in quality since it allows star players to coast through matches against lower standard players. SL is very competitive and all the better for it but , for mine, we`re doing nothing for England`s chances.

Calamity , now the mighty Saints and Leeds Rhino's are slipping in standards as well

A Salford , Quins GF anyone

Spot on. That's why some people now call the salary cap the communist cap. We are heading for the same kind of eastern european style stagnation.

The quality of RL in this country is poor at the moment. Only Saints and Leeds are anything more than mediocre and the majority of teams in SL are playing lower quality RL than 10 years ago.

Yet another well reasoned argument from a pro-SC supporter.



Happy to have a debate with you and any other SC supporters on the issues, though in my experience the vast majority of people in favour of the SC tend tesort to personal abuse, urban myths and constant references to Wigan's failings (which says much more about your obsession with Wigan than it does about whether or not the SC is working).

As opposed to you resorting to "We aren't winning everything every year" dummy spits?

When have I done that?

Dude, just stfu. Its clear to anyone who reads cherry&whine that your agenda with the salary cap is that wigan cant go and sign all the best players anymore. You and brettkenny are the same. Its all you go on about.

Saints and Leeds are the best 2 teams in this competetion. So if they can do it under the constraits of the cap, why cant your pi$$ poor excuse of a club do it, with the resources they have?

You could argue that only Leeds have been successful at winning trophies and staying under the cap, as IIRC they haven't exceeded the cap yet, whereas Saints have breached it 3 or 4 times at least. Although they were not deducted points on every occasional, they did exceed it.

WIgan exceeded it by more in one season than the rest of the SL breaches in history and were still nearly relegated

Crusaders instead of Quin's!!!

Again, another post betraying the anti-Wigan nature of a lot of pro-SC supporters. You really couldn't make it up.

You clearly know nothing about the Wigan of today. Anyone that knows anything about our owner would know that he would never even attempt to "go and sign all the best players anymore". (Thanks for the first example of a pro-SC urban myth, by the way. At no point did Wigan sign "all the best players". Again, you couldn't make it up.)

Can you post a link to the figures to back up your claim ?