Despite the relatively high standard of the play tonight, did the scorelines just bore everyone else to sleep? Leeds hammering Hull and Wigan demolishing Salford, who look pretty much odds on to struggle for a win this season.

Why is there none of the unpredictability that there is in the NRL?

Because it isn't the NRL?

Well Leeds won't lose a game this season now that the greatest player who ever lived plays for them (and no one ever noticed before).

Same Old Hull always the team shouting from the hill tops but can't compete with the Top Teams


Await's the Ellis injury excuse and the new ball excuse?

We always knew... its everyone else that's just noticed

Salford basically have a load of kids against super league opposition, this year is a write off, we look forward to 2014/15 already.

The game will never ever take off aslong as the same big teams humiliate the not so big teams. It's predictable and boring and with RL being probably the country's 4 or 5th sport people just arnt bothered.

Great to see the new pitch at Leeds is superb, best I`ve seen at a stadium for many a year.

Yeah unlike the country's biggest sport football........remind me how many teams have won the Premiership in the last 20 years. Or how many teams have finished in the top 4 Champions League places in the last 10 years.

You're referring to the same Leeds fans that used to slag him off something rotten whenever things weren't going their way before the last few seasons?!

Always enjoy playing at Headingley-get on top, the south stand cry, and you've got the game won. Best fans in SL

Why are you comparing RL to football? For a start football is a global sport and doesn't need to attract new fans one team in the priemer league attraxt more in one game than the whole round of superleague put together.
RL is tiny compared and need to attract new support same thing different year will not do that.

Sport will always have forgone conclusions like it will always have upsets.

So get better at it , or watch the Championships instead , oh I forgot , we're a reserve league now

Ye the NRL is full of forgone conclusions isn't it.

Hull had a 10 point start tonight.
I imagine you all had a few hundred quid on Leeds to cover the spread? What with it being so predictable and all.

Why are you comparing SL to the NRL? If ENGLISH RL is going to attract new fans then they're going to come....from ENGLAND....and sport fans in ENGLAND are quite use to seeing same teams dominate and it hasn't hampered other sports so i don't see how you can say RL won't be able to attract new fans simply because the same teams are on top.

The NRL is full of high scoring games too. But lets avoid that reality..

It's just the nature of the sport... the best teams win. The kids love having tthe big teams that are 'cool' to support and the other teams that can cause a surprise or come from nowhere.

Anyway, look at Wire for example - underachieved for years much like Hull are now - yet now up at the top. Of course there will always be the big boys, but it's not exactly a closed shop at the top of the SL.

The Wigan team tonight had only 1 player ineligible for the Home Nations (Blake Green) and an average age of 24. Only Richards & O'Loughlin in the side over the age of 27. 11 academy products in there as well.

But of course, we only buy over the hill foreigners you know.

Cool, shame nobody is discussing that though

They are now, look:


Great stuff. If we want a strong England (or GB

), we need more Home Nations players blooded and experienced at SL level, with a spattering of Antipodean talent to complement and lift the standard where they can. If more teams can get home-grown lads up to the required standard we can hopefully move past the days of only really having a genuinely competitive international first-choice 17, and little else beyond that.

I've been saying all pre-season I don't expect miracles from this young Wigan squad, but keep them together for a few years and they'll be winning plenty. Salford, on the other hand, have guts but will struggle for obvious reasons though I think they'll beat a few. For me Nero looked well past SL standard and sharpness.

As for Wigan, I thought Green and Smith did well together and overall Wigan dominated, soaking up lengthy periods of Salford pressure only to go down the other end and score, before eventually running away with it. For a long time all Salford lacked was a bit of discipline in defence, and a couple of missed 1-on-1 tackles. Wigan took their chances ruthlessly.

Well, we have played 2 different teams in the last 5 World Club Challenges over the span of 6 years, so...

The teams are a bit closer in ability in the NRL, but it doesn't have to be by much. League amplifies small advantages much more than most sports - there's less, compared to other sports, a side can do tactically to compensate when it starts to go wrong. You can't 'park the bus' as in soccer or keep kicking for touch like in Union ( if, say, you happen to be OK at lineouts ) You can't even hog possesion by sticking the ball up your jumper - you get your set, then they get a go, regardless.

Leeds - Hull was a classic example of a score line not really giving a 'fair' ( whatever that means ) indication of the gap between the teams.

Not a lot you can do about it, its mostly down to the 'pure', nowhere-to-hide nature of the game that we love, so will always be there, particularly since we no longer have mudbaths ( which were a good 'leveller' )

Do nothing. Don't even think about hindering the best teams still more with daft ideas like lower caps! Won't work.

Superb.

Teams in SL seem to get blown away in the second half after competing for the first half.
Its almost as if they give it their best and when that does not get them on top they give up and get smashed.
Sound familiar?

Hull played well last night defensively. A lesser team would have conceded 60. The reason the score blew out is the same reason Leeds have won so many titles over the last few years. They play for 80 minutes every game and are by far the fittest team in the league. It's a bit like we are with the Aussies. Fitness counts massively.