Now is a dark moment for English rugby league. The three English Super League contenders in contests with Australian NRL teams lost in their matches Down Under. Their was not a glimmer of inspiration from the SL players other than Hull FC's Australian talisman Albert Kelly, who kept Hull FC in the closest game, but losing against St. George-Illawarra 24-18. A full strength Wigan was defeated decisively by a below strength South Sydney 18-8 and Leeds was comprehensively trounced by Melbourne Storm 38-4.

This proves that Super League as now constituted is below the standard of the NRL. Most of the world class English talent is playing in the NRL. The only way to change this situation is to find more player talent pools for Super League. That task cannot be realised in England, where the talent pools are exhausted. It requires new talent pools from France and north America to make Super League more competitive. That is one of many reasons why SL expansion into France and north America is now urgent and imperative.

=#FF0000So, was it the other way round last year?



I think our 3 SL teams have done us proud tbh.

And your beloved Catalans are slumming it at the bottom of SL, with your French superstars.

This speaks volumes about the French talent pool.

To be honest. Your being harsh on Leeds and Hull. Who were both injury hit. But provided good solid performances. Not saying they'd have won if full strength, But your not taking this into account.

Anyway isn't this the 3 out of 4 years we've lost all the games, and some of them far worse than this time.
The only difference between this and the other 2 times we lost all 3, this time were away.

Humiliating, like Catalans humiliating.

Isnt that bad Dev

Toulouse are battering Sheffield,so expect the fake Jean to be back with something from that.

Still waiting for his observations from the Catalan game.

great idea,lets fill our teams with more players who cant play for england,and pump even more of the sky money into foreign bank accounts.

Foreign teams will bring their own money, like Toronto is doing and New York will do.

Is it a coincidence that your quiz score also matches your IQ Jean

I'm still shocked they have internet in Chorley!

Ladies and Gentlemen......I give you Barry McEnzie!

At least learn to spell people's names correctly before you make wild assertions.

At least follow your own advice before trying to belittle people

Pedantry is a sure fire sign that you have little left to add (if in fact ou had anything in the first place)

I was at the game last night and was surprised by how little Wigan offered in attack against a Souths team without most of their superstars. Wigan’s defence was pretty good, but outside of that they were a shadow of Wigan teams of old.

What I noticed of all three games at the weekend was that English teams still suffer from the old curse of not being able to maintain intensity for the full 80 mins. They always go to sleep mentally for 10-15 mins a game and that’s where Aussie teams steamroller over them. As someone who watches NRL games week in week out, until SL teams sort the mental issues out they will never compete at the same level.

Agreed in principle but do we need to seperate the needs of the Super League with the needs of the national team.
This has happened in football, the Premier League is a successful business operation and watched all over the world but the top clubs have few English players.

The three teams competing in this competition have quite a few foreign players anyway, maybe if we raised the salary cap we could bring in better imports but keep the ratio the same.

I agree with this, I think it breeds from the lack of intensity in most Super League matches due to errors and penalties. Also, the time taken at every scrum and goal line drop out. It was very noticeable in the Warrington game the other night that it took 3-4 minutes for them to take the drop outs.

Until we see 3 or 4 high intensity matches per week in the Super League, we aren't going to see Super League teams competing with the NRL teams when they are taking it seriously.

There was nu humiliation. Melbourne do that to NRL teams on a regular and the other two games were trial matches.

It's not some kind of shock that the NRL is superior to super league. Jesus man, we have all known this for years.

I agree with the posts about intensity. Super league teams just dont get enough intense games.

Wally Lewis said he feels Leeds would finish 7th or 8th in the NRL. The top teams in super league would hold their own no doubt. It's just getting up to that intensity which they don't get regular enough in super league.

McDermott was right with this quote

"I'd like to say that, given 10 games like that, by game eight or nine or game 10, I reckon we'd be up to that level," he told the post-match press conference.

"So we'll learn some massive lessons from that. But unfortunately it will be another couple of games before we're in a game as intense as that and in one played at that level."

He may be right, indeed he knows better than I do.
However, there's nothing to prevent him sending Leeds out with instructions to try to perform at a higher level than they generally do. As a fan, I've obviously long-admired our intensity and focus when the business end of he season roll around. What I've seen less of - a lot less of - is that kind of ruthlessness during the regular season. As I see it, it's up to the likes of ourselves, Hull, Wigan etc to raise that bar at home. As Melbourne have just shown, it can be done regardless of what the opposition bring to the party. The alternative is to carry on playing the aussies once a year then bleating about their comp being more intense when we lose.

Quote ="Fax Missionary"I was at the game last night and was surprised by how little Wigan offered in attack against a Souths team without most of their superstars. Wigan’s defence was pretty good, but outside of that they were a shadow of Wigan teams of old. What I noticed of all three games at the weekend was that English teams still suffer from the old curse of not being able to maintain intensity for the full 80 mins. They always go to sleep mentally for 10-15 mins a game and that’s where Aussie teams steamroller over them. As someone who watches NRL games week in week out, until SL teams sort the mental issues out they will never compete at the same level.'" Can't really take much from that 'friendly' game. Just to put it into perspective, Wigan had 26 players on the pitch over the 80 mins, Souths had 20 players. Defence went okay but I think Wigan had one eye on Friday's game against Warrington, especially in that 2nd half. EDIT - www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2018- ... ch-defence Quote “The main priority of coming here (as a team) was to get two points and we did that by beating Hull. When that was finished we move on to this game but we’ve got a big game against Warrington on Friday to try and get two points and we were keen to look after our starting team for that so we put a lot of kids out in that second half. It was a fantastic experience for them but we’re still disappointed we didn’t get the win.”'" Also regards your last comment: Quote ="Fax Missionary"As someone who watches NRL games week in week out, until SL teams sort the mental issues out they will never compete at the same level.'" It isnt just the 'mental issues' as you claim, I think the $9.4 million against £1.9 million salary caps has a little something to do with it as well.

Quote ="Fax Missionary"I was at the game last night and was surprised by how little Wigan offered in attack against a Souths team without most of their superstars. Wigan’s defence was pretty good, but outside of that they were a shadow of Wigan teams of old. What I noticed of all three games at the weekend was that English teams still suffer from the old curse of not being able to maintain intensity for the full 80 mins. They always go to sleep mentally for 10-15 mins a game and that’s where Aussie teams steamroller over them. As someone who watches NRL games week in week out, until SL teams sort the mental issues out they will never compete at the same level.'" Can't really take much from that 'friendly' game. Just to put it into perspective, Wigan had 26 players on the pitch over the 80 mins, Souths had 20 players. Defence went okay but I think Wigan had one eye on Friday's game against Warrington, especially in that 2nd half. EDIT - www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2018- ... ch-defence Quote “The main priority of coming here (as a team) was to get two points and we did that by beating Hull. When that was finished we move on to this game but we’ve got a big game against Warrington on Friday to try and get two points and we were keen to look after our starting team for that so we put a lot of kids out in that second half. It was a fantastic experience for them but we’re still disappointed we didn’t get the win.”'" Also regards your last comment: Quote ="Fax Missionary"As someone who watches NRL games week in week out, until SL teams sort the mental issues out they will never compete at the same level.'" It isnt just the 'mental issues' as you claim, I think the $9.4 million against £1.9 million salary caps has a little something to do with it as well.

I watched the Hull game and half of the Wigan game and tbh it looked like the NRL teams were treating it as a friendly and it was a chance to see some of their fringe players play. I wouldn't read too much into the SL sides performances. The only positives out of it for an SL supporter was that the commentary was 100 times better than what we hear week in week out.

Stop the clock for injuries and disciplinary only. There are far too many rests in the game.

Same could be said for Hull and Wigan. Neither played their strongest team for the full 80 minutes.