Better players make the competition better, which gives us a better product for the TV viewer at home, better viewing numbers give better TV contracts.

Tomkins has the raw talent to become one of the best and for a Wiganer I actually enjoy watching him, provided they lose of course.

In the last generation only Harris (in my opinion) has looked as good as him at his age. Hopefully he will, for Englands sake and playing alongside great players will help him enormously.

But what do you you think would happen if Lockyer or Thurstons agents rang Lenegan up and said 'are you interested in them?'.

Are you sure he or the club would say 'no thanks mate, we're cooking one for the future here'. I'm honestly not convinced they would even if the quota and cap allowed.

Rightly or wrongly, I don't think any club would turn down the chance to sign one of the top Aussie half-backs - as long as the clubs come before country then this will always be the case, although Tomkins is one of the few players in SL who would actually have a chance of competing for a spot against such imports.

Too many foreigners full stop.

Just cap it to two.

This is the only way we will compete with the aussies and develop our own talent rather than being more than rugby playing prostitutes !

There are no artificial franchises in ARL? Are you sure about that? Raiders, Colts and Rams fans would probably argue with that, they get shunted at the whim of the owner.
70k may turn up to watch College games too, but that's not the equivelent of Wigan College playing Leeds Carnegie!

It's an entirely different ball game. It just looks a little similar

SL doesn't have the strength in depth of NRL. Adding quality players to the player pool improves the overall standard of competition. It challenges players with more intensity, because lads who would have got into the Wigan team previously will be signed by other SL teams. There are better players spread trhoughout the top sides, so there are less easy games, and the level of competition is higher. If, say, 20% of our players were top class imports (and it's nowhere near that high), the other 80% homegrown talent will be better prepared to play at international level, because the gap in class will be that much smaller, and because any English player capapble of getting into a team will of necessity be of a higher calibre than previously. There's a knock-on effect (no pun intended) that the Championship is made stronger too, and so is Championship 2, so late-developers or players working up through the UK leagues are challenged more, and earlier in ther careers. That's how it helps the English game.

Maybe, just maybe, when the number of overseas players gets so high that English players don't get a chance, there could be a problem, but we're miles away from that, and the argument might be for a ban on imports below SL, while increasing the number of genuinely top class foreigners in the top level of the game. Any club will sign the best available and affordable talent, whether it comes from NRL or Championship 1 or their own Academy - with the last one being the most cost-effective way of building a sports business.