Really?

Next season we will have two Aussies and three Samoans in our squad. That is in our whole squad. Of the squad minus our leavers from this season, 19 will be home grown. At present our squad will have 31 players (including the one young player I know that has been promoted for 2011). All of them bar the newbie have played at first grade and/or are first choice in their positions, regardless of age. As the media said, Saints are leading the way on playing home grown players for the third year running. It's Saints that the English game can learn from in this respect, not Wigan. Because without clubs bringing through English talent into a first team environment, especially in the backline, there is no hope of England winning on the international scene.

I can't comment on the coach situation because we have just ditched a poor one and are waiting to see what the new one brings. He's keen on skills training though, so that could be something else the English game could learn from Saints. However, that remains to be seen.

Another pious Saints twit who seriously expects the world to believe that Saints are somehow of superior moral quality to everyone else (when the real truth behind his club's lack of overseas signing is because they haven't got the money for it).

Wigan are bringing through plenty of kids as well. So that's the end of that conversation. But the main point of this thread was not about that, and it was not difficult to understand. Wigan have won the Grand Final with a team which, last year, was the ultimate bunch of also-rans. They made very little go a long way through superlative coaching, conditioning, backroom organisation, etc. If it worked for us, perhaps it can work across the game. That's all the guy was really saying. But then, given the bloke you've appointed to oversee that part of your operation, it doesn't surprise me that you've failed to grasp this

Pity you don't get a trophy for that.

So basically you think you are superior and better because you have a massive 2 less overseas players than us



Have you even read the original post?

Its not all about investing in youth.

But the original poster referred to "over the hill Aussies". Ryan Hoffman and Brett Finch are hardly over the hill and Jeff Lima is a Kiwi who is an excellent player in his own right. If you bother to read the original post and the other posts some posters have made, top quality aussies aren't killing our game or holding us back. In fact, Aussies of a high quality actually improve our competition and our own players. They provide tougher competition and can pass on some of their own experience ot the younger players at clubs. Many of our back row forwards have sighted Phil Bailey as having a massive influence on their careers & Wigan now currently have some of (if not the) best back row forwards in the game. Another example is Sam Tomkins who sights Trent Barrett has having a major influence upon his game.

Can't wait to feast my eyes on those two fantastic young St Helens Academy products Shenton and McCarthy-Scarsbrook next season.

Not to Mention Ade Gardner & Jon Wilkin! Cracking St Helens academy products them two...oh...wait a minute...

Oh for god's sake will you lot grow up? You've sucessfully turned a decent thread about England RL into a slanging contest.

It's getting more childish on here by th day.

If you think 'learning from Wigan' means 'appointing a good coach' then yes you're absolutely right, if like Cruncher appears to think it means 'getting yourself into a position where you need to sell your ground and put yourself in hock to Dave Whelan so he can abuse your club' then no

.

Our problem is lack of depth and lack of intensity. Since Bradford's demise I'd say that only players from Saints, Wigan and Leeds regularly play in high intensity matches. Huddersfield and Warrington are now in a position to add to that, but we need more so the players are used to it. Too many players get away with committing stupid penalties or handling errors in games, when in the big matches they can cost you dearly.

I'm also of the opinion that the removal of relegation and the increased quota rules are starting to have an effect and should increase the player pool. The likes of Wakey have taken players that have not quite made it at both our clubs for next year, in the past they'd have signed a few journeyman Aussies, those players getting a chance to progress can only be a good thing.

Well said Sir

Good point - although I think the quota rules need to be more stricter. Too many loopholes alow clubs to have 6 or 7 overseas players (or 10 at Hull KR..) even though the 'quota' only allows 4 or 5, its ridiculous.

Would Wigan have won the league given the same injuries as England? From the 17 I'd pick England are missing one winger (Hall), both centres (Shenton and Pryce), both halves (McGuire and Eastmond), two props (Peacock and Morley) and a hooker (Sinfield). Not to mention the first three choices for captain (Peacock, Morley and Sinfield) Here's how Wigan would probably line up given comparable injuries:

FB Roberts
RW Goulding
RC Pryce
LC Joel
LW Charnley
SO Phelps
SH Sam
P Fielden
H McIllorum
P O'Carroll
SR Hansen
SR Farrell
LF O'Loughlin

S Paleaaesina
S Tuson
S Davies
S Mossop

Reckon we'd have won the final?

In a word, no.

The key thing about the o/p made regarding this point was that if the clubs paid money to coaches and trainers of the standard we have at Wigan instead of over the hill Aussies then that would be the better bet. Most clubs go for the short term fix of imports not of the Barrett or Hoffman standard but a lot lower.



This will never ever work. My son plays RU at Chester and so I know what the clubs are set up like and there is not a hope in hell of the above happening. The RFU does not actually do anything much at all to develop the junior game and the clubs would not allow it anyway. The clubs are autonomous set ups where the mini and junior sections are run by enthusiastic amateurs - i.e. the parents. Some will go on coaching courses and if you are lucky a parent may be an ex player but it's strictly a club centred thing harking back to the "amateur" days of the sport. Until U17 level there is no league - it's all friendlies and even when you get to U17 level it is still the same parents running things - you just chose which of three leagues to compete in depending how good you think your team is. The RFU set the rules such as how many games can be played, what an acceptable level of training is and so on but week in, week out it's as though they simply do not exist. There are also so many RU clubs who all operate like this that the task for the RFU to even organise development in its own game would be huge. They don't do it now so how they would put structures in place to coordinate this in their own sport let alone with RL I have no idea. They rely on the enthusiasm of the parents and the clubs but it is a very hands off approach from the RFU.

It is also fairly typical that the junior and senior club are more or less separate entities. Junior sections bring in a lot of money for RU clubs but are often seen as an inconvenience ruining the pitches!

The professional clubs are nowhere to be seen either. While many people follow Sale it is once in a blue moon anyone comes along and it's certainly true any training help by players has been little more than a cameo appearance every now and again.



Well hopefully what I have written above conveys to you just how impossible this would be. RU really is organised on such lines that if the RFU came along and said to Chester RU and said partner with Chester Gladiators in the way you suggest they would be told to get stuffed in no uncertain terms. Chester Gladiators do train and play at Chester RU so there is a good relationship there but the idea of some sort of merged development would have to be an initiative of both clubs off their own bat. If the RFU tried to impose some kind of joint development scheme it would be laughed out of the club bar.




I agree many people seem to dismiss the importance of the International game to the domestic sport because we are poor. If we were regularly knocking seven bells out of the Aussies the media would soon take more note. As it is we are I am sure looked upon as pretty amateurish in comparison despite at club level a few teams such as Wigan being very well organised (at least as well as a team like Sale for example).

However to get better players ready for the national side the only way we are going to do it is if as the o/p suggests teams ape what Wigan have done IMO. I think some of them are trying to do so. Hull are supposedly in for a tough pre-season but there is more too it than just flogging the players. It needs the scientific side of it sorted as well. I so no reason why the RFL can not insist on minimum standards in the coaching and conditioning side of things and it could itself research the best methods and make recommendations to clubs rather than just hope they will get there in the end by themselves. Instead they would rather come up with stuff like Millennium Magic which does nothing to improve the game but they insist it s some sort of great success despite low crowds.

Dave

I think the RFL would be able to demand that people who want to take conditioning jobs are qualified to a certain level. They could run courses to educate conditioners and make them mandatory (they may already do this of course). There are certainly coaching qualifications in place which are required to progress as a coach in sports like football and i assume RL is no different.

I doubt it. The media have their own favoured sports, and international success or failure in those sports doesn't seem to alter the amount of coverage much, if at all.

I didn't realise that the RU amatuer set up was so poor tbh, I was always under the impression that it was well run and well funded via the RFU. I agree on that situation alone it is nigh on impossible.

I mis-understood the OP, I thought he was suggesting that all clubs are trained in a set way by the RFL - which IMO will never work simply because it is difficult to police.

Re Millenium Magic, I'm 50/50 with you on that TBH, Murrayfield I think we all can agree was disastrous (the reason I'm 50/50), poor marketing and advertising ruined what should of been a superb spectacle. Cardiff is different though as the people in Cardiff seem to embrace RL well, I've been there a few times for a weekend p!ss-up and walked round in my Wigan top during the day and spoke to several people who do really enjoy RL and RU.

I do however agree with the point that they should press on with improving grass-roots first and the quality of players we bring through rather than a PR stunt.

They do have their favoured sports, but those favoured sports have been successful for England thus making them a 'favoured' sport.

I did read the original post and I'm not talking specifically of over the hill Aussies. I disagree that top quality Aussies aren't killing our game. They are IMO and they are because of where they are playing: in the very spots we need English talent to develop. I used Wigan as an example because of the question posed in the thread. I do not think the English can learn from Wigan because Wigan will field three foreign players in crucial backline positions and it is in our backline that England is weakest. The English game needs the successful clubs - and yes, I do include Saints in that - to bring through their talented backline players. Since some Wigan fans on here were harping on recently about the back to back to back u20s Grand Final wins, surely you guys could have come up with a halfback from internal recruitment instead of going abroad, thus providing the English game with another potential halfback to take it to the Aussies?

How do you figure that? We all have the same cap to spend. I don't know for certain whether the cap is ringfenced for players but if it is then we are as rich as you are in terms of funds available to spend on players. If it isn't then it is perfectly possible that one reason we have opted to develop a group of talented young players is that we are redirecting some of the cap towards our new sparkly stadium, which I think is a good move. But aside from that, the chairman is a local lad and a Saints supporter and he is full of enthusiasm for developing local talent. Either way, and indeed if there is some other unknown mysterious reason for us leading the way for the last three years in playing local lads in our team, at least we are doing it and are therefore contributing to the English player pool and thus the international player pool. I think that's a good thing, regardless.

Long time since 1966...

The England Union team hasn't been dramatically more successful internationally - they were getting massively more coverage well before the 2003 world cup, which is the only time they've ever won it (against our 3 wins). Same with cricket - until recently England have been well down the international "pecking order", but again they've always had much more press coverage.

There was hardly any national press coverage of our win in 1972 - compare that to the hysteria following the Union 2003 win. For example, do you seriously imagine we'd get the BBC "team of the year" in the unlikely event that we won the 2013 world cup?

Well, we did provide Tomkins, Brown & Robinson...some from other clubs might be a help.

Indeed, that goes without saying. But surely that doesn't stop Wigan from continuing to provide players? Saints provided two, and a third if you count Lunt, who was in Saints academy. I hope that won't stop Saints from developing further local talent who may (or may not, obviously!) be England players of the future.

Probably not TBH.

Football is arguably the world's favoured sport and therefore it is impossible to reach as high as football is.

So were left trying to catch up with Cricket and RU. The common denominator in those is a all-round strong international set-up. I reckon if you looked at domestic crowds at cricket and RU they're similar/less than the SL crowd's.

The only reason anyone takes any notice of RU/Cricket is because of the international strength. Quality of opponents, quality of the England team and ability to compete. RL has quality opponents in Australia and New Zealand. However for the latter, you'll struggle to come up with anything being perfectly honest.

That's why these sports are more noticed than RL.

Personally I don't buy into this boll*cks that RL is 'victimised' that it is ignored etc. RL is a victim of it's own self-destruction, it is ignored because the international scene is predictable - a Australia and New Zealand final. Even if it isn't and England get there, everyone knows/expects the Aussies/Kiwi's to win. To put it frankly international RL is a farce.

If you were the editor of for arguments sake The Mirror, and you weren't particularly a RL fan, would you take RL seriously given the international scene?

The international strength of Cricket and RU has very little to do with it. Cricket doesnt even have that strong an international setup and RU is no where as strong as it likes to make out. RU and Cricket are where they are because they are establishment sports, this is far and away the biggest common denominator between the two.

I also dont buy into the quality of the international team and ability to compete having an effect. In times when England were woeful at Cricket and RU these sports still got plenty of newspaper and television coverage. In Rugby League when England/GB have been successful it has never resulted in anymore publicity.

In Cricket the domestic game is watched by the proverbial one man and his dog and County games can sometimes be measured in tens never mind hundreds. Up until recently RU lagged way behind RL domestically crowds wise, as it still does for TV ratings, but it still got and still gets much more coverage. Despite this RU and Cricket gets far more money and coverage than it deserves for their domestic games. This isnt just because of an international dimension, which are seperate TV rights anyway, for a few extra weeks a year.