I said decline in quality and increase in competitveness.



What you described above is a levelling out of teams because some of the best ones have declined in quality. Just compare saints line up now to the 2006 one.

Well that's just a decrease in the Saints first team, it usually happens after a very good era for a team and players leave get old or retire. But the increase of Wire,Cats,Wigan and Huddersfield makes up for that compare there line-ups of 2006 to todays!..but saints are still a quality side with a good young core that will improve and keep challenging for silverware.





You didn't answer my question on the time scale this decline in quality has taken place in 15years? 10 years? 5? what?



and what made this time so much better?



Are you saying because there are more young British players in top teams coming through and getting established the league is worse....and would only be better if we starting buying ageing Aussie stars for one last pay day like 10 years ago



RL fans are never happy



rewind 10 years we have too many mercenary Aussies/Kiwis in the league...we need to bring through more English talent



FFWD to today where the SL champions have only 2 foreign players in the starting squad and a whole heap of young talent playing in the league and a more competitive league this means not improvement but just everyone getting worse.

How are you measuring the quality. Athleticism and skill both seem to have increased to me.

I think we will lose a lot of our best players to the NRL & to me that can only be good as if they measure up to the NRL the national squad will become more competative, young British lads will have more oportunity in Super league they in turn will be in the shop window for the NRL thus increasing the quality of players for the international sides, most teams will have to use local lads in thier teams which will create more interest with the fans. The only down side is that we will not have the chance to see some of the best Kiwis & Aussies playing in our game.

Didn't Widdop state within the last 2 years that he'd only play for the Bulls in Super League?

Yeah, but money will always talk the loudest for pro sportsmen

The biggest problem is, Australia have always sent either

(a) Ageing players at the back end of their career to England on longer more lucrative contracts and several of them have cried off and gone home on "compassionate" grounds.

(b) players that can not hold a first grade spot on a permanent basis in the NRL.



Neither are really good options, you can count on less than one hand the "Stars" that have come to England, they have never been top shelf current Test players other than maybe King.



Australia are cherry picking the best that England have in Ellis, Graham, and Burgess, (Tomkins will be next) it will end up with all of the cream moving to the NRL many on game incentive contracts with the rejects thrown back and the successful kept on.



SL will become a second rate feeder competition to the NRL if what is happening now continues.

Then scrap the salary cap in this country.



The RFL should instead set fixed penalties if clubs go into Administration or go bust.



Then just step back and let the clubs get on with it.

NRL Clubs are struggling, even with decent crowds, national or international main sponsors and big support from Licensed leagues Clubs.

The Titans have been treading the tightrope for two years until they restructured.

West Tigers have had to ask for an advance on next years TV money to stay solvent.

Cronulla are touch and go every year, Canberra are not much better, the Storm would battle without special conditions (like London) and Newscorps ownership.



If the NRL struggle as one of the big two Winter Sports with all of the TV revenue and SOO being the most watched product on TV every year......



How do small SL Clubs with small population bases like Cas and Wakey fare? (half of the League in reality)

How many SL Clubs have large City populations to support them or have untapped fans to convert?



Its going to be a tough few years IMO.

I do wish people would get their facts right before going into print.

Wakefield is the fifth largest city in the country, 315,000.

Fair enough part of it includes Cas n Feath.

Subtract their populations you are still left with over 200,000.

Wakefield appears a small club because of 30 odd years of mismanagement.

Looking back to their golden years of the sixties crowds of 15000 to over 20000 were the norm.

Under the new Glover led regime they are increasing crowds significantly and do truly have the potential to return to the top tier.

My apologies for that Jacques, No offence but Wakefield must really punch below their weight.

I thought

London

Birmingham

Leeds

Sheffield

Bradford

Liverpool

Manchester

Leicester

Bristol

Coventry

And half a dozen other places were bigger than Wakey but I guess it all depends on where you draw the boundaries, you have included Castleford which goes against my point of separating the Clubs.



Maybe Wakeys population reflects poorly on their ability to draw a larger crowd and compete at a far higher level than they have in recent times.

I didnt draw up the boundaries and invent the figures.

Look it up on net.

Eg . Population of cities England.

For what its worth the actual urban area of Wakefield is comparable to that of the urban area of Wigan.

Wakefield 77000 Wigan 81000 both rounded to nearest thousand.