Fantastic post.



Rugby union has overtaken rugby league by such a long way, its getting embarassing now. Even neutrals prefer to watch rugby union, intsead of "5 drives and a kick".



As for the athletes part. Spot on. There are NO athletes in english rugby league, even the backs are podgy beer swillers. Compare them to some of the english union backs, who are like antipodeans and its just embarassing. In fact, we could bang the aussie backline into the pack and they would make mincemeat out of our forwards. I would even say they would win the collision 9 times out of 10.



Where have the english monster props gone? Even our fearless leader Peacock is a chicken legged streak of pi$$. Graham, for all his endeavour is just a workhorse. Hes never going to break an aussie tackle. Oh for a McDermott, Skeret or Kevin Ward.



Jonh, you work in conditioning. Why cant we produce athletes like the aussies can? Is it something to do with genetic makeup? Are antipodeans different than caucasion? I honestly dont know. I mean it like in the sense that, and I dont want to sound racist, black people are made for sprinting, because of their body make up, short bones etc, giving more explosive power. Is this applicable to antipodeans too? Or are antipodeans just the same as caucasions. There must be a reason why.

I live in Reading and have gone to watch London Irish a couple of times. It is, on the whole, a dreadful standard.







Give over. Wardy is a legend but the likes of Peacock, Graham and Burgess are as good if not better than the likes of McDermott and Skerrett. How many Aussie tackles did they ever break?!

I am not involved in conditioning anymore but one of the reasons i got out was due to the frustration of the youth systems, which is again compounded by one of the biggest oldboys clubs going about.



We have the same genetic material as the Aussies, i personally believe genetics between Nations 99% of the time has nothing to do with it, it is our developmental systems that is letting us down.



If a lad is 15 years old 6'2'' he in this country by our mentality is a secondrow or a Prop, end of story (slighty simplistic but pretty much sums up the point).



We do not suit a player to his positioin on skill and development potential he is suited into a position by body type from the age of 6 up when they first lace a pair of boots.



Our methods of talent id and more importantly assessing athletic potential are non existant, we select players to come into the pro system on how good they are at rugby at the age of 13-16, i tried to implement scouting of athletes playing the game, skills can be taught athletic potential cannot, do not just look at the best players look beyond this some of the best players at jr level you can tell will never make it as they lack the development potential but they are bigger than there peers at that age and so are effective, these are usually the lads picked up by the clubs while the lad who may not have the best skills as a 13 year old but can run a 13 second 100m and has verticle jump of 70 cm is overlooked because it will take so much more effort to produce the end product.



Basically we will continue to look for the best players and continue to ignore them as an end product, while the Aussies look at the jr and there end product potential hence they pick up the likes of Inglis and Falou from under the noses of the Aussie Rules clubs they were playing for as jr's and the Idris from the athletics world as a top potential javelin thrower.



It is something i am very passionate about and it frustrates me no end that most clubs both amateur and pro are happy to typecast a player in a position from the age of 7, personally i would advocate holistic coaching of all skills to the age of 16 at the least but the lethargy of those controlling this process sadly means it will never happen.



Regards the conditioning of Union over League players I have to say it has become superior, they have more money recruit top coaches not ex players who did a 6 week NVQ to invest in there players. I think some fans are happy to hide behind ignorance and in denial, the pro game that union has become in most aspects (certainly all off the field) is lightyears ahead of league they overtook us in my opinion 2/3 years ago and have since raced into the lead while we continue to drag our feet while league has accepted mediocrity as standard. Sad but true in my opinion.

Good piece jonh and I do agree with most of it however just to clarify when you say union has excelled over league in the last 2/3 years in your opinion, I cant help but think you only mean Union in comparison to superleague and not the NRL. Because as far as I'm concerned the NRL is the greatest competition of either code, and also produces the greatest athletes of either code in the world, so do you mean union is leading the way but only in comparison to superleague?

I did indeed mean the comparisson to be between Union and SL, the NRL is lightyears ahead of any other code of rugby in the world, of that there is no doubt.

The proof of this is clearly evident in youth selection policies all over Wigan borough, for one. Lads who are big at 13 and get noticed because they can knock smaller lads down seem to get automatic service area selection (even if they don't trial for service area

). It doesn't make those who are selected particularly good RL players IMO, and doesn't mean they'll be anything at all when the smaller lads - who often have great skill and tenacity, which is overlooked - grow to be a similar size. The problem is that the smaller lads, who may pound for pound have a better attitude and be better all-round athletes may by then have lost interest.

Good post again Jon, thanks.



So if a 6"2 15 stone lad is earmarked as a forward, are you saying that his development, ie, diet, skills development and physical training are purely geared towards that of a forward? Do clubs never try and change them into backs?

More than Graham does. He was made to look like a random in the world cup. The aussies, New Zealanders and even the PNG forwards made him look ordinary. Yes hes game. Yes he does a ton of work, but he lacks that bit extra against world class forwards. Hes never going to get you on the front foot like someone like Morley would. Peacock has the "odd" decent game against the aussies, but again, consistently isnt a threat to their forwards because they out muscle him and win the collision in defense.



Maybe the examples I gave of players, werent the best, but what i was alluding to is we need Forwards on a par with the aussies if we are to compete. Much was made, pre world cup about how this was the best english pack for years and how it would match the aussies, when in reality, what happened was they were dominated to such an extent they looked like rank amatuers.



Im not even going to touch on the backs anymore because as it stands, we are never going to be able to compete with theirs bar some sort of miracle. I would say the aussies could field 4-5 backlines that would be as good as ours. Hell even a toyota cup backline wouldnt look out of place.

Dont our youth national teams beat the Ozzies when they play?



I personally have never seen this quality of player that is far superior to anything in super league when watching RU.



If anything the standards of the average RU are quite frankly disgraceful for professional players in this day and age.



Simple tackling and passing dont seem to be natural to them in the majority.

We have won a few series of late as have they, but we simply do not transfer these players through to top internationals like the Aussies do which highlights the failures in the system.



The tackling in rugby union is very good hence the reason they have to resort to kicking to win, it also takes usually decent skill for a back to score due to the extra men forwards tries while usually dull as dishwater to rely on power and grinding down the opposition. Its not my cup of tee at all but i can see that the skills are different to our but at least on a par which they certainly were not 5 years ago.



They have embraced professionalism, while we have simply bought into our own hype and stagnated due to our restrictive rules and lack of ambition.

Peacock vs Petro or Price is a no brainer as in who is better really isn’t it.



I also agree when you look at the likes of Graham, Sinfield, Hock, Lockers, Roby or Westwood they aren’t the greatest players we’ve ever produced are they! Yes they are good players but not on par with what we had a few seasons ago imo;



Fielden (ignore current form he really was a beast back in the day)

Cunningham

Morley

Peacock

Farrell

Sculthorpe



Bench=

Anderson

Newton

McDermot

O’Connor



When you think that starting pack wasn’t even good enough u can see how little chance the current incumbents have. The pack I’ve named above imo is the closest we’ve had to anything looking like a true world class pack in a good long while. Some of the players there were truly top tier of the game players like Scully, Faz & Cunningham and others like Morley, Peacock, Fielden and Newton were as good as their Aussie counter parts like Crocker etc.

Standards have slipped alarmingly over the last 4-5 seasons. The Soopah Doopah League structures just aren't producing enough world class players.