Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 12:42 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

Isnt that simply going to keep more young 15/16/17 year olds playing at a lower level, in poorer facilities, with poorer coaching for longer?

And how does 8 academies fit to 12 (realistically for this system to work 24) sides? An independent development system seems incompatible with this system in my opinion.

i dont think that our problem stems from a lack of commitment or will to learn from 15/16/17 year old kids.

No. It's going to uplift the most promising players out of the well-meaning but ineffectual coaching and poor facilities of their community clubs, and hothouse them alongside other players of similar quality with the best coaches. The difference is, it takes the self interest of the clubs out of it. The focus won't be on winning youth titles or academy championships, it will be about producing the most skilful, rounded players for the professional game.

When players graduate the regional academies at the age of 18, they will then be at liberty to sign for any professional side they want.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 12:55 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

No. It's going to uplift the most promising players out of the well-meaning but ineffectual coaching and poor facilities of their community clubs, and hothouse them alongside other players of similar quality with the best coaches. The difference is, it takes the self interest of the clubs out of it. The focus won't be on winning youth titles or academy championships, it will be about producing the most skilful, rounded players for the professional game.

thats fine and id be in favour of such a thing. Bar cutting the number of academies.

When players graduate the regional academies at the age of 18, they will then be at liberty to sign for any professional side they want.

Who pays them at 16/17 then?

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 1:57 pm  

I've just been out this morning coaching my U16s and as our team were arriving and I was setting up I watched yet another group of u7/8s queue in a line of 18 waiting to run the ball into 2 'coaches' holding tackle shields. This poor practice is unfortunately common throughout most clubs.

I took my current team on as u9/u10s they were in group/division 4 and were the 'B' team at the club in our age group. I went into coaching 13 years ago (this is my second team) in order to develop my career and to develop players In the right way at the right age group. My knowledge and expertise allowed me to see what the long game should be about, to develop sustainable core principles, skills and of course the enjoyment of the game without the concern of winning and losing, as a product of these methods we have climbed the divisions and are in the premier. Some parents took convincing but my role as coach was to deliver the right messages to the players so that win or lose they could see why we were doing things the way we were (...and of course having fun). Unfortunately at a crucial age our children on the whole are being coached in the way I referred to at the start of this post, and therefore our talent pool at the top of the game is largely reliant on the natural (yet still restricted) ability of a relatively small number of players.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:00 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

It is pretty obvious - the quality of NRL player coming to SL has dropped off significantly due to our inability to compete financially. As a result the overall standard of the league has dropped - the reverse has happened in the NRL i.e. retaining of more quality and an increase in the overall standard of the league. Simple really.

What top Aussie player did we have in 2012 or 13, by then Buderus had gone and Webb was being pushed out the team by Hardaker
In Moon and Cuthbertson weve got better imports than we did then

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:02 pm  

loiner81 wrote:

To say the 4N means nothing and to compare the WCC to the Lazenby Cup is just offensive to everyone involved in the game over here and down under.

I think we know that if the Aussies had won that 4N game by 20/30 points that he'd say it WAS a meaningful game.

Thing is all this talk of meaningful, I actually think the English level has dropped slightly from a few years back. Yes of course they still want to win but I remember previous years when the WCC game was the main talk from the moment the GF finished.....this year only really in the last 2 weeks has it come to the front of minds.

This from McDermott

"Hooker Beau Falloon, who sustained a broken toe in training last month, has yet to make his competitive debut and McDermott admitted there was a “temptation” to risk him tomorrow. He said: “We had that with Jamie Jones-Buchanan [out since August with a quad injury] as well. They are both not far off, but then you look at the grand scheme of things we have got another 28 rounds to go in the league season and it would be silly.

“We could lose them long-term, really long-term and that would damage our journey along the way in Super League. The smart option is to be disciplined and wait while they get back fully fit.”

Simply wouldn't have happened a few years back to have that attitude towards the game. I also doubt now that if in 12 months time if Wigan are yet again in one of the 2 non-title games they'll be in any rush to risk players or take it as seriously as previous years after what happened to McIlorum and others last night.

If Warrington keep going strong in SL and after Leeds had such a strong start in 2015 when they didn't participate in the WCS then it won't be long until SL clubs deem it to be an unneeded distraction. Add to the scorelines then the attendances will start to drop towards normal SL game levels.

People defend it saying playing these games will help improve our clubs.....they won't. We've been playing these games continuously since the turn of the century and 16 years later people are still saying we're as far away as the ill fated 1997 competition. So what do we do, play these games in the hope that in the year 2039 we might be close, it's a pipe dream. If playing an NRL team once a year was going to improve SL then you'd have seen that idea come into practise by now.

Truth is all these games really do is offer a chance for some fans to drool over NRL players and say SL is rubbish.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:09 pm  

the hysteria and fawning of the Aussies on these forums after a couple of comprehensive results is borderline cringeworthy.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:15 pm  

What Seth said!!
He brings a ray of sunshine to this subject getting a good airing. Far too often we see those lines of small striggly legged kids in extra-long baggy shorts, jumping up and down with such joy in the queue, only to catch the ball once before dashing off to the back of the queue again. That is unlikely to produce skilled, motivated world class players in a million years. What is seen in Oz on any Saturday morning is, as we have seen this weekend so far, a different ball game.
Good luck with your efforts Seth.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:18 pm  

In spite of all the negativity currently being expressed, I'm excited by the fixture this evening and can't wait for kick off. It's an all too rare opportunity to witness some world class players at Headingley exhibiting world class skills.

I've booked my ticket and seat in the North Stand and just need to sort out my cushion, blanket and flask of Twinings Australian Late Afternoon Tea!

Hope it's another fantastic advert for the game

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:21 pm  

Biff Tannen wrote:

the hysteria and fawning of the Aussies on these forums after a couple of comprehensive results is borderline cringeworthy.

It's disappointing to observe your half-empty glass on such a big day for the club as this.

Re: WCC : Sun Feb 21, 2016 2:22 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

Probably the best sporting analogy for rugby league in the two hemispheres is British cycling and the rest of the world.

Under Dave Brailsford, GB cycling focused on the one percents. The marginal gains that on their own don't account for much, but put together help you to be ahead of your competition. Players in the NRL do everything to a marginally higher standard, but when combined and put into pressure situations those marginal gains make for significantly better teams.

NRL players grow up being coached to do the simple things to a very high standard before they get anywhere close to being in first grade. There are young players in the Academy systems at SL clubs who have massive gaps in their skill sets. They've got where they are primarily on the basis of their physical attributes and being quicker or stronger than counterparts in their age group. Had they come up in Australia, they wouldn't have got close to a professional contract due to the things they can't do. They would have had to work harder at their game to achieve a degree of success, because the bar is set so much higher than it is here.

How do you raise that bar? Make it harder for players to earn Academy contracts for a start, by reducing the number of Academies in existence through mergers. Let's take it down to say 8/10 across the country run by the RFL, make it harder for kids to get taken on so they feel they have to work at the deficiencies in their game. Create hothouses where there is pressure and competition for places from both a playing and coaching viewpoint.

Raise the age at which players can sign professional contracts to 18, and strictly enforce it. We all know that 16 year old kids (and in some cases their parents) are getting inducements to sign for clubs and signing "pre-contracts". What message does that send to kids at that age, other than "you've made it"? Give them something to aspire to while they are in the Academies at 16 and 17 years old, rather than feeling they don't have to work hard and kick on.

Rather than talking about raising the salary cap to enable the competition to retain a handful of top stars, work from the ground up to improve the standard of player coming into the competition from the bottom. You don't build a bigger, stronger pyramid by polishing the stone at the top. How good would it be to see 18/19/20 year old players coming into the SL competition capable of executing all the basic skills of the game in the way that say Nikorima did for the Roosters last night? Players aren't born with the ability to execute skills under pressure, they acquire it by having to work hard and practice in order to get to that point otherwise they won't get to play the professional game.

You know the pressure of the NRL academies has caused a ton of suicides in the past few years right?
for me that intense pressure isnt worth it, and wont bring much better players
we just need to change the way the game is coached from a young age, to appreciate the 1 percenters like you said