No I'm not saying that, I think you have missed my point. It's a long term plan. If roby went for 3 or 4 years, comes back at 28/29. if the Tomkins

go and come back at 26/28. They still have plenty to offer. there will be no need to fill the leagues with Aussies. At first it might be 3 steps back to go 5 to 10 steps forward. It might take 5 to 10 years down the line to reep the rewards. It's a long term fix to an SL problem which is we can't produce high volumes of quality players. We send our best players and coaches to get educated then when they return matured as players and coaches the need to send our talent to Oz will fall. With a view to learning the true skill of developing raw talent in to genuine world class players. Something SL clubs are failing to do on mass, a Tomkins here a roby there, a McGuire who could be everything marshall is but just isn't quite at that level. Peacock who almost got missed as a player.



having all our best players go right away wouldn't be a great move I agree but having more of our top players getting nrl exsposure over a period of time can be the start to bridging an ever increasing gap.

This statement is wrong. The fact that we have a larger total population that New Zealand makes no difference whatsoever. Rugby (Union/League) is the main and most dominant sport in New Zealand. The vast majority of their kids will play one of the codes as that is their national sport. However, we have to compete with the likes of Football, Cricket and Union. In New Zealand, union as stronger as it is over here but not to the same extent. We have a vastly smaller talent pool than New Zealand when taking into account what percentage of youngsters actually play the game. Looking at total populations is completely misleading.

That is a logical fallacy mate. We have more kids playing the game in lancs, yorks, Cumbria and London than the kiwis do. We have more juniors and junior clubs than the kiwis do. Just by sheer volume. Take the cas area there are at least 3 divisions at every age group from 6 years up, It's the same in Leeds and i would think the same in saints, Wigan, widnes, Warrington, bradhuddersfax, hull, Cumbria then there's other places like Oldham, wakefield, fev, dewsbury and Leigh and the like who will be involved in the other leagues. Don't forget London too.



Union is a much bigger pull full stop in NZ. At least in our heartland we have it to ourselves. Don't forget cricket is massive in NZ too. And don't kid yourself "soccer" is massive down under and in NZ too as it is world wide

Haven't read the earlier posts so this isn't a comment on anyone in particular, but I have to laugh when people want to see opposition clubs' best players move overseas, for the 'benefit of the British game.' Just a coincidence that it also happens to weaken their rivals...



I'm delighted Robes has renewed his contract, he's a world-class player and its a massive boost to the club and the town that he's decided to stay. Why should I feel disappointed that such a fine player isn't leaving my club?

I've been to New Zealand and seen their set up. You are somewhat misguided.

Well done Super Mac and his Team

Good news. I just hope this is the news that helps James 'Rooney' Graham to see that the club does have some ambition and wants to be successful.



The signing of Inglis that will be announced shortly should help too.

Hmm really, the figures I read go totally against that. I have just emailed barla and nzrl for their official figures of juniors playing the game. As soon as hear or if I hear back from them I post the info.

It's the quality of players, the quality of coaching and more importantly the intensity of the games, even at Junior level.

The Junior Kiwis have just beaten the Aussies, let's see how we go on in the next two weeks v the Aussie U18's.



At the risk of appearing to be moaning (again) about our academy systems, they are not preparing our better young players for the first team, and those are the kids (and coaches) IMO that would benefit more from a year or two's scholarship out in Australia.



However to do that we would need the RFL, ALL the clubs, and the Aussie ARL to buy into it and help to fund it.



I wouldn't bet my house on it happening though.

Indeed, why would the Aussies care about training our youngsters up for no benefit to them? That's why it's a none starter of an idea.



Sending players over to play in the NRL is a short term fix to improving the England squad (and I mean short term as in 5 years or so). The long term solution is improving our coaching, especially youth coaching. That is were the majority of failure is. Good youth coaches produce players with better skills who turn into better players. Doing that means we don't have to send our players over to the NRL for 4 years to learn how to play the game at 24, and also means we don't weaken our own game by losing all the better players to a rival competition.

So should the RFL fund a couple of young promising coaches to go and do a placement at an NRL club each year?

Thats a very simple but excellent idea.

Or clubs over hear making links with a club down under and candidates being sent for work placement and vice versa.

Again, something I've been banging on about for years, but as Billinge_Lump says it would need the buy in from the Aussie Clubs, which if they were really bothered about International RL should be a no brainer.

And therein lies the problem.



Sorry for the sermon, but it really does wind me up.



I would even make clubs give up £100K (example) of their t.v. money to MAKE it happen.

Leeds are on with it with the bulldogs, but I reman skeptical(SGU for life) as the souths link up was nothing more than PR

I still feel the junior leagues need to switch to summer! Look at the weather outside! What incentive is there for talented lads to go training in that, you cannot improve core skills and more importantly its just not enjoyable, plus most matches will be called off for the next 2 months, so youngsters get out of the habit and never return to the game.

A switch to summer would hopefully see an increase in the number of kids actually playing rugby league and the smaller more skillful players will shine rather than the giant kid with no core skills who nobody can tackle

You seem to forget who is running our game.This post makes sense,the ideas should be adopted,but as i say ,look who our administrators are,they couldn't organise the preverbial in a brewery

While a fine point, it does have its drawbacks.



Speaking as someone who plays a summer sport, we can have any number from our 40-50 strong squad out at any time. Admittedly, we only play ten games a season, so it is easy to plan around our matches, and our players are dedicated enough to hold out for the fixture list to do so, you cannot do this so much with young families.



The stability of the league by doing this would be thrown up.



Of course, this would hopefully be offset by more involvement.

ski,i think the benefits of summer rugby for the amateur game far outweigh the pitfalls.training in warm weather,developing skills,hopefully poaching a few ru players.if its good enough for the pro's,its good enough for us all

I agree entirely, and am not belittling or arguing against the suggestion, more playing the devil's advocate on the basis of my personal experience.

It would be a far better idea than sending players over. Didn't Mike Rush do something along those lines early in his career?

.........................and Burgess when he played for England. Whilst his tackling and attitude were fine, his ball handing has gone backwards since SL - he was a one man knockonathon!

personally thought Robes, Benny and Jammer showed better than him and Ellis (or perhaps not as fit?)

I'll look forward to seeing them figures then. From what i have seen over there and heard from various people involved with the game whilst i was visiting, there is a huge interest.

the figures are on wikipedia for the kiwis. 22,000 registered players with 3,550 been adults and 18,450 been juniors. but i didnt take them as gospel so i contacted the communications officer at NZRL who was more than swift in her reply to back those figures up. this coming year she said they are looking at 25,000 total adults and children so lets say around 20,000 kids in NZ. i havent heard from barla yet but i know there are around 4000 + juniors from age 6 to 18 playing in the cas and distrcit leagues alone. add saints, wigan, leeds, cumbria, hull, bradhuddersfax and the london effort we will be hitting 25,000 kids easy and thats a conservative estimate. as i said we have a deeper pool to develop.



as soon as i hear back from barla i will post their figures. if they dont reply to my email i will ring.

I am not sure how losing the best players we have in SL will benefit the British game. In fact, judging by the fact that Roby was one of the better players on the tour, the challenge remains to bring up players who are of a similar standard. That aint going to happen if we become a feeder league to the NRL. The game needs to retain star talents and improve the systems we have.



Its absurd on just about every level to be thinking about wanting the likes of Graham, Roby, Tomkins etc to 'test themselves' down under. The only reasons I can think of are that our inferiority complex regressed to such a level that we need to see one or two players 'rip it up' down under to satisfy our self worth.