In earlier days of WCC the issue was Aus teams being undercooked and ours having started their season. This didn't necessarily lead to them losing, but did lead to a ready made excuse if they did, and a ready made diss to SL if they didn't.
Things have changed a bit for the better, but this year we all knew in advance that for varying reasons, none of our three teams was in a good place, and therefore were in for a flogging given that to a far greater degree the Aussies do take the comp more seriously, and, pound for pound, are of course better.
Leeds for example didn't do any worse than they have against SL clubs this season, even though obviously the opposition was far superior, but Leeds at this moment are in no fit state to play a team like that.
One thing is clear, though, the organisation of NRL teams, especially in defence, is at least a couple of levels better than we are used to, and in all three games, it was in some ways a little like watching the Bulls in demise when we would be in the opposition 20, yet never look likely to score. All the Aussie defences were superb, and a pleasure to watch.
But, despite our 3 teams all being known to be way off the UK pace, it was both predictable and disheartening how each ran out of steam and conceded a sequence of soft scores in the second half, during which let's be frank the Aus teams didn't have that much to do. So even if our teams had been playing well and were fully competitive, I don't think it would have made all that much difference.
They got shown up, and if there is one thing they should do it is spend hours analysing the defensive patterns and copying them.
I agree it is depressing but realistic to say that we are nowhere near an equal footing on a club level. Instead of our current playoffs and having a WCC maybe we should have a "Champions League" end of season comp between the top 4 teams in each country. That way, at least we'd be seeing the genuinely best the UK teams had to offer, both us and them honed after a full season. But whatever isolated attempts have been made have always ended in disaster and debacle for the English clubs and perhaps we now need to accept that the NRL has again pulled away from the SL and if the RL don't do something, it will only get worse. They won't do anything (largely because there is nowhere near comparable money to do so) and so it won't get any better.
All RL people are utterly defeatist, and we don't have the dynamic leadership, nor the belief, to change this. I am sadly old enough to remember when the current RU jamborees were just pencil notes on some drawing board, yet they got it done. All we ever do is whinge about "yes but no but" excuses as to why we can't.
