This doesn't happen in Australia and they only have 10 interchanges - why is that? because the players are much fitter - perhaps if our players were fitter we would be making it harder for the attackers? If you fill your games with very average overseas players who could not cut it in the NRL and pay them more than their counterparts from the UK what kind of message does that send out.



The majority of our players would not be able to physically cope with training in Australia never mind the skills element of what is required - there is an excuse for lack of skill, there is no excuse for lack of fitness.

Cannot agree with the last part, a complete myth people like to band about. Even average SL players go down under and can cope. Think the only issue with some is the heat but that is just climatising. We may not have the skill but think most of our players can cope with fitness in NRL.

You don't think that more games and smaller squads means that many of ours are expected to play and train while carrying injuries? Might this not be a factor?

Oh right wasn`t aware of that.

Still would have rather we kept him maybe instead of Ambler and the ever improving Kirke!

We need to rotate forwards and not the same forwards each week, Mac needs to be selective and rest Peacock and Lauluai in some less important games, we have the best squad of forwards in the comp by a country mile and we cant just expect the same forwards to cart it up week on week. We were very lucky last season that we did not get any injuries after we showed cross and burgess the door IMO.

You should say we have the MOST forwards with experience, not necessarily the best. We haven't got a real line-breaking forward now Ali's left - it's more of a grafting pack unless Hauraki steps up a gear. For all his faults, a player like pre-suspension Gareth Hock would add enormously to our forwards IMO.

It is a myth that our players play a lot more games.



If the Aussies don't make the play offs they play 24 games 3 less than our players in far more intense competition



If they do make the play off again they play 3 less games in a far less intense competition



The top players if the make the final will play 24 regular season, 4 play off games and 4 SOO/test games 32, our players will play 27 regular games, 4 play offs and 1 mid season i.e. 32 games.



As for the CC the vast majority of these games are less taxing than a training session.



On squad size Melbourne Storm had a squad of 23 players less than Leeds at 25



In test matches we see the Aussies run away with it in the last 20 minutes regularly which suggests their fitness is significantly superior. The idea that our players are incapable of 80 minutes once a week withouth the need for a regular week off agains suggest we have some conditioning issues.

I didn't claim our players played a lot more games. You added the term "a lot". But more than 10% more could be a factor none the less. Picking a squad at random - Canterbury Bulldogs - which you appear to have done by picking out Melbourne Storm, I find that their squad last season comprised 28 players. And while many CC games may lack the intensity of a training session (I've no way of knowing whether this is true BTW), the remaining proportion almost certainly take a fair bit out of the players, as evidenced by the number of times we see a team win the CC only to collapse during the run in or play offs.

Jack Reed, hardest worker in the NRL. How many games did Sinfield play? www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/j ... 6207436748 Note that Reed's record includes pre-season trial games. The Aussie off season is at least 4 weeks, maybe up to 6 weeks longer than ours. That's the major difference since that's when all the bulk of the conditioning & strength work is done. Fewer games would help our chances of competing on a level playing field, until then we have to accept that SL is probably behind the NRL.

Jack Reed, hardest worker in the NRL. How many games did Sinfield play? www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/j ... 6207436748 Note that Reed's record includes pre-season trial games. The Aussie off season is at least 4 weeks, maybe up to 6 weeks longer than ours. That's the major difference since that's when all the bulk of the conditioning & strength work is done. Fewer games would help our chances of competing on a level playing field, until then we have to accept that SL is probably behind the NRL.

Me too.

Brian McDermott thanks the patrons of SOuthstander for their input and advice about his tactics and team selection, particularly during the course of the 2011 season.



He's printed all the suggestions, criticisms and observation off and he and the squad will be using them during preseason training.........to wipe their s.



Except Ian Kirke. Mac is making him memorise each and every word written by me.

Everyone accepts the intensity in SL is nowhere near what it is in the NRL. We don't have anything that compares to Origin - even in its current dumbed-down state. Virtually every player who plays Origin on a Wednesday plays in the NRL at the weekend so they are playing two games a week three times in the year. Our players have an issue with doing this once at Easter and the standard/intensity of the final game shows how much the players struggle physically

And how much of this difference do you think is attributable to having two less interchanges, as opposed to the player pool, the national attitude to sport, the training facilities etc? The NRL is a superior competition which happens to have two less interchanges per game, not because of it.

I never suggested the extra fitness was down to 2 less interchanges - what I said was if we reduced the number of interchanges then it may impact positively on the overall standards of fitness of our players.



Maybe we could have less interchanges say 8 per game but more bench options say 6 players.

To clarify, Amor cannot be recalled to Leeds at any point in 2012, but they have until July 2012 to decide if they want him for the 2013 and 2014 seasons.



Not sure if this is what you are getting at or not



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I can't quite work out whether you're saying that Melbourne only had 2 players in their squad, or that Leeds had 48? Both seem unlikely to me.

Seems a crazy arrangement

It was, thanks for clarifying.

Melbourne had a squad of 23, which was less than Leeds' squad of 25

At 1st grade level in 2011 - All of them.



For Leeds - 36 (27 - Regular Rounds, 4 - Play-Offs, 5 - Challenge Cup)



For England - 6 (2 - Australia, 1 - New Zealand, France, Wales, Exiles)



(I don't keep any player records away from Leeds so I'll stand to be corrected on the England element but IIRC not only did he play in every available 1st grade game open to him in 2011 he also scored points in all of them also.)

I wonder how often that's been done. It actually requires quite a strange performance by the team to reach both finals and play in every single round of play-off fixtures doesn't it?

Plus the 4N final

I think that was covered as one of the 2 v Australia.....

For the second time in his career IIRC, having done it before in 2005?

Like I said I don't keep any meaningful player records outside of Leeds games so I was only taking a mental note on the International aspect of the season. Each England game I recall noting Sinfield's selection and whether he contributed to the scoresheet as he was clearly on a run of doing so for Leeds at the time and I felt it could prove to be a significant milestone if he remained 100%.







In 2005 Sinfield suffered a dislocated thumb in the opening ten minutes of a MOTM performance at home to Bradford on the 1st July. He missed the following five matches including the CC semi final V Toulouse at the McAlpine. Other than for those five games he were an ever scoring present though.



Sinfield's ever-present Leeds 1st grade seasons - 2001, 2003, 2007, 2011



Sinfield's ever-present + scoring Leeds 1st grade seasons - 2007, 2011