You have hit the nail on the head. The reduction in the player pool has put us in the position of having an awful England team. SL was supposed to improve our game. Stopping P&R was supposed to enable teams to develop youth without the fear of relegation.

What complete bull poop. We are going backwards. I find Super League generally boring and have complete apathy towards the international game.

NONE of the current England team is fit to lace the boots of the likes of Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards or Andy Gregory.

We haven't produced a decent scrum half or stand off for years.

I expect the convicts to run up atleast 50 points and won't be surprised when we lose to Wales in next years tournament. At least that will give the super league heirarchy vindication for having a team in Wrexham.

The whole sport is a joke run by muppets and clowns.

Hunte wouldn't get in this England side because he was garbage. We also used to play against Australia, not the Australiasia XIII and a NZ team without a pro team of any real substance until the NZ Warriors emerged from the Aukland Warriors.



Another point is this is very much an England team with backs looking towards the nexy RLWC with an average age of 22.

We have gone backwards, the 3 years without relegation is not helping youth just giving more money to old Aussies. Previously decent players who got promoted and then relegated would have been given a chance with a club that stayed/went up, now hardly any Champ players get a chance in SL and all the juniors are cherry picked by SL clubs. When we had P&R young players would stay local if their team was in with a chance of promotion now they go to SL, the idea SL promotes youth is rubbish.

Sorry, bit of a rant there.

Don't forget folks that we are only England now and not GB. I know GB was nearly all England but there is still a smaller player base. Having said that I truly believe that our leagues need to reduce the overseas quota to 4 player from non gb countries and sod this colpac and your great grandparrents sister was british. If you weren't born in the british isles or you don't have a parent or grand parent the was born in the british isles then you are a foreign player. It is true that we were a stronger game without this many overseas players.

No it's not.



Salford have played far more youngsters in the first team, and recruited far less foreigners, over the last 2 years because there was no threat of relegation.



I suspect the same may well be true of Wigan (except the relegation bit?!) and they've just won SL.



I'm also fairly sure that the current England squad are far younger than previous England/GB teams (especially in the backs).



There are LOTS of fault with SL (and especially franchising) but failure to promote youth is not one of them IMHO.

Who gives a toss? International RL is just another reason the RFL can give for expansion its Bulletc .



Go back to tours every few years put money into RL in the heartlands and get clubs like us Fax Fev back up into competing like they used to.



WE WILL NEVER BEAT THE AUSSIES!

Bitter or not about P&R, it was supposed to aid the development of English players and yet our national side is the worst I've seen for 30 years.

I get the feeling that some people would endorse a complete return to semi pro leagues if it meant they got to see their club in the top flight next year. Your living in the past, international competitions when done correctly make tonnes of money, money is what keeps this sport alive. If there were no Superleague then within fifteen years all the RL teams in England would just be small feeder teams with a few hundred people watching them around a roped off field, all the talent would go to much bigger and wealthier northern RU clubs.



People have to take into account why New Zealand have overtaken England. New Zealand Warriors themselves are an expansion club, they are very competitive in the NRL and export a lot of domestic talent to NRL sides. New Zealand's players play in a higher intensity competition (the NRL) than Superleague week in week out. New Zealand is a Rugby country and all the school kids who are interested in sport over there will grow up wanting to be Rugby players.



We've always had the odds stacked against us in England. Soccer is our national sport, Rugby League is played in a small geographic area and doesn't feature very highly in the national consciousness. Contrast this with RU who have amateur clubs everywhere in the country and a large player pool. It's not that Superleague sent us backwards, it's that the rise of New Zealand Warriors and the export of NZ players to the NRL propelled their international team forwards.

Well I agree with Dan and I have seen an England side beat the Aussies.



Maybe the way forward is to have a limit on the number of players a team has without a British passport. Our footie team is shocking at the international level for the same reason.

what makes people think limiting the number of over seas players will make our players better? If your a good player you will always get there, playing with the best players makes you a better player this has always been the case, the same with coaches ban all 'foreign' coaches and watch our game really go down the pan. Always play with the best and be taught by the best.