Dunbar

Based on Canberra's performances over the last few years it is more the Super League players making Ricky Stuart look like a better coach than him coaching them to be better players. He has openly said that their winning attitude is refreshing which, on reflection, is a pretty poor reflection on the culture he had built.

I'm not making any predictions on the popularity of these sports just pointing out that entertainment is subjective. On the whole, I personally prefer to watch women's tennis at Wimbledon than the ace/un-returnable serve fest that some men's matches turn into even though I am well aware that the men would beat the women any day of the week. I also know that a p#ss poor heavyweight boxer would beat Floyd Mayweather but it doesn't mean that Mayweather is not a superior boxer - it's just that sports like boxing understand that physical size and strength need to be considered when determining who is 'best'.

I have never really understood this line of argument around women's sport. If being a lower quality version disqualifies it from being valid then why do people watch Championship Rugby League or football when it is a lower quality version of Super League or the Premier League... in fact why do people watch Super League when it is a lower quality version of the NRL! All sport has different levels of quality and ability, it doesn't automatically make any of them less valid or entertaining.

Maybe my reaction was a little knee jerk. Let me clarify. I have stated on these boards that heritage and identity is a complicated issue and people should absolutely be free to represent countries which are not their place of birth. I have used my own circumstances to highlight this. My wife is Italian and so my daughter (born and being raised in the UK) is half Italian. Should she be talented enough to participate in international sport then I would be comfortable with her choosing England (Great Britain) or Italy and it would be her choice based on her own feelings and preferences. I think grand parents is more complicated. My grandmother was Irish but I feel very little affinity (sport wise) with Ireland as both my parents were born and bred in the UK. I accept that other people see things differently. From the team you listed, Jackson Hastings, Lachlan Coote, Blake Austin and Euan Aitken all qualify for Great Britain through grand parents. As Coote and Aitken have both played for Scotland maybe they do have some commitment... Blake Austin on the other hand has already played for Portugal. I am not sure about Hastings as he hasn't played international Rugby League yet. I don't like the idea of opportunistic changes of nationality... for me heritage and identity is absolutely something to be respected, what I don't see it as though is a moving target when opportunists arise.

I would find it very difficult to muster up any enthusiastic support for that team.

I am at a loss to see how you cannot grasp that a player who is maybe 2 years away from retirement is in a different category to player who can play at his peak for another 7 years or so. As you say, both of them are losses, both of their losses damage SL... only one is a loss for 2 years and one for maybe 7 years... of course this is different and it clearly and obviously different. I know that your main tactic in arguments on these boards is attrition and so you will keep stating the same thing over and over until you get the last word. So I will let you reply and have the last word and I will let others make up their mind on the topic.

I suspect that even you don't think that losing 31 year Ryan Hall to the NRL is the same as losing 25 year old John Bateman. I also suspect that you are too stubborn to admit it because you have dug yourself into a hole in this discussion.

Stop being so binary in your thinking... I am trying to put these different players into context. I have agreed that losing George Burgess from Super League hurts it (the same with Widdop) from a quality perspective. But... Losing Burgess and Widdop before their careers lift off is different to losing a player in his early 20's who is already a star player in Super league who then leaves and this is different again to a player like Hall or Watkins who have contributed a decade of quality to our league. Can you not see this?

I think there are certainly more players playing permanently down under but that is probably more of a consequence of the seasons now being in sync so short term spells are no longer valid. We saw Andy Gregory, Kevin Ward, Ellery Hanley, Martin Offiah, Jonathan Davies, Sean Edwards, Andy Currier, Joe Lydon and others play in the ARL over the years but they didn't feel lost to our game. The dynamic is different now as players will sign up for long term deals but I expect that we will see them back in the UK as well. I think there is certainly an argument that says losing players at the peak of their careers such as Bateman is damaging to the league over here but I am really not sure what the answer is to stop it. From a personal perspective, watching the English lads go around in the NRL is probably the part of Rugby League I am enjoying the most at the moment.

Some people just like being a big fish in a small pond.

No, that's not what I said. What I said was that Ryan Hall and Kallum Watkins contributed 10+ years to Super League while others left at the height of their careers and would have contributed more if they had stayed in Super League. This is a very reasonable thing to say when talking about how players moving to the NRL impacts the quality of Super League. After my post, you jumped straight in to say that "taking the best 11 players out of the league is going to damage it" when two of the players I listed never even played in Super League... since then you have just been jumping around all over the place trying to justify this remark. My point is, and remains, that George Burgess and Gareth Widdop in the NRL has not reduced the quality of the sport we see here because they didn't play first team rugby. Of course they had the potential to play first team rugby but objectively the quality has not been reduced from what we have seen over the last few years as their talents have not been demonstrated in the league and then removed as we have seen with the likes of Graham, Bateman and Sam Burgess. I was merely putting the English NRL based players in context and once again, you just wanted to jump in with an argument which was immediately proven as knee jerk and now you are trying to save face.

Are you contorting again?

I really liked Lydon too, I picked Connor because he is both a talented and exciting player and a character who brings out discussion and could easily be a bigger star if the game was bigger. I do also have concerns over the modern game but it is more about how the game is played rather than who is playing it. What I do share is your optimism for the international game. I think there is real competition at the top end and encouraging grass roots development in many countries.

Some very good points. On player development. I have watched the highlights of the Saints Academy tour of Australia for the last several years and recently they have gone through the tour undefeated against NRL development squads. If 20 to 25 quality youngsters are being developed at Saints every two years there is plenty of talent... if fact when you consider that an established first grade player may hold a position in the side for 10 years there are dozens of good youngsters needing to look elsewhere for opportunities. As a sport, we don't have the largest player pool but some teams have a fantastic track record for developing young talent and that gives me heart.

Ok, fair enough. But I would argue that we have players who have the talent to be household names but are not... it is the awareness that we lack not the ability. You referenced Ellery Hanley and he was as close to being one of a kind in Rugby League as you could get. But take another pretty well known player from that era... Joe Lydon. I would argue that Jake Connor is a more skilful and more entertaining player than Lydon. That Connor is not well know in the country is not down to his lack of ability.