Why can't England produce world class half backs?

[iangidds]

It also seems like the halves who are super talented in the UK are so talented they become a utility player or moved to another position like Stefan Ratchford and Sam Tomkins to name two off the top of my head.

Think this is a good point, we leave these players as broken field runners because they are few and far between, I also think Kyle Eastmond would have been a world class standard if we had kept or enticed him back to our code.

Whilst I like a fast game and a fast Play of the ball I can see the argument that this just creates scooters from dummy half

[sweaty craiq]

How would you feel if the RFL allowed a club to own a second club that wasn't in the same division, it would only be possible with the bigger clubs but let's say Wigan bought Swinton, Leeds bought Hunslet, Saints bought Oldham, Hull bought Sheffield, Warrington bought North Wales. These are the wealthier clubs with the bigger junior sections that could copy the Australian structure and bring kids through a tough comp to be SL ready

[wombat]

On the subject of halves ,I saw an interview with Peter Stirling where he stated that he wouldn't have been the player he was if not for Jack Gibson, who took him under his wing as an 18 year old at Parramatta.

 

No doubt, coaching is important, but I don't think it's a coincidence that great players mostly play with great players around them, in the same team, and for a reasonable length of time. I'm firmly of the view that Australian RL has slipped back a few cogs since the players draft and salary caps were introduced. It's now much harder for clubs to retain a core of great players for more than 2 or 3 years which seems to be integral for great players to become even greater, and particularly the case for half backs and stand off's. 

 

On that note, I recently watched some old footage from the 70's when England /GB had players such as Steve Nash, Roger Millward, Phil Lowe, Malcolm Reilly, etc, and the skills were remarkable.

 

Since I started watching league I've seen a few GB teams that were really good, such as the 2-1 losing team of the 1990 series, that GB really should have won, but the big problem seems to be the ability to field a complete team of great players. It was obviously possible in the 70's and possibly well before that, but from about 1980 something happened to the talent pool.   

   

[PurstonJavelin]

There is no great need for creative half-backs in Super League. The most successful mode of playing is to use relentless high speed battering to distend, disrupt and break the defensive line, based on an extremely fast play-the-ball. Most ball handling occurs after the line has been broken, in contrast to the “old” days when a half-back was expected to use his craft to seek out an opening. Now, most teams play 5 props and 2 “hookers” in their 17. I can possibly see a time when another two props at half-back becomes an acceptable situation. Teach someone else to kick, and there’s no need to waste 2 positions on players who have little opportunity to contribute.

It won’t change. Teams have a massive vested interest in the present methods, in recruitment, development and coaching.

And if you lose, it’s more comforting to blame the opposition for slowing down the play-the-ball, than to admit that they put a higher premium on using ball handling to engineer a break, and on developing and encouraging players with the ability.

[PurstonJavelin]

How about making youth rugby non contact up to a certain age?

50 years ago, kids in Rugby League areas developed their tactical awareness, ball-handling and footwork with  touch-and-pass, some clocking up the 10,000 hours needed for top class skill levels, in streets, parks, roads, playgrounds, gardens. The good ones with ambition had a framework of youth teams, pub teams and professional junior sides to work through. The very best, the ones with speed and the other qualities required for playing one of the toughest sports, had a chance to become a top-class half-back. Those times are not coming back, but it would be nice to see those organisations - especially Super League clubs - which lead our sport, putting the effort into finding ways to have youngsters playing rugby league for the sheer exhilaration of chucking a ball about, beating an opponent with a side-step or outside swerve or beating the opposition with a perfect cut-out pass, or a dummy scissors. From a wider level of enjoyment and involvement,  in 10 years time, we could find some quality half-backs.

[Ant]

Good grief some people need to go back and watch films of games from the 60s 70s and 80s

I watched a bit of that 1990 test series recently (saw all of it live) and any modern half back would have had a field day against those defences

Dog leg lines, players rushing out poor numbering

Half backs now need to be better than ever really the only difference is the playmaker now are often 13 9 and 1

[MrPosh]

The answer is simple. Junior RL is based upon size and not skill.

 

Partly this, but all of the smaller lads are playing football.

 

I've said it before, but they'll be twenty Thurstons, Johnsons and Cronks running around Leagues 1, 2 and the Conference.

[Ant]

Partly this, but all of the smaller lads are playing football.

I've said it before, but they'll be twenty Thurstons, Johnsons and Cronks running around Leagues 1, 2 and the Conference.

Chris Thorman didn't convert to RL until his teens and ended up an excellent half back, anecdotal but almost certainly true

(McGillvary was also a late convert from soccer to RL as it happens)

[terrywebbisgod]

Partly this, but all of the smaller lads are playing football.

I've said it before, but they'll be twenty Thurstons, Johnsons and Cronks running around Leagues 1, 2 and the Conference.

To a point yes but every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" mentality alienating parents and players alike because of their win at all costs coaching style rather than developing handling skills and support play in their players.

Sunday evenings on Twitter are funny with coaches and parents boasting about unbeaten seasons and huge victories at u7's up to u11's in supposedly non competitive games. It's very rare that you hear about skill levels improving or defence splitting passes.

[Oxford]

".....every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" ........... because of their win at all costs coaching style...."

 

Er, I think you've been watching Super League on those Sundays!

 

It's straight from the Shaun Wayne book of coaching chapter 12 "How to Win the Beggar Next Week, as Well." Or was it in chapter 15 "Be a Chuffin' Champion!" Obviously the words in bold have been changed for the sake of decorum and innocent eyes that post on here.

[terrywebbisgod]

".....every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" ........... because of their win at all costs coaching style...."

 

Er, I think you've been watching Super League on those Sundays!

 

It's straight from the Shaun Wayne book of coaching chapter 12 "How to Win the Beggar Next Week, as Well." Or was it in chapter 15 "Be a Chuffin' Champion!" Obviously the words in bold have been changed for the sake of decorum and innocent eyes that post on here.

Even Shaun Wayne had to start somewhere.

Some Sunday morning coaches act as if they are coaching SL teams when in reality they are coaching young kids.

[Trojan]

To a point yes but every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" mentality alienating parents and players alike because of their win at all costs coaching style rather than developing handling skills and support play in their players.

Sunday evenings on Twitter are funny with coaches and parents boasting about unbeaten seasons and huge victories at u7's up to u11's in supposedly non competitive games. It's very rare that you hear about skill levels improving or defence splitting passes.

But this attitude is nothing new.  I played RL in the sixties.  In the summer of '64 I decided to give Union a try, there was a club in my town and no amateur RL.  I joined basically to save on bus fares.  I trained harder than I'd trained with my U17 RL side because I could afford to.   However, the last weekend before the Union season started, the lad who partnered my in the second row came round to our house and said "Eric says will you turn out for us on Saturday, we're short"  So I turned up, only to be told by Eric "I have to have a sub this season, and you're it, I don't believe in subs so you won't play, you haven't trained anyway," he waved away my explanations about training with the Union side.  I stood on the touchline and didn't play.  I turned out for Morley 4ths at Huddersfield YMCA the following week and didn't play RL again for 10 years.  I'd like to bet there are still plenty of Erics out there who think winning is the sole reason they're there , rather than bringing young lads into the game. (not that I'd have been missed of course!)

[The Parksider]

Sunday evenings on Twitter are funny with coaches and parents boasting about unbeaten seasons and huge victories at u7's up to u11's in supposedly non competitive games. It's very rare that you hear about skill levels improving or defence splitting passes.

 

It's not restricted to Junior ARL

 

But this attitude is nothing new.  I'd like to bet there are still plenty of Erics out there who think winning is the sole reason they're there , rather than bringing young lads into the game. (not that I'd have been missed of course!)

 

The sole reason many coaches are there is for their own enjoyment.

 

I was part of the local junior soccer scene and the coaches mostly were there because they got a thrill out of winning full stop, One U10's coach said to me he couldn't enjoy his sunday dinner if the team had lost.  

 

The coaches were supposed to be "all incluslve" under the FA charter, but if some new lad came along who was a good player then a regular lad had to go. That lad may have been just playing with his mates but he had to step down because winning was everything.

 

Coaches would pack in if the team was losing all the time and it then became hard to find anyone to replace them, until a parent eventually said "I'll do it" because if he didn't his kid didn't get to play anymore.

 

Junior coaches are hard to come by as they are inpaid volunteers and it's hard work and you get stick from the parents, the only fun for many of them is to play "Alex Ferguson" and go find the best kids possible (then you don't need to coach) to win as many games as possible (then it doesn't spoil your sunday dinner).

 

The answer to a difficult question does not lie in saying that junior RL coaches should change their style and attitude because most will walk away before putting the kids first.

[BroncoFan]

St Helens have a natural footy player coming through in the very talented halfback Danny Richardson, but apparently they wanted to sign Daniel Mortimor who is absolute garbage. Who is doing the recruitment there, still Mike Rush ?

[Saint Toppy]

St Helens have a natural footy player coming through in the very talented halfback Danny Richardson, but apparently they wanted to sign Daniel Mortimor who is absolute garbage. Who is doing the recruitment there, still Mike Rush ?

Sadly Cunningham has full control over recruitment, and believe me nearly every Saints fan I know thinks Richardson should get his shot next year and not waste money on 2nd rate players like Mortimer.

[GeordieSaint]

Sadly Cunningham has full control over recruitment, and believe me nearly every Saints fan I know thinks Richardson should get his shot next year and not waste money on 2nd rate players like Mortimer.

Cunningham would probably coach the talent of Richardson and turn him into a hooker anyway.

[Exiled Wiganer]

".....every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" ........... because of their win at all costs coaching style...."

 

Er, I think you've been watching Super League on those Sundays!

 

It's straight from the Shaun Wayne book of coaching chapter 12 "How to Win the Beggar Next Week, as Well." Or was it in chapter 15 "Be a Chuffin' Champion!" Obviously the words in bold have been changed for the sake of decorum and innocent eyes that post on here.

 

That's nonsense. Wigan as a club continue to develop half backs. We have Williams and Shorrocks, Sam T likely to go back there, and brought Hampshire on until a combination of his limitations and attitude meant we couldn't take him any further. Powell is also potentially another half back. If every club could nurture as much Briiish talent as Wigan we would be far better off.

Is it ironic that we are paying Wasps for the "privilege" of using their ground, who pay Eastmond not to play our game? Or is it simply symptomatic of the level of stupidity and willful blindness that besets our game?

[Blind side johnny]

Trouble is...we're putting our lads up against freaks of the game in thurston & johnson..and saying our lads aren't good enough...pretty daft really

 

 

How many times was Thurston rejected by NRL clubs for being too small? It takes a very special kind of character, skill and determination to overcome that, and such people don't simply drop off a conveyor belt. They are special and owe nothing to the system in which they play and everything to their own special abilities, which they were never taught or coached.

[MatthewWoody]

Game in England is too small and too focus on the forwards, isn't it? 

[Oxford]

St Helens have a natural footy player coming through in the very talented halfback Danny Richardson, but apparently they wanted to sign Daniel Mortimor who is absolute garbage. Who is doing the recruitment there, still Mike Rush ?

No it's Charlie Cairoli      from Leigh, he's always had it in for you lot!

[Oxford]

That's nonsense. Wigan as a club continue to develop half backs. We have Williams and Shorrocks, Sam T likely to go back there, and brought Hampshire on until a combination of his limitations and attitude meant we couldn't take him any further. Powell is also potentially another half back. If every club could nurture as much Briiish talent as Wigan we would be far better off.

Is it ironic that we are paying Wasps for the "privilege" of using their ground, who pay Eastmond not to play our game? Or is it simply symptomatic of the level of stupidity and willful blindness that besets our game?

This phrase apart I agree Williams looked like the real business against Scotland if he can do this against the Roos we can say this thread is not entirely accurate.

 

You're defending Wigan against an attack that never happened Exiled, it always about the game as a whole. And a reflection of the parallels between attitudes in the mini and mod game and SL coaching patterns allied with winning at all costs, and whether this is negative for the game generally.

 

And that is a superb comment on our relationship with yawn largely one way traffic in terms of benefits.

[Allora]

How many times was Thurston rejected by NRL clubs for being too small? It takes a very special kind of character, skill and determination to overcome that, and such people don't simply drop off a conveyor belt. They are special and owe nothing to the system in which they play and everything to their own special abilities, which they were never taught or coached.

Is Thurston small?

He is 13.5 stone

5′10″

Hardly a midget.

He may have bulked up but I doubt he has got taller.

[deluded pom?]

Is Thurston small?

He is 13.5 stone

5′10″

Hardly a midget.

He may have bulked up but I doubt he has got taller.

How old was he when he played in the Bulldogs' GF winning team and gave his medal to Steve Price?

[Phil]

To a point yes but every Sunday morning I see coaches with the "give it to the big lad" mentality alienating parents and players alike because of their win at all costs coaching style rather than developing handling skills and support play in their players.

Sunday evenings on Twitter are funny with coaches and parents boasting about unbeaten seasons and huge victories at u7's up to u11's in supposedly non competitive games. It's very rare that you hear about skill levels improving or defence splitting passes.

Absolutely true I remember Underbank Rangers juniors a few years ago whose game plan was Give it to Eorl"

[Hvy wg]

Is Thurston small?

He is 13.5 stone

5′10″

Hardly a midget.

He may have bulked up but I doubt he has got taller.

I love it when people say that a player is small. Do they realise how big they are? Thurston is around 87kg and lean. This is not 87kg full of fat. Next to "regular" people, almost all rugby players are huge, even the "small" ones.