nathanwood7

I'll certainly be changing my household's champagne supplier after hearing this news!

The quota is becoming a bit of a red herring seeing as though it is more and more becoming a case of the only Aussies who want to come to Super League, being no better than the British lads already here. The days of the Jamie Lyons, Matt Kings etc of the world joining seem to have gone for the time being

If Brough had said, "I'm not Scottish, I'm English, and despite missing out so far, I'm absolutely desperate to force myself in to the reckoning for the England team and fulfill a lifelong dream of representing my nation in a World Cup, and I'm prepared to get my head down and perform to the best of my ability each week to reach this goal" do you think McNamara would still be ignoring him after this season? Do you think his flitting between nations and throwing his toys out of the pram when not selected rather than adopting this committed approach harmed his chances of selection? Either way, it's somewhat tragic that arguably the two most naturally skillful halves of the last 20 years (Briers and Brough), have both not represented England/GB in a major international, whilst solid pros such as Orr, Horne, Tony Smith, Deacon etc have all had a chance.

Very good points. Many people are very passionate about rugby league and about some of the perceived injustices to the game over the last 100 years which have held the game back from being where they believe it deserves to be. This has made some people (myself probably included if I'm being honest) very defensive about the sport with a feeling that the game is on trial every week as it tries to prove itself, particularly on a big occasion such as this. If it fails to do so, by delivering an awful game, then there is a real sense of crushing disappointment at missing an opportunity.

My problem with this is the fundamental lack of leadership being shown by the RFL. The licensing system wasn't universally popular but the RFL showed clear leadership in saying this is why we are doing this, and this is how it is going to work. A few years later it seems the RFL do not any longer have confidence in their own ability to map the way forward for the game. Instead they are trying devolve responsibility and reach agreement by committee, with the RFL seemingly forming it's views as it goes along. It's embarrassing having to watch this aired in public as every week the latest brainwave trickles out in the press - the league will split after 13 rounds, the super league name will be disbanded etc. Whilst this is being spun as "consultation" it strikes me as obvious that the RFL should not be consulting on something in this way in the run up to a World Cup which should be getting all the focus. The fact that an announcement is due in September - a month before the World Cup begins is frankly ludicrous and threatens to take attention away from what should be a fantastic event. If the RFL expect us to believe that the current lack of direction is due to a planned consultation process rather than them desperately scrambling around for answers, then at the very least this timing indicates gross incompetence. Finally, if the inference from all this is that licensing has not worked then there should be some accountability for the decision makers who brought the system in. Instead it is the same people who are now trying to change course in a totally different direction. If this fails will they be given another chance? And another? Of course by not offering any leadership and letting the clubs decide instead there will always be someone else to blame for any future failings. The RFL governance structure needs strengthening so that the leadership is fully accountable for the direction that it is steering the game in.

If you are saying that the NRL is not as intense as the Super League then we will have to agree to disagree. If Isaac John is at the top of the Dally M table and the end of the season it will mean that he has had a large number of top performances against a wide range of top quality teams. There won't be too many "easy wins" in there, and not as many as there would be in Super League in my opinion. Again I don't want to make my criticism seem too directed at Sammut as a player, but using him as an example and you can see that Sammut has been involved in games against Leeds, Warrington, Wigan and Huddersfield in the last 2 months and in each game his team has been thrashed and has averaged less than 2 tries per game, with Sammut not particularly standing out other for than a number of missed tackles. I suspect Sammuts AG points were more likely to have come in the recent big wins against Salford and London Broncos than in those games which to me illustrates that the quality of opposition has to be considered when looking at the top performing player in Super League - given the massive disparity between the standard of the teams.

I wasn't trying to pick on Jarrad Sammut - it's a wider point I'm trying to make. Also, I think it's widely accepted that the NRL is a more intense competition, something which has only been exasperated by the top 8 play off system which has led to the decent teams being able to cruise through the regular season without having to be at their best each week in full knowledge that they will be in with a shout of the Grand Final at the year end. It depends what type of award you want I guess, but I believe the award has failed to capture the imagination of the wider rugby league public, and part of this is down to a credibility issue when you look at some of the names who are or aren't in the top scorers.

I agree the award has failed to grip the imagination of rugby league fans and it's not hard to see why when Jarrod Sammut is rated in the top 5 players. Has Sammut been better than any Warrington players this year or does he just stand out in a very mediocre Bradford side? The history of the award has been littered with strong scores for the key playmaker in some of the more average teams (Brough, Chase, Dureau, Dobson, Saummut etc). Unfortunately our competition does not have the week-in week-out intensity of the NRL and therefore having a parallel award which recognises performances every week on an equal weighting, is flawed. A performance in a "big game" (i.e. v one of the big teams, or in a semi final or play-off match etc) should have more weighting in deciding the player of the year, than being the star man in a 60 point thrashing of London Broncos.