Exiled Wiganer
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Posts posted by Exiled Wiganer
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26 minutes ago, Dave T said:
St Helens are clearly the strongest club around at the moment, however the last decade is quite interesting.
LLS - a good measure of success. Saints have won 4 LLS. We have had 7 different winners in the last 10 years. That's more than the previous 10 years.
Grand Finals. Saints have won 5, We've had 3 different winners. It's disappointing that more of those LLS winners didn't manage to win the GF (including my own team!) - but they contributed to excellent finals in many cases.
Challenge Cup - Saints have won 1. We've had 6 different winners.
So overall Saints have clearly been very successful, and for a sustained period of time, but we do have a decent level of variety across British RL. We don't need to be quite so negative based on the fact Saints are on a great run right now.
Look across 25 years, and the stats clearly show an extraordinarily extended period of dominance. In fact, the spreading it around point illustrates how one club has utterly dominated.
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2 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:
So with that would you extend the number's of overseas player's at each club?
It is quite obvious that there is not enough home grown talent to spread about hence all SL teams already using the full quota of the allowed 7 non feds.
It is arguable that we don’t have enough home grown talent, but I don’t see the answer as being more overseas players. The answer is hard work, development officers and putting the onus on improving participation levels. The hard work - that places like Leigh and Wigan do week in, and week out. The development officers that should be in the south east, and the north east, and every area in the traditional heartlands that has ever had a club. It’s a hard road, and a long road, but it’s the only way forward for our game. If only we had another David Oxley…
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1 hour ago, Saint Toppy said:
To deem it a success or a failure you have to consider what it was designed to do. It was partly to stop a handful of rich clubs just buying up all the best players in the league (so there was no repeat of the pre SL era of Wigan dominance where they just went out and bought anyone they wanted like Hanley, Gregory, Lydon, Offiah, Platt etc.) SL wanted a more even distribution of the talent and an encouragement for clubs to develop more of their own players and not just try to buy the best to gain success.
To some extent the Cap has worked, very few clubs mass buy players these days to try and win trophies (bar Warrington
). Its no coincidence that the most successful SL clubs are the ones who switched their attention to developing their own youngsters and having pathways to bringing them into the 1st team.
The next main purpose of the SC was to try and stop clubs 'bankrupting' themselves in the pursuit of success. You only have to look at Wigan where their star player wage bill was huge compared to their income and in the end it almost bankrupted them and cost their their stadium home. Unfortunately the SC hasn't stopped clubs from financial disaster in the SL era but i'm sure it stopped many more from spending way beyond their means.
So back to the question of has the SC worked - to some extent i'd say yes it has. However where it is now failing IMO, is that it hasn't kept up with events outside the sport in the UK. It hasn't kept pace with the cost of living & salaries and it definately hasn't kept up with other sports and competitors like the NRL and Union.
I do think there's still a place for the SC in RL in the UK bit it definately needs a full review and updating.
This tedious re writing of history… Wigan did not bankrupt themselves, they had debts far far below the level that Saints have shrugged off. Saints have benefited from an infinitely rich board, which you might consider their birthright, but without it you’d be playing in a condemned dump. Wigan made money year after year in our brief era of dominance, and invested in the best players they could afford. Which is what sport and life is like.
That it so upsets you after 25 years of Saints domination is pathetic. Wigan’s wins were genuine wins, hard won through investment and ambition, and dragged the whole game up to a professional level. We wouldn’t have been in a position to launch super league at all without the game’s profile having been so high during our glory years.
If your point is that you so dislike Wigan you consider their 8 years of dominance is different - and worse - than Saints’ 25 year domination, then just write that. From your perspective, it’s a perfectly valid stance, but you don’t need to distort reality to fit it. Indeed, our era was already over by the time SL came round. Finally, if you consider success to be stopping Wigan dominating, then that’s fine, but 30 trophies and many more to come show we replaced one short lived dynasty with an eternal empire.
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5 hours ago, Oxford said:
If it would change anything I'd say get rid of it ....but it won't.
Are we all agreed what the cap was for?
I always considered it an attempt to stop clubs over-reaching themselves and going to the wall. It has certainly never evened up the comp.
I like argue that it has evened up the competition. If you took Saints out of super league, then you would have an excellent competition between the other 11 teams. We already know who will win again this year and next, but saints can only beat one team per week so that leaves 5 other competitive games. Having accepted the inevitable there is much potential fun to be had.
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I think the cap should be removed simply because we are competing with other competitions and clearly failing. We can’t afford to keep our best players. Saints’ era of success has been 25 years and counting, so the cap is down to the abject failure of management everywhere else. Given the huge wealth available to them, removing the cap wouldn’t affect them in the slightest. So ditch it but not because Saints are going to dominate for the next 5 years (at least).
I also have a bugbear about the value of the cap being distorted by playing games with tax, which would give a board made up of cross border financial experts a huge advantage (as we saw with image rights and offshore payments back in the Sculthorpe era).
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1 hour ago, GeordieSaint said:
Depends on the team. Stick Roby in the team alongside Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe et al at their peak (2000ish) and we wouldn’t need Cunningham.
(Picking the best Saints SL team is very very hard…)
Indeed it is - there have been very very many iterations. Everyone else have been also rans for a very long time. And that’s in a salary capped competition. Saints’ board must laugh at how weak the opposition has been for so very long.
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1 hour ago, Szymala said:
Manly had won the '87 GF against Canberra just 10 days before playing Wigan at Central Park - of course they were Australian champions (or premiers). 14-13 it is.
All Wigan wins needs to be expunged from history for some reason
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5 hours ago, WN83 said:
Fair enough and I’m happy common sense can be applied to tackles like that. We’ll see if that continues throughout the season when it comes to the disciplinary and fans across the board. It’s been too inconsistent on both sides previously.
My money is Topster going on one if any Saints player gets hit by a similar tackle.
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6 hours ago, SalfordSlim said:
Out of interest who are you dropping out of Welsby, French or Makinson to "find a place" for Field?
Which of those 3 is he better than?
Whilst he does some amazing things, he's got some weaknesses in his game. Moreso than the others mentioned IMO.
I hadn’t got that far, but Field is a truly special player to watch.
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14 minutes ago, Just Browny said:
I'm still sulking that the city of Hull hosted one of the best World Cup quarter finals and hardly anyone showed up. So much potential.
You and me both, my friend.
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7 minutes ago, Davo5 said:
They’ve certainly been more consistent for decades but far above,no.
The stats suggest that they have. Look at what they’ve won - by the end of this year they could have 30 major titles. Far far above the rest. Their absolute dominance is disguised by Leeds’ being serial October peakers (not to denigrate that at all, save only to point out the week in week out dominance). Pretty much twice as many as Wigan, and a lot of those Wigan wins weren’t when we were the dominant team, aside from in the Maguire era. It’s up to the other clubs to raise their game, and I hope that they can, but even if they do now, it’ll be years before they’ll challenge consistently.
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2 hours ago, Trojan said:
Saints were and are exceptional. That's not to say they are a typical SL side. They are currently head and shoulders above the rest. I reckon they could hold their own in the NRL, I don't think you could say that of the rest.
I agree they are so far above everyone else, and have been for decades, pretty much. What we do occasionally see is a team gelling sufficiently for a year that they can be competitive - like Catalans, and occasionally Wigan - who then fall away. It is wonderful for them, but a damning indictment on the rest of the league, particularly those clubs who ultimately have the same or similar resources. I hope that one day at least one other club will beat them because they have raised their standards to Saints’ level, as opposed to Saints being in decline. If not, they could beat St George’s record for consecutive wins.
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This isn’t meant as a criticism, but I do find it odd that FC can get more people to watch them than Penrith - Saints. Fantastic crowd, and I hope that there’ll be plenty more of that size. Over 25k in 2 days turning out in Hull, long may it last! I also wonder whether this year we will have a league of Saints, daylight, daylight and then 11 fairly evenly matched teams. Which could be fun.
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40 minutes ago, Madrileño said:
OK. What actions then?
The cricket was over pretty quickly, wasn’t it…
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13 minutes ago, yipyee said:
70% of people don't know what they are on about, can everyone stop kissing ###### the NRL now and admit that saints are now the best team in the world not the mugs at penrith?!!?
I thought Cumbrian Fanatic was making a very clear point, and entirely consistent with your perspective.
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It may have been covered already, but I wanted to say how moved I was by the Wire tribute to Brianna. They really are a classy classy club.
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By my rough reckoning Saints have won nearly 30 trophies in the Super League era (and been runner up a lot of other times). Their success today is another step in a 25 year domination of the game (somewhat disguised for an amazing period by Leeds’ wonderful ability to win Grand Finals having been less than stellar until September). I would hesitate to suggest that this is the culmination, but it is a high point among many, and it would not surprise me if they go back and do it again next year. And this in a salary capped sport.
They are Bayern Munich versus the rest of the German league, but on a level playing field. They are better than everyone else from front to back office, and have put together a team which will be as good if not better for the next 5 years. You could make a strong case for every England qualified Saints player being selected for their country.
Everyone else is failing, not just short term, but over decades.
I used to think that it would be a good thing if the NRL bought SL, as they could instil professionalism across the competition, but increasingly I am wondering whether Saints should actually be asked to share their wisdom and good practice with the rest of the league. It might take a decade, but how good would it be to watch a Super League in which Saints’ standards are the norm. Of course, it’s not necessarily in Saints’ best interests, and they can carry on laughing while Wigan sign another never was, or put another 12 stone prop on a long term contract, but just imagine what that league would look like…
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1 minute ago, Damien said:
I think today also showed yet again what a difference Roby would have made if he'd have made himself available for England at the World Cup. His quick pass and organisation is just on a different level.
Add Walmsley too with his go forward and Lomax with Williams in the halves and Welsby at full back and its a much stronger team (granted Wane may not have done that last bit).
It’s heart breaking that Roby didn’t see the World Cup as important enough to put his hand up to play. Not that he owes us anything, just that, as today showed he’s 10 times better than the alternatives.
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3 minutes ago, Davo5 said:
I really rate Peet but I’m not sure his coaching ability can overcome the clubs/Radlinski’s deeply flawed player recruitment/retention policy.
Looking at the length of the contracts, even if we got our act together 2025 would be the earliest we would see any tangible improvement. What sums up our complete inability to bridge the gap is that while Saints have had Roby, we have had Powell for 10 years!!
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It has been a chastening day for Wigan as a club (though a great one for the NH game). They lost to a much better team today, and the score if anything flattered WIgan. The atmosphere came over really well and it would be great to see those sorts of crowd on a regular basis. They look a club on the up.
Every part of the Wigan club needs to consider why there is a yawning chasm between us and Saints. We have good schools, good juniors, and can spend up to the cap, and yet we are incapable of putting a side on the field with more than a couple of players that would get into the Saints team. As Saints have been excellent for over 25 years now, and a team which will only improve, it is folly to expect them to fall back to our level. I don’t know how you put right structural issues on that scale. Hopefully Matty Peet does.
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4 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:
Nah, he’s a wind-up merchant in a long line of irritating little half backs. We love him for it. Definitely the sort of player you’d hate in another team though
So winding up is fine now? It’s a moral maze.
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For those hiding behind the sofas at the prospect of more moral indignities, while smithies is off the pitch he won’t be able to ruffle anybody’s hair.
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Just now, Fevrover said:
Wigan did their fair share against Saints last season especially on Welsby, the irony lol.
More than our fair share. We’re a disgrace.
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Just now, Davo5 said:
Wigan were awful in that last 20.
And this is our best 17.
I think we can safely book holidays for mid October.
Has the Salary cap failed
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
I think the answer to the small player is investment, investment and more investment in increasing it, so that 3 clubs do not dominate that. We must both grow the pool and grow the ability to pay rates which are competitive with our rivals.