ParisSurtout

Since England can take 24 players on tour, then it makes sense for the selectors to choose England born players only for the starting squad. But Heighington lives in Australia, and he should be considered as back up, and eligible for call up if there is a serious run of injuries on tour. To reject him under such possible cicumstances would be self-destructive.

Kris Radlinski was the best English full back of the Super League era. But that tells you something right there. Would anyone seriously put Radlinski in the same class as his Australian contemporaries -- young Darren Lockyer or Anthony Minichiello?

Australia was not really renowned for brilliant full backs until Clive Churchill, "The Little Master," appeared in the 1950s. But he was out on his own with no competitor within Australia. Of his contemporaries only the Frenchman Puig Aubert could challenge Churchill's status. Then came the 1960s, when the old boring standby, Keith Barnes (Balmain's brilliant goal kicker and solid defender, but hopeless attacker) got shunted aside by Les Johns, Graeme Langlands and Ken Thornett. The talent at full back in Australia was so rich that they moved the now Immortal Langlands to centre, so as to accommodate Thornett and Johns in the Kangaroo squads. Australia has always had several top class attacking and defending fullbacks in their system. Russell Fairfax and Graham Eadie in the 1970s, Garry Jack and Gary Belcher in the 1980s, Gary Belcher, Dale Shearer, Andrew Ettingshausen, Tim Brasher, Robbie O'Davis, and Darren Lockyer in the 1990s, Darren Lockyer, Brett Hodgson, Anthony Minichiello and Matt Bowen in the first half of the 2000s. I cannot recall any time since the 1950s when Great Britain had a full back who was in the same class as the best from Australia. But since 2005 it has been a glut of full back talent in Australia. Today I think we can agree that Clint Greenshields and Brett Hodgson are the best attacking full backs in Super League. So I could have named at least twelve, perhaps fifteen Aussie full backs who were better than the best in England. There must be something wrong with the junior recruitment, the way the game is played, or the physical environment (weather and grounds), that keeps England from producing abundant great talent in this playing position.

Here is how the Catalans might line up next season, given the changes to the squad: Clint Greenshields Freddy Vaccari, Ben Farrar, Jean-Philippe Baile, Vincent Duport, Thomas Bosc Scott Dureau Gregory Mounis Sebastien Raguin, Dane Carlaw, David Ferriol, Ian Henderson, Remy Casty Bench: Jamal Fakir, Cyrille Gossard, Jerome Guisset, Lopini Paea * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Primary reserves: Cyrille Stacul, Jason Baiteiri, Sebastien Martins, Chris Walker(?), William Bartheau, Tony Gigot, David Guasch If the coach is any good --- and I think that Trent Robinson will be very good --- then this team is definitely playoff material, probably top six at least. A lot will also hinge on the performances of Scott Dureau. Should he not perform as hoped, expect Farrar to move to stand off and Bosc to scrum half, with Duport going to centre and Stacul to wing. The only problem I see is lack of quality cover for Henderson.

Heighington had a tremendous game for Wests Tigers against the Sydney Roosters. I would still pick Ellis, Burgess and Westwood as my top three second rowers for England, and O'Loughlin as loose forward. But Heighington is next best and needs to be in the squad as cover for injuries to any of the above.

People don't seem to realise that "the Australians" are in fact nothing more than the ARL CEO Geoff Carr. The man is a card carrying moron. Everyone who has an IQ above room temperature, who has met Carr, wonders why he was allowed to take on any job more demnading than that of official doorman at the NRL. He is also like the clown who used to run the rugby league in Russia, Yevgenii Klebanov, who wanted all the best players in his club, Lokomotiv, and said "###### the competitiion." So the Russian competition was completely buggered. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Come November the Australian rugby league willl be in the hands of a new commission, and Geoff Carr will no longer have a say in anything. All the junkets to the UK and France that he and his boss Colin Love used to enjoy will be over, along with his massive and disgusting wage bill. Hopefully whoever is the representative of the commission at RLIF meetings will iron out all of these anomalies that have been discussed in this thread, and Richard Lewis will have some influence on the way things are done.

Ten best full backs in the world, based on current form: Billy Slater Jarryd Hayne Josh Dugan Darius Boyd Lachlan Coote Matt Bowen Anthony Minichiello Preston Campbell Lance Hohaia Luke Patten Paul Wellens would never be chosen over any of the above ten by any NRL club. The only bright spots for England are the possible repositioning of Sam Tomkins (thereby weakening the halves) or else promotion of the Melbourne-trained Gareth Widdop. Why are English full backs so unimpressive in attack? It is a long historical oddity. Perhaps it is a result of the soggy grounds on which rugby league used to be played in winter. Australians had firmer grounds, which favoured agile and fleet footed runners. Yet after fourteen years of summer rugby league, England has been unable to produce a top quality attacking and defensive full back. So the question still remains without a satisfactory answer. The lack of classy full backs, along with the lack of classy attacking centres, is the main reason why England cannot beat Australia in a three match series or in a Tri Nations or a World Cup.

Gallagher's is the best place for a drink. Lots of visitors from London and the south of France like it there.

He is not a replacement for Greenshields, but he is cover for Greenshields.

Ben Farrar is a young utility back who prefers to play centre. He is at least the equal of any English centre. In the event that Super League's best full back Clint Greenshields is injured, Farrar can cover that position well.

Either the English are somewhat impoverished and tight with their money, or they lack deep passion for their club and their game. The best way to see this is by looking at the the comparison of England and Australia for the first weekend of the the finals. Finals Weekend 1 SL crowds: St Helens vs Warrington 14,632 Hull FC vs Hull KR 17,699 Huddersfield vs Crusaders 5,869 Wigan vs Leeds 9,987 Total: 48,187 Final Weekend 1 NRL crowds: Gold Coast vs NZ Warriors 27,046 Wests Tigers vs Sydney Roosters 33,315 Penrith Panthers vs Canberra Raiders 16,668 St. George Dragons vs Manly Sea Eagles 15,574 Total: 92,605 So the NRL attracted nearly double the crowds of the Super League. It is true that Super League has nothing like the mass media publicity of the NRL. But that does not explain why there were only 9,987 at the Wigan vs Leeds game. All the fans of the two best supported clubs knew the match was on. But they just failed to show up. Moreover the NRL games were all live on terrestrial television (Channel 9). No one had to pay to watch the TV. Clearly there are more Aussies who follow rugby league, and they are more passionate about their clubs than people from the northern so-called heartlands of English rugby league. That is why Australia is number 1.

Finals Weekend 1 SL crowds: St Helens vs Warrington 14,632 Hull FC vs Hull KR 17,699 Huddersfield vs Crusaders 5,869 Wigan vs Leeds 9,987 Total: 48,187 Final Weekend 1 NRL crowds: Gold Coast vs NZ Warriors 27,046 Wests Tigers vs Sydney Roosters 33,315 Penrith Panthers vs Canberra Raiders 16,668 St. George Dragons vs Manly Sea Eagles 15,574 Total: 92,605 So the NRL attracted nearly double the crowds of the Super League. It is true that Super League has nothing like the mass media publicity of the NRL. But that does not explain why there were only 9,987 at the Wigan vs Leeds game. All the fans of the two best supported clubs knew the match was on. But they just failed to show up. Moreover the NRL games were all live on terrestrial television (Channel 9). No one had to pay to watch the TV. Clearly there are more Aussies who follow rugby league, and they are more passionate about their clubs than people from the northern so-called heartlands of English rugby league. That is why Australia is number 1. The only hope for the northern hemisphere is to get more passionate French people involved. That entails giving them their own Super League clubs in Toulouse in 2012, and later in Paris.

Australia's leading rugby league caller Ray Warren just announced on Channel 9 that Ben Farrar is going to Catalans. Both Ray Warren and Phillip Gould praised Farrar's performance in a well beaten Manly side today -- both in attack and defence. This is very good news for what should be a resurgent Catalans Dragons team in 2011.

The World Cup is an occasion when everyone not in a major sporting nation's squad is encouraged to find another playing nation to help them along. So the adjustment after the WC seems reasonable. Fien's "grannygate" was a different case, one involving presentation of false information about his grandparents. Incidentally, you did not spell "Lewis" correctly in the title. "Leiwis" is either Dutch or Belgian. Only yanto will be pleased. You can fix it by editing on "Full Edit."

Those are fair points.

New update on NRL crowds: Gold Coast vs NZ Warriors 27,046 Wests Tigers vs Sydney Roosters 33,315 Penrith Panthers vs Canberra Raiders 16,668 St. George Dragons vs Manly Sea Eagles 15,574 Total: 92,603 The final update figure in the SL weekend will come later today.

Did you watch Shaun Kenny-Dowell singlehandedly win the preliminary final match last night against Wests Tigers (after Carney, Pearce and Anasta had created the draw)? I guess not. Did you watch him score against Manly or Cronulla? Oh, I forgot, I cannot quiz you. And as for those pesky stats about the number of tries he has scored and number of line breaks he has made, obviously they are irrelevant to any judgment of the player. The Sun Herald journalists were obviously more impressed with them than need be when they voted him into their Dream Team. Perhaps you should approach the NRL personally and advise the organisation to stop bamboozling people with data, and suggest that the NRL just seek your opinion of players, which conveniently needs no objective evidence to support it.

As of yesterday Shaun Kenny-Dowell was NRL's equal top try scorer (along with Newcastle winger Akuile Uate) At the end of regular season he was equal second along with winger Morris and centre Folau. He was also equal third best player in terms of line breaks (behind wingers Uate and Morris). http://www.nrl.com/nrlhome/tabid/10182/default.aspx Not a top centre, eh? Slightly above average eh? I suggest you all watch some more, learn some more, watch some more, learn some more then get back to me.

Yes. Skilled Park Stadium capacity 27,500 More updates Sunday night.

Latest update on NRL crowds: Gold Coast vs NZ Warriors 27,046 Wests Tigers vs Sydney Roosters 33,315 Penrith Panthers vs Canberra Raiders 16,668 Total: 77,029 Latest update on SL crowds: St Helens vs Warrington 14,632 Hull FC vs Hull KR 17,699 Huddersfield vs Crusaders 5,869 Total: 38,200

For those who did not watch the Wests Tigers vs Sydney Roosters final, Gareth Ellis went over the Roosters try line with the ball three times in the first 13 minutes, but did not get a try awarded. Then a few minutes later he was put on report for a high tackle. The other English player, lock/loose forward Chris Heighington, had an outstanding game. He may have played his way into the England 17 for the Four Nations. But watch the game. It was an epic. From the 55th minute on it was unbelievable.

Not even handed at all Parky. 1. Catalans has one of the best core fan bases in Super League. 5,000 kept showing up for home games when the team was running last with nothing to play for. When the team improves, as it surely will under new coach Trent Robinson, with exciting new players Ian Henderson, Lopini Paea and Ben Farrar, the local fan base will be augmented up to at least the 7,500 prior to Kevin Walters, and quite possibly higher given the new stand with enhanced view, enhanced facilities (e.g. restaurant), and increased ground capacity (11,000). 2. On what basis do you assert that Toulouse has no finances in place? 3. The "below average" Toulouse performance was not a reflection of the playing ability of the team, but rather the poor coaching ability of Gilles Dumas. But their Championship performance is irrelevant anyway. Once they join SL, as you well know, both quality of player ranks and of coach will be bumped up into another stratosphere.

This is a blessing because the Wakefield patient is terminally ill, and it is going to make it easier for the RFL to just drop Wakefield from SL. The stadium acceptable and finances sound cappucino sippers of Widnes are ready to replace Wakefield. After the coup de grace the only difficult decision for the RFL will be whether either of the other problem wracked clubs Castleford (stadium) or Hull KR (finances) will be retained, or dropped to make way for a French club.

Gold Coast vs NZ Warriors should get 25,000 and Wests vs Sydney Roosters 30,000 - 32,000. Penrith will get over 15,000. St George vs Manly will be only 16-18,000 because Manly has no chance. So Hull FC, Wigan and St Helens should do better than the two lesser NRL crowds, but worse than the two bigger NRL crowds. Huddersfield crowd will be a bomb that brings down the average. What a pity.

Interesting article on Gareth Ellis and his father in Australia. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl...r-1225916784263