Souths looking to sign Luke Thompson

[Lowdesert]

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

That is a hard nosed business decision no doubt, but that's kind of a separate discussion as to the quality of the league. 

The voids created by the best players leaving will always be filled but they aren't being replaced by better, and we aren't operating at a level where we have a surplus of quality players. 

Yes Watkins leaving will be filled by Newman and Hurrell, but we still have some pretty poor centres out there. Yes the gap left by Hall is filled by Handley but he isn't as good as Hall was, and even if he were he isn't the worst winger in the league so would have replaced an inferior player somewhere else. 

Merrin is a quality player , we still have some, but the amount or often to the level we had previously. Leeds 2005 had NRL Winner Marcus Bai, NRL Grand final player, NRL second Rower of the year, NZ international Ali Lauitiiti, Queensland and Australia international Chris McKenna, Andrew Dunemann and Samoa and NZ international WIllie Poaching.

Bradford had NRL winner Ben Harris, Dally M Junior player of the year Mick Withers, NZ international Shontayne Hape, NZ International Lesley Vainakolo, Queensland and Australia international Brad Meyers, and NZ international Joe Vagana.

Compared to now there is no club with a stock of overseas players of the quality of either of those clubs. 

How ‘damaged’ is SL though with these 11 players?  It isn’t and we also need to compare the many imports who didn’t perform - that’s a decent list too.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dunbar]

8 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I didn't include WIddop but Burgess is someone we have lost. 

George and Tom would have developed in to amongst the best players over here and improved the quality of it, we are poorer for not having them here. When people ask where the next Jamie Peacock or Stuart Fielden are, the answer is Australia. 

Watkins and Hall would still be amongst the best in this country and we are poorer for losing them, that we got some time from them doesn't alter that. 

We  have lost 11 world class players that would have improved our comp and we are poorer for not having them, there is no getting away from that fact. 

No, you said "taking the best 11 players out of the league" and I pointed out that some of them were never in the league and some were not world class when they left.

You were being overly dramatic. 

[Dave T]

Or of course we could celebrate the players we do have. Fantastic talent like Connor, Austin, Makinson, Clark, Tomkins, Gigot, Hastings, Fifita and so on. 

Of course we would just want every world class player playing in the UK, but that isnt happening, so we crack on working hard to attract more investment and change cap rules like they have to try and retain and sign more world class players. 

The NRL is an extremely wealthy comp, we may never catch them financially, but we do everything we can. 

No good just moaning about it. There are plenty of brilliant athletes in SL, focus on them.

[Dunbar]

 

11 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

1 of them was never in the league and I didn't count Widdop. 

One of them was in the league simply not in first team, he was on the conveyor belt coming through and was taken from it. 

The rest all were in the league and would still be amongst the best in the league now if they were playing here but for some reason you are contorting yourself not to include some of them. 

I mention 11 players in my post on English players in the NRL... including Widdop.

You immediately follow that with "Taking the best 11 players out of the league is going to damage it. "

I then point out that some of them were never even in the league and now you accuse me of contortions!

[Dunbar]

11 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Come play and watch Rugby League in the UK, you might get to see some players worthy of playing the premier rugby competition.

I was referring to player attraction. Stop building straw man arguments. 

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Except this thread is about losing them, and people for some reason pretending this is a good thing. 

Also, people aren't stupid. We aren't going to trick them in to thinking SL is better than it is by simply ignoring the fact we are losing, and no longer attracting the best RL players. 

The vast vast majority of people wont spend time comparing their imports from 15 years ago to those now.

Some clubs would be favourable.

As much as I liked Chris Leikvoll and Danny Lima, I prefer our current batch.

[Dunbar]

2 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Hence me saying those 11 players (bar Widdop)

The other 10 were all in the league, yet you are contorting to exclude Burgess because he was young, Hall because he is old, Watkins because he is 28

Are you seriously arguing that George Burgess (who has not played a single game of senior Rugby League for a club in this country) is included in the statement "Taking the best 11 players out of the league is going to damage it."

[Dunbar]

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

Yes, im saying that George Burgess would have come through at BRadford and be one of the best players in SL had he not moved to the NRL and SL is poorer for not keeping him. 

Which goes all the way back to my first post on this. We can categorise players like Widdop and G. Burgess differently to others as they didn't play senior rugby here so they have not objectively weakened the rugby we watch by being removed because they didn't actually play in Super League anyway.

My post was about putting the current English NRL based players into context.

Again, you are being argumentative for the sake of it.

[Dunbar]

5 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Widdop is different, Burgess was a Bradford player, he wasn't there yet but he was coming through. We are objectively weakened because he isn't here. 

Your post was a contortion to minimise the loss of these players and pretend players who we have obviously lost haven't been lost. 

The idea that as long as the NRL take them earlier enough then aren't really a loss is silly. 

No, my post was a consideration of the different types of players we have lost and at what stages of their careers/development they were to have a considered discussion on the impact that has on the quality of Super League.

Disagree with that assessment all you want but please don't try and argue that a player who never played Super League was one of the best 11 players in Super League and then have the temerity to accuse me of contortions. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

I don’t think we will ever see an Ellery quality player in our competition for more than a few years, and don’t think we will attract the Brett Kenny/Peter Sterling calibre players. Nor will we ever sign a Jonathan Davies quality union player.

We watch sport to be inspired - we watch to see “how did they do that?” players. Players like the Wiganer Luke Thompson. Or Wigan trained John Bateman. At Wigan, unless Hardaker recovers his top form, the only class acts I can see are Manfredi (and god knows whether he will ever come back) and Gildart, who has his eye on an NRL move as soon as he can. The dispiriting effect of knowing that we will neither be able to sign or retain the stars whose feats thrilled me in the 80s and 90s sucks much of the joy out of watching SL for me. 

[Lowdesert]

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

Except this thread is about losing them, and people for some reason pretending this is a good thing. 

Also, people aren't stupid. We aren't going to trick them in to thinking SL is better than it is by simply ignoring the fact we are losing, and no longer attracting the best RL players. 

When have we attracted the best players?  The best Australians I can remember were Sterling, Lewis, Kenny, Meninga, Miles and before that, Beetson.  They only came for a short while and a hell of a lot bombed.  We've had better value from the NZ players overall.  In the scale of things the best have been relatively few.

Its no different now and Clubs have the opportunity to lash out for the best if they can afford it.  Most choose not to. 

[Dunbar]

16 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I don’t think we will ever see an Ellery quality player in our competition for more than a few years, and don’t think we will attract the Brett Kenny/Peter Sterling calibre players. Nor will we ever sign a Jonathan Davies quality union player.

We watch sport to be inspired - we watch to see “how did they do that?” players. Players like the Wiganer Luke Thompson. Or Wigan trained John Bateman. At Wigan, unless Hardaker recovers his top form, the only class acts I can see are Manfredi (and god knows whether he will ever come back) and Gildart, who has his eye on an NRL move as soon as he can. The dispiriting effect of knowing that we will neither be able to sign or retain the stars whose feats thrilled me in the 80s and 90s sucks much of the joy out of watching SL for me. 

While I think there is some merit in what you say (not sure why you had to drop in the Wigan Bateman and Thompson bait though) I watch Rugby League for more than just seeing the best of the best.

I watch the Academy series vs. the Australian Schoolboys knowing that both teams are not yet ready for first team rugby... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the amateur teams compete in the early rounds of the Challenge Cup knowing neither will reach the final... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the Championship Rugby League knowing it is not as good as Super League.... but I enjoy it. 

I watch Super League knowing it is not as good as the NRL.... but I enjoy it.

It helps me that I don't follow a club side and so I can enjoy the merits of each league/level without being subjectively dissatisfied with my teams standards.

[Moove]

28 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

While I think there is some merit in what you say (not sure why you had to drop in the Wigan Bateman and Thompson bait though) I watch Rugby League for more than just seeing the best of the best

I just thought he was making the point that no one wants to stay at Wigan. They either prefer to play for St Helens or emigrate to Australia

[Dunbar]

3 minutes ago, Moove said:

I just thought he was making the point that no one wants to stay at Wigan. They either prefer to play for St Helens or emigrate to Australia

Maybe... I read the 'sucks the joy out of watching SL' as a wider statement than just watching Wigan.

I may have replied to Exiled Wiganer but my point remains that we can watch sport and enjoy it while still recognising that it is not the highest standard the sport can offer.

[Exiled Wiganer]

46 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

While I think there is some merit in what you say (not sure why you had to drop in the Wigan Bateman and Thompson bait though) I watch Rugby League for more than just seeing the best of the best.

I watch the Academy series vs. the Australian Schoolboys knowing that both teams are not yet ready for first team rugby... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the amateur teams compete in the early rounds of the Challenge Cup knowing neither will reach the final... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the Championship Rugby League knowing it is not as good as Super League.... but I enjoy it. 

I watch Super League knowing it is not as good as the NRL.... but I enjoy it.

It helps me that I don't follow a club side and so I can enjoy the merits of each league/level without being subjectively dissatisfied with my teams standards.

I will continue to watch the game, wherever and whenever I can, and do all I can to advance the international game. My core point is a narrow one - I personally find it immensely dispiriting that we won’t be able to keep or attract great players. I think it was Hearn who noted that nobody knows the name of any rugby league player in this country. We have to turn this round. 

Unless we reverse this downward spiral, we will be stuffed as a game over here. 

[Dunbar]

1 hour ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I will continue to watch the game, wherever and whenever I can, and do all I can to advance the international game. My core point is a narrow one - I personally find it immensely dispiriting that we won’t be able to keep or attract great players. I think it was Hearn who noted that nobody knows the name of any rugby league player in this country. We have to turn this round. 

Unless we reverse this downward spiral, we will be stuffed as a game over here. 

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.

[Moove]

Saints have done pretty well in recent years in terms of keeping hold of players - Roby and Walmsley in particular having turned down NRL deals to stay here. It's no surprise though that Thompson is attracting interest and it's a compliment to him and the development systems at Saints. For me he's not far off where James Graham was at the same age and if he settles in Australia then I can see him, like Graham, never coming back.

If he does go I certainly wouldn't begrudge him the opportunity either. To be blunt, he'll be challenged and improve more (particularly given his relatively young age) playing at the NRL intensity and the higher quality opposition than he would be if he's playing your Huddersfield's, Wakefield's and Wigan's week in week out.

From a Saints point of view it's then up to someone like Matty Lees to step up and aspire to develop to Thompson's level. There's an opportunity for someone else to step up to Matty Lees' level and so on. The negative there though is that the depth is pretty limited. If Lees can't make the step up in the next few years then Saints will replace from elsewhere and ultimately it's a strain on the overall quality in the UK.

So it's also up to Saints and the other clubs to work to make SL more attractive to retain talent. That means increasing playing standards, coaching standards, competitiveness, commercial opportunities, attendances, exposure, international opportunities etc. It also means increasing participation levels so we can better manage losses in the meantime.

[Dunbar]

5 minutes ago, Moove said:

Saints have done pretty well in recent years in terms of keeping hold of players - Roby and Walmsley in particular having turned down NRL deals to stay here. It's no surprise though that Thompson is attracting interest and it's a compliment to him and the development systems at Saints. For me he's not far off where James Graham was at the same age and if he settles in Australia then I can see him, like Graham, never coming back.

If he does go I certainly wouldn't begrudge him the opportunity either. To be blunt, he'll be challenged and improve more (particularly given his relatively young age) playing at the NRL intensity and the higher quality opposition than he would be if he's playing your Huddersfield's, Wakefield's and Wigan's week in week out.

From a Saints point of view it's then up to someone like Matty Lees to step up and aspire to develop to Thompson's level. There's an opportunity for someone else to step up to Matty Lees' level and so on. The negative there though is that the depth is pretty limited. If Lees can't make the step up in the next few years then Saints will replace from elsewhere and ultimately it's a strain on the overall quality in the UK.

So it's also up to Saints and the other clubs to work to make SL more attractive to retain talent. That means increasing playing standards, coaching standards, competitiveness, commercial opportunities, attendances, exposure, international opportunities etc. It also means increasing participation levels so we can better manage losses in the meantime.

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.

[Exiled Wiganer]

26 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

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. Inwpuld 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.

Maybe. In the end it is a passion and pastime. It is terrific that you enjoy watching Jake Connor. I liked watching Lydon, even though he destroyed us at Wembley and caused the Kangaroos problems when few could manage that. And I will never forget his 60m drop goal at Maine Road  

If we went back 2 years to KC’s era, then we didn’t have a single Saints poster on the forum, so I would hesitate before hailing their recent winning streak as a sign that all is well in the world just yet. 

I cannot over state my concern at the direction of travel of our domestic game. It won’t dent my level of commitment, but I think that, more than ever, any entertainment needs characters and stars. A competition which is seen by the rest of the world and many of the star players themselves as a stepping stone to the big league is in dire straits. 

By way of counter balance, I am hugely optimistic and excited by the prospects for the game at the international level. We might well, as others note, see England win a World Cup and the game across the globe at that level having a golden age. And maybe that will be sufficient to inspire a re birth of the game over here, attracting sponsors and making us attractive to TV companies. I would be doing cartwheels if that happens. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

2 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

 

Ended up quoting myself... duh

[Dunbar]

4 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Maybe. In the end it is a passion and pastime. It is terrific that you enjoy watching Jake Connor. I liked watching Lydon, who destroyed us at Wembley and caused the Kangaroos problems when few could manage that. And I will never forget his 60m drop goal at Maine Road  

If we went back 2 years to KC’s era, then we didn’t have a single Saints poster on the forum, so I would hesitate before hailing their recent winning streak as a sign that all is well in the world just yet. 

I cannot over state my concern at the direction of travel of our domestic game. It won’t dent my level of commitment, but I think that, more than ever, any entertainment needs characters and stars. A competition which is seen by the rest of the world and many of the star players themselves as a stepping stone to the big league is in dire straits. 

By way of counter balance, I am hugely optimistic and excited by the prospects for the game at the international level. We might well, as others note, see England win a World Cup and the game across the globe at that level having a golden age. And maybe that will be sufficient to inspire a re birth of the game over here, attracting sponsors and making us attractive to TV companies. I would be doing cartwheels if that happens. 

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. 

[Moove]

3 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

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.

In terms of playing quality and development, one of the biggest issues we have across the league I think is that transition from academy to first team SL. It's been touched on in a couple of other threads recently but we're generally pretty competitive at that level, yet pretty quickly young players are limited to an odd couple of SL appearances or a couple of seasons in League One or the Championship. That might toughen them up a bit but I'm not sure it does much for their technical development. So few of the talented academy players seem to go on to realise their potential compared to their Australian counterparts.

 

4 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

By way of counter balance, I am hugely optimistic and excited by the prospects for the game at the international level. We might well, as others note, see England win a World Cup and the game across the globe at that level having a golden age. And maybe that will be sufficient to inspire a re birth of the game over here, attracting sponsors and making us attractive to TV companies. I would be doing cartwheels if that happens. 

Agreed. I'm still hacked off at the opportunity we squandered after the last world cup over here. The talk around the next one has been so positive I just hope it has the legacy for the sport it should have.

[Rupert Prince]

2 hours ago, Dunbar said:

While I think there is some merit in what you say (not sure why you had to drop in the Wigan Bateman and Thompson bait though) I watch Rugby League for more than just seeing the best of the best.

I watch the Academy series vs. the Australian Schoolboys knowing that both teams are not yet ready for first team rugby... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the amateur teams compete in the early rounds of the Challenge Cup knowing neither will reach the final... but I enjoy it. 

I watch the Championship Rugby League knowing it is not as good as Super League.... but I enjoy it. 

I watch Super League knowing it is not as good as the NRL.... but I enjoy it.

It helps me that I don't follow a club side and so I can enjoy the merits of each league/level without being subjectively dissatisfied with my teams standards.

I do not follow this "Wiganer Thompson bait" business.   He is from (hometown) St Helens isn't he,  Bold Miners.  So Wiki says... but it also says he has signed a 3 year deal with Souths.  Has someone told Eamonn?

[bobbruce]

13 hours ago, leaguefan13 said:

Be a good replacement for George Burgess. I’m guessing a lot cheaper too 

I doubt he’ll be much cheaper his star is high and it’s rumoured he’s got multiple NRL clubs after him. 

[RayCee]

5 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Ended up quoting myself... duh

You could have at least carried on and agreed/disagreed with yourself.