The Changing face of Rugby League : Mon Jun 26, 2017 5:24 am
I guess I've been lucky over the years I've seen the likes of Wally Lewis and many more top class Aussies play in the British game.The sort of downside of this has been that most of them always played for Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Bradford Hull and Leeds.
Yes we at Huddersfield occasionally mined a golden nugget Brad Drew, Brandon Costin and Danny Russell for example but the balance of the game has always been to the wealthier clubs who could afford the best.
However now due to the wealth of the Australian NRL the coach's have the find the best UK youngsters and those golden fringe players from the NRL that can be stars in superleague when not having to wait behind the Aussie superstars for the odd game here and there in the NRL's far bigger talent pool.
This evens up the playing field somewhat and has lead to Huddersfield and probably this year Castleford picking up the LLS and coming close to breaking the big fours stranglehold.
Leeds, Huddersfield and possibly this year Warrington have also tasted the middle 8's and even the mighty Wigan aren't home and hosed yet as their big players O'Loughlin, Tomkins, Leulalai looked decidedly ordinary against a Fartown side with at least six players in the stand who would normally be first choices.
Ironically for all our strifes and woe in the current past two seasons we aren't that far off challenging for the top again as we seem to have unearthed several gems around which to build a team.
Seb, Ryan, Ukuma, Tom, Shannon and of course Jake are probably with a pre season together as good as it gets these days for the overseas rota.
In Kruise and Gareth we have two long term young hookers the envy of many other teams along with Oliver Roberts Dale Ferguson Darnell Macintosh some good young squad players who will improve.
Add Leroy, Gerry, Jordan, Danny and Lee and we are only a couple or three very shrewd signings away from a very good team and as Castleford and Salford this year have shown with some shrewd signings the summit can soon come into view.
In conclusion times ahead can be exciting for the game as a whole, I have always thought 14 was the best make up for Superleague with a top 5/6/8 play off my only reservation is the Toronto thing and yes in the short term it can garner some publicity but the Catalans aside all the expansion teams have been and gone and it's not worth losing any more traditional Rugby League Towns for a few column inches !! If anything lets regenerate them as what good does a stadium devoid of opposition fans do for the game as anyone who has attended Catalans and London home games in recent years can testify to.