Ice777 said:
Secondly, you can't compare how close the English league as opposed to the NRL by how many times their top side has beaten our top side.
Yes you can, to an extent. We're comparing the two best sides and English clubs consistently win and have also picked up notable wins on Aussie soil. Certainly in terms of depth the NRL is far stronger and nobody in their right mind would dispute that. But the top sides in each comp are closer than you think, It's just that the NRL has maybe 7-8 top quality sides and we have only perhaps 3 on a good year.
However, to draw an analogy take a look at top European soccer. Countries like Portugal with poor domestic leagues overall still produce 3 or so good clubs (e.g. Porto, benfica, Sporting Lisbon) that can easily compete with any of the best sides in the prestige leagues in Germany, England, Italy, Spain and produce undisputably world class players. That is where these comparisons between NRV vs SL fall down. Compare the best with the best and it's fairly even. Compare the bottom few teams in SL with the bottom few teams in NRL and there's a massive gulf in quality. In that sense the WCC can't really be a true comparison of the leagues.