Kurt Angle
First Grade
- Messages
- 9,716
Manu Vatuvei said:If you have five times as many players, you're also going to have five times as many international standard players, and your top 17 out of that pool is going to be substantially stronger.
Correct, you increase your chances of having the best players by having 5 times as many to choose from.
But once you have picked your team, it is still only 17 that can walk out in the field.
If NZ had 17 world class players, and Australia had 5 times as many in 85... all that means is that Australia will have 68 sitting on the sidelines.
It's like if you picked 17 random players out of the NRL and were asked to make a team out of them, or given 85 random players and told to make the best 17. Obviously the 17 picked from the 85 would be a lot stronger.
Yep.. so to overcome that deficiency you need better coaching.
It's 17 v 17, yes, and the Australian top 17 is and always should be stronger than the NZ top 17 for pretty obvious reasons.
Historically it has, but that needn't be the case... Lets compare next tier of NZ and GB. You're saying GB should always be stronger, so NZ may as well give up right now.
There's really no logical reason why NZ should ever have a league team that is anywhere near as good as Australia's.
:lol:
Or Serbia world champions of basketball...