Kurt Angle said:
Here in lies the problem.
England only has about 4 or 5 star players, they all happen to play for St. Helens.
Other clubs need stars too, and the only place they can be found is Australia.
Not strictly true.
But anyway, those players wouldn't play for St Helens were it not for the mismanagement of all the other Super League clubs. Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Bradford and Hull all spend as much (Or up to £220k more in some cases) as St Helens on players. A lot of the clubs also have bigger and more traditionally productive catchment areas than St Helens does. A third of all the Super League players probably originate from the Wigan area for example, yet Wigan can't put a decent squad together? Their player retention decisions are appalling. They come out in the press and bemoan the salary cap forcing them to release their star young players. Then they sign some expensive 29 year old former NRL star on a massive contract whilst the local kid they released signs for St Helens. Their doing, not ours. With the money they are paying Vaeliki alone they could sign probably 3 or 4 players. Bradford are another classic example, they sign dross like Ben Harris on a big deal and let Ryan Atkins, who would have commanded a third of his salary and is a miles better player, walk out? It's bordering on insanity.
The worst example of this is Wigan. They spend an awful lot of money on utterly shyte players. Had they NOT CHOSEN to sign dross like Vaeliki, Richards, Fletcher, Leuleuai, Bailey, Millard and Paeleasina they would have had more than enough money to sign players like Leon Pryce, Lee Gilmour, Ade Gardner and co. It was their choice not to do that. Leeds are getting to the stage where they are as bad. They have stars young players, and dominate the junior game with Wigan, yet have walking zombies like Toopi, Lautiiti and Kylie Leuleuai trapsing round on massive salaries.
I'd go as far as saying that for the majority of clubs the NRL players are a curse. They know the fans want success and they want it now, so they think signing someone who has played Origin or internationally will bring that. More often than not there is a reason that player is looking to play Super League, because they know they wouldn't cut it in the NRL. They come over and keep a young player out of the side and fail themselves anyway.
ST Helens are dominating because they are managed better than the other clubs. Eammon McManus and Daniel Anderson (And Ian Millward to be fair to him) have done an absolutely brilliant job off the field ensuring the right decisions are made more often than not.
