Is British League in a Timwharp..........?

[GBT]

From Ray Hadley's Sunday Telegraph column this weekend:

------------
The Sunday Telegraph
Edition 9 - MetroSUN 13 JUL 2003, Page 052
Pommy game in a timewarp
By RAY HADLEY


YOU only need to watch a game of British Super League on television to get an immediate insight into why rugby league is struggling at an international level.

I tuned in to a game between London and Halifax on Fox Sports last week and felt like I was travelling through a time tunnel, seeing a host of Aussies I thought had long been retired.

Billy Peden, a good player in his day but now past his best, was running like a speedy centre out wide, steam-rolling opposition players.

Other players on show included Dennis Moran, Dane Dorahy, Russell Bawden, Andrew King, Nigel Roy, Steele Retchless and Andrew Frew -- all guys who passed their use-by date in the NRL long ago but who have been able to extend their careers in England.

I decided to go the Super League website and have a look at the number of Aussies finishing their careers with one of the 12 English Super League clubs.

How's this for familiar names: Anthony Colella, Brandon Costin, Julian Bailey, Jeff Wittenberg, Craig Greenhill, Colin Best, Paul Mellor, Mitch Healey, Wayne Bartrim, Graham Appo, Barry Ward, Shane Millard, Clinton O'Brien, Adrian Vowles and Andrew Duneman.

There's not enough space to list all the other Australians ... and that doesn't even take into account the Kiwis.

British clubs are allowed five imports, but hopefully this is about to change to three. The sooner the change comes in, the better.

These older Aussie players are holding back any young talent in the British game. They are filling spots that should be taken by up-and-coming locals. Is it any wonder the British haven't won an Ashes series in over 30 years?

The English game, as a whole, is suffering despite having hundreds of millions of pounds ploughed into it during the Super League war.

The London Broncos-Halifax game I watched had a pathetic crowd of under 2000 and, while some games draw decent attendances, many seem to be watched by only friends and relatives of the players.

League needs a viable English competition to be strong at the international level, but it's obvious the Brits have been left way behind while our game continues to improve and grow.

.............................................

Are all those players past it? Wouldn't most of them, at the very least, find a place at a club like Souths?!?!

I'm not suggesting he's out of order - maybe out of touch.

He uses the weakest and probably most pathetic team in the history of SL and the side that still relies heavily on imports to make his case.

 

[Anonymous]

Ray Hadley has no credibility.
He generalises and goes on with from that stand point.

Its true that the poms have been farming older players from Oz for some sometime but more recently they have been attracting younger players... Plus from where I'm sitting, they have have their own home-grown stars.

 

[GBT]

What Hadley and some other critics of the game in Britain miss is the fact that over the hill Warrington has been Alfie Langer went straight back downunder to play State of Origin. London Broncos Tony Martin is headed back to the NRL next season after a second spell in the capital.

Hadley's piece also highlights a certain attitude prevalent amongst many Aussies in that any Australian who play's in the Old Dart either must be second rate, or, as was the case with Brian Bevan and several others, guilty of a crime comparable to treason, or switching to the darkside, certainly punishable with exclusion from any Kangaroo squad.

I do agree with the overall idea that our comp is way behind the NRL, but Hadley uses the same old arguments trotted out by Aussies for years as if he's suddenly stumbled onto something new. He also presupposes that if there are fewer overseas players, that naturally, young Brits will take those places. Although the number of juniors coming through has probably improved in recent years, it is still insufficient and is a long way short of bringing to closure the Aussie dominance of the past 30 years.

 

[terracesider]

The article is hopelessly out of date. The days when aging Aussies came over here to wind down their careers are gone, if they ever existed. Many of those named are surely good enough for NRL.

Especially through the new academy structure, there probably hasn't been as much domestic talent emerging in GB for about forty years. At the moment it lacks experience, but in time that will come. These things go in cycles.

In SL, gates are at an all time high. Hadley watched a game between a home side (Fax) so bad - GBT was very kind to them - that its support is down the diehards and a side with very little away support.

I can't see that SL is that far behind and I'd be very interested to read a detailed argument of why it is supposed to be.

 

[GBT]

I bet Hadley couldn't wait for the Nonix v London fixture to appear on his box.

 

[terracesider]

I bet Hadley couldn't wait for the Nonix v London fixture to appear on his box.

and it was probably on expenses. ;-)

 

[CanadianSteve]

Still, wouldn't it be good to drop the # of imports to 3 as he says? I thought last year when the ESL sent a team to Aus to play a one-off test, the Brits had to play guys out of position because they don't have good players in certain positions, because the best ones in the ESL are Aussies. I don't recall which positions exactly but I know I read this. So wouldn't it be better to start developing some Brits in those positions?

 

[Anonymous]

You only have to look at some of the offers that coming from the ESL now.
Mark Gasnier - hardly a bloke who has 'passed his used by date' - was offered the equvilent of $900,000 per season to play with Wigan. But he stuck with St George for about $260,000 because he felt he was too young to leave the NRL plus he has very strong connections with St George.

But it must have been tempting for Gasnier. The Wigan offered served to be a test case to see how much an entrenched NRL player will consider and thereby sends a signal to dozens of other players that big money is waved about.

ESL clubs have been targeting a lot of young players, Australian, NZ and British so the notion that the ESL is full old Aussies is off the mark.

Because of the cap, NRL clubs simply can't compete with the ESL on financial terms. And this means that more young players from Aust, NZ, UK and the Pacific who would have normally been snapped up NRL clubs, will be joining or staying with the ESL from now on.

 

[terracesider]

True CS.But that one-off test was a farce from start to finish, and I never worked out why it was played. Nobody benefitted.

It's not quite the case that SL lacks good players in some specialist positions, especially half back, but David Waite, the so-called coach, won't play them. Take stand-off. McGuire - a real talent - hasn't even made the intial squad and the in-form Thorman is unlikely to play ahead of three lock forwards who Waite will probably try to fit in somewhere. So even though we may well take on the Aussies this November with out a specialist five-eighth, it doesn't mean there aint a couple of class ones around.

I think the overseas quota is being reduced to 3 from next year.

 

[CanadianSteve]

Why don't more Poms do what Adrian Morley has done and come and test themselves in the NRL? Is it because they wouldn't make as much money, or because the NRL doesn't really go after them?

Maybe a better question is why would Morley go to the NRL, and especially re-sign recently, if he could make more money at home?

 

[terracesider]

Why don't more Poms do what Adrian Morley has done and come and test themselves in the NRL? Is it because they wouldn't make as much money, or because the NRL doesn't really go after them?

Maybe a better question is why would Morley go to the NRL, and especially re-sign recently, if he could make more money at home?

Good questions, I suspect few Poms go to Oz because the NRL doesn't go after them; and I doubt Morely could make as much money in the UK. And there's also the question of lifestyle.

Because of the cap, NRL clubs simply can't compete with the ESL on financial terms. And this means that more young players from Aust, NZ, UK and the Pacific who would have normally been snapped up NRL clubs, will be joining or staying with the ESL from now on.

I'm not so sure. I don't know what the NRL figures are but, to me at least, the SL salary cap is set at a ridiculously low level: According to the RFL website

Within the Salary Cap regulations for Tetley's Super League clubs, the set limits for spending on salaries is no more than 50 per cent of the club's Salary Cap relevant income or an upper limit of £1.8 million.

I'm afraid I can't transate that into other currencies, but anyway it's not much to run a fairly large business on, especially one with such a skilled workforce in limited supply. Within these financial constraints, UK wage levels in RL are probably being depressed. Inevitably that is going to restrict the number of top quality overseas players.

I know Wigan were widely linked with Gasnier, but in this week's League Weekly both he and Lindsay were reported as denying it. I think most in the UK would give Lindsey the benefit of the doubt on this because he's obviously fed up with pouring money into Wigan.

 

[terracesider]

I'll try to put the previous post into perspective.

In the notoriously under-funded UK education system, it costs the best part of £3 million each year to fund ONE secondary (i.e. 11-18) school. Twenty years ago I was a music teacher in Bradford; I had a brilliant job. We were never awash with money, but we had enough for the basic equipment .Now I'm glad I'm out of teaching; I got frustrated with short-changing (i.e. cheating) the kids because of financial restraints. You get the point where enough is enough. They deserve better and I got more and more frustrated that I couldn't provide what they deserved.

End of personal rant, but how the hell can you fund a top RL team for about half that amount? No wonder the clubs are all cheating like hell. It's back to the 1890s.

It's just a bloody good job RL is such a great game, because with idiot administrators like ours (both UK and Aus) it wouldn't have survived otherwise.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure the Gasnier and Wigan story was more than just widely reported. Wigan have officially pulled out of negotiations now but I didn't know they are reported as denying any negotiations ever took place. For a couple of weeks, it was the only thing being discussed at St George.

It begs a few questions though. I have no idea was the salary cap is in the ESL. I was assuming (probably incorrectly) that it must be quite high based on the offers that were being spoken of.

In the NRL, its $3.25MIL AUD per club - thats about 1.3MIL GBP

Currency Converter - click here

 

[terracesider]

I've checked some back issues of League Weekly, and as far as I can work out this is what might have happened with Gasnier and Wigan.

Somebody, possibly Gasnier's agent, probably approached Wigan and asked if they were interested. Naturally, they were but the financial demands were so high that they could not possibly be met within the salary cap. So, Lindsay's probably literally correct in saying Wigan never had any "negotiations" over Gasnier, but they do seem to have had "talks".

About that time, Lindsay told the press he was fed up with Wigan's name being linked with certain players simply as an agent's negotiating tactic, designed to get a club to make a better offer to their player. He didn't name names, but it doesn't take much imagination to link his outburst with Gasnier.

Probably, it would all have been forgotten if some enterprising editor hadn't produced the headline (which I've searched for but can't find) about Lindsay being top of Australia's "Most Wanted" list, thus causing many non-Wigan drinks to be spilt as people not fell about laughing. If he's that wanted, then keep him, please. :lol:

 

[terracesider]

It was the Illawara Mercury on 12 July that branded Uncle Mo "public enemy #1", but there's no link because the tightwads charge for acccess to the article.

This is Lindsay, as reported on the Footy Show's website

 

[Anonymous]

It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that an Australian player manager was trying use an English club as leverage. Gasnier's manager is George Mimis and as far as I know, he isn't too popular amongst people close to St George.

Its a difficult position for UK club who are asked if they are interested in a young NRL player.. well, of course they're interested. Equally, it's difficult for NRL clubs who are being told by a player manager that he has had some interest from UK clubs.

Player managers have always been more interested in going for top dollar... I guess you can't blame them for doing what is fundamentally their job. But the concept of actually 'managing' a player's career becomes of secondary concern. I'm referring to things like life outside of footy and life after footy... most player managers leave this type of management up to the player or the his club.
In fact, many managers even often shy away from setting up sponsorship deals for players.

Anyway, it happens a lot and given what Terracesider has said, I'd say that Wigan were aware of the Mimis's antics, as I know St George were as well. Problem is, the clubs have to deal with player managers if they want to keep the door open on player discussions.

It's not for everyone, but I've always had respect for any player that tells their manager to shove it and choose instead to manage their own affairs.

 

[Stevo_G]

well it is good to see superleague players coming to australia to play
eg thorman parramatta

 

[iggy plop]

Ray Hadley has no credibility.
He generalises and goes on with from that stand point.

Its true that the poms have been farming older players from Oz for some sometime but more recently they have been attracting younger players... Plus from where I'm sitting, they have have their own home-grown stars.

Hadley is the generalisation king and is very Sydney-centric.

I challenge you pommies to listen for about 20 minutes to his so-called rugby league program on the web on weekends. You'll get an insight into the mentality of the guy and his real thoughts on the game. It's 2GB.com.au

 

[JasonE]

Hadley has based his opinion on watching one game, easily the worst of the season, this proves he has no credibility,
Some of the SL games this year have been unbelievable, it's been the best year ever, as for the time warp comment, I've never known so many good youngsters coming through as there is atm.

 

[Alan Shore]

Hadley is an idiot. Enough said.