Superleague vs NRL

[Billythekid]

Brisbane Broncos, Canberra Raiders, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Gold Coast Titans, Manly Sea Eagles, Melbourne Storm, Newcastle Knights, North Queensland Cowboys, Parramatta Eels, St. George Illawarra Dragons, Sydney Roosters, Warriors & West Tigers.

Some clubs obviously have better chances than others, but not by too much. In fact, I've probably underrated Cronulla but just something about them just doesn't resonate with me.

I don't know how you left cronulla out. I think they stand a much better chance than quite a few of the teams you listed.

 

[Big Pete]

An extremely weak club which takes it's toll on the side. Don't have a lot of attack in them and their season rests with the most unreliable player in the competition.

Maybe if they had a strong history to fall back on they'd be listed right up there, but all I see is 40 years of disappointment.

 

[deluded pom?]

Point being, our competition is so close week to week, that it's rather common for the betting underdogs to win.

It's the first round TEZZA. The same sort of thing happens in SL over the first five or six rounds. It proves nothing. Wait till teams have settled down and then we'll revisit this thread.

 

[WireMan]

Close SL games between top sides are great to watch - but far too many SL sides seem to wilt as soon as they let a try in - the blowout scores ought to be embarrassing for some teams. In contrast NRL sides are close enough in ability to keep most games relatively close even when top plays bottom.

IMO the top end of SL has improved a lot in the last couple of seasons. There are 4 genuine contenders for the title - Leeds, Sts, Wigan and Wire. Then there are a bunch of sides who can compete with them/beat them on a good day - Huddersfield, Hull * 2, Cats. After that the standard drops off alarmingly (although Salford are looking better than I thought). At the bottom end the teams aren't entertaining at all - they are simply dreadful.

I think we'll see this gap continue for a while yet, as some clubs still aren't producing enough homegrown players to replace the loss of good quality NRL players who simply aren't being signed any more.

Thats 8 teams that can compete, so its not all bad. Throw in Bradford, Cas and Salford who are capable of competing in any game (not for the season though) and you have 11 teams.

Out of 14 thats not to shabby.

Point being, our competition is so close week to week, that it's rather common for the betting underdogs to win.

Other than the Cowboys vs Titans horror show i didn't see one suprise over week 1. Maybe Manly over NZ, but then Manly are the champs so you have to expect them to win.

Good to see the Manly backs looking good though, after Leeds did a job on them. Matai climbed out of Watkins pocket long enough to score a nice try. ;-)

 

[Billythekid]

Other than the Cowboys vs Titans horror show i didn't see one suprise over week 1. Maybe Manly over NZ, but then Manly are the champs so you have to expect them to win.

Good to see the Manly backs looking good though, after Leeds did a job on them. Matai climbed out of Watkins pocket long enough to score a nice try. ;-)

Maybe there weren't many surprises but most of the games were decided by a try or less. It was a really close weekend of football.

 

[deluded pom?]

Maybe there weren't many surprises but most of the games were decided by a try or less. It was a really close weekend of football.

And therein lies the point behind this thread. That someone has said SL is more EN-TER-TAIN-ING than the NRL. No-one is disputing that the NRL is the more competitive of the two.

 

[In-goal]

As I said on the main board the other day, I thought Newcastle v st.george was a dull match.

Just because a match is close dosen't make it exciting, otherwise we would all enjoy a 0-0 draw.

Open running with line breaks, that's what rugby league is about.

 

[Bronco Rob]

There is very little ESL coverage down here so fans generally base their opinions of the ESL on how England performs in the International tournaments or on player transfers. It doesn't help that one of our biggest media personalities, Gus Gould, openly critiques the standards of the ESL

It's terrible how Gus criticises the ESL, he is coming from a coach's point of view where defence is the number one priority and where wrestling is an important facet of the game. Not me, as an ex-player and as someone who works with an NRL club, I hate the wrestling and how defence orientated the professional game has become.

Fans want to see their club successful but on the other hand want to see free-flowing footy. It's catch 22, if a coach has a game plan to play an open style he is then criticised if the team doesn't have success but then you have a coach who plays a defence orientated game and it becomes a bore.

I think the ESL have a good middle ground and I enjoy watching the ESL games over some of the NRL matches but conversely there are some cracking NRL games like the Manly vs Warriors game last week. But we do not get the ESL coverage this year and it's a disgrace that there isn't coverage of the 2nd best league in the world here in Australia whre RL is at its most popular.

 

[In-goal]

It's terrible how Gus criticises the ESL, he is coming from a coach's point of view where defence is the number one priority and where wrestling is an important facet of the game. Not me, as an ex-player and as someone who works with an NRL club, I hate the wrestling and how defence orientated the professional game has become.

Fans want to see their club successful but on the other hand want to see free-flowing footy. It's catch 22, if a coach has a game plan to play an open style he is then criticised if the team doesn't have success but then you have a coach who plays a defence orientated game and it becomes a bore.

I think the ESL have a good middle ground and I enjoy watching the ESL games over some of the NRL matches but conversely there are some cracking NRL games like the Manly vs Warriors game last week. But we do not get the ESL coverage this year and it's a disgrace that there isn't coverage of the 2nd best league in the world here in Australia whre RL is at its most popular.

Nail and head, this is one of the most insightful posts that I've read in a long time.

 

[Masoe_eats_babies]

If I wanted to watch a less-skillfull, less-competitive, albeit "entertaining" game of League I'd go to the park and watch 8 year olds running around.

 

[Bronco Rob]

Nail and head, this is one of the most insightful posts that I've read in a long time.

As the game has become so professional have we gone in the wrong direction as far as coaching, development of players and structure of game plans? The major stakeholders in the game IMO are the fans and what fans want is tries coming from skillful and creativity in attack and players playing what's in front of them.

These days its about retention of the ball, so dummy half running and one-out rucks and working for repeat sets which leads to predictible and dull footy at times. I've seen it first hand that if a player goes away from the structure he is slated for his decision to play what's in front of him. Do we really want that but unfortunately it's what the coaches want because their careers are reliant on success but is this to the betterment of the fans and players?

As a player I loved playing without parameters set upon us but these days this is set upon kids and it's creeping into younger and younger age groups. Wrestling is a blight on the game and I am not sure how I would have went as a kid if most of the training sessions were about wrestling and defence. Don't get me wrong defence is a major facet of the game but how about we also concentrate on improving the attack side of the game to increase the points scored rather than concentrate on reducing points scored? IMO we are turning off both fans and players by continuing to go down this track, we've got a fantastic product but I don't want us to get to the stage where tries are a minimum and we see games where teams win by penalty goals alone as is the case with the RU which goes against the whole point of the game.

I apologise for the rant but I do love the game still and always will but I feel we could have such a great product with a few slight changes in our coaching attitudes.

 

[WireMan]

If I wanted to watch a less-skillfull, less-competitive, albeit "entertaining" game of League I'd go to the park and watch 8 year olds running around.

Surely if you want less skillful or less competitive you could stick to watching the Roosters?

They were even entertaining in week 1. Not week 2 though, you would of been better watching the 8 year olds.