Have ESL players who made the move down here been just as good as they were there? Barring few exceptions, no.
Do you dispute that?
Yes. Every current English international who has come here in the last 5 or so years has been great. You''re making out that Tomkins is just some run of the mill ESL player, for starters he is an international (ie Ellis, Burgess, Graham), very highly rated (ie Ellis, Burgess, Graham)
The NRL players head over there in their career twilights or when they can't make the first cut into an NRL team. These guys make the starting 13 of the likes of Leeds and Wigan.
The world club challenge is a one off exhibition match almost always held in the UK and after the NRL grand final, that's not a basis for comparison between the leagues.
If any of the top 2 or even top 3 teams were somehow transplanted down here for an NRL season, sure they would not win the thing but they wouldn't "be thrashed by the worst NRL teams" or whatever it was you said.
Maybe he's had strong games at the international level and is an ESL superstar, but that's not 26 weeks of high quality NRL standard footy. I'm making a very simple point here and that is however good he is there, it doesn't automatically equate to how good he will be here.
Never said he'd struggle, but he won't magically be another Slater. That's a huge assumption.
I'm not about to jump on the bandwagon for pulling ESL players no matter how good they are there.
Pure stupidity. I assume with that attitude you would have spouted the same bullshit if in the last few years we were talking of getting Burgess, Ellis or Graham :lol:. "Oh but all they've done is carve up a weaker competition and go really well in Internationals, you know against the best players the NRL has to offer" Hell even George Burgess has shown that England have some great young players. And Jamie Lyon almost fits that criteria as well.
And then you made it out we would be crazy to get rid of who will be a 33 year old injury prone Nathan Friend if it meant getting a 24 year old talent who could absolutely be anything, and at worst will be a good to very good fullback/half in the NRL, a player you know absolutely nothing about. :lol: Somehow I think if you asked the 16 NRL coaches if they would be willing to get rid of Nathan Friend to get Sam Tomkins, they would. But then again they have probably actually watched the bloke play and see what he can do instead of making terrible assumptions based on the competition he's been playing in. And not to mention we have a readymade replacement sitting right there in Thomas Leuluai.
He'll probably end up going to the Titans or something, and in a season or two will be carving up ala Ben Barba and you'll be going on about how we should have made a better effort at signing him. :lol:
