Oz bro, in my opinion, Sel Pearson is one of the big reasons international league does not have parity in conditions.
Sel has a habit of flying off the deep end on a merry go-round tangent about how he hates this, and he hates that, he's like 70% of posters here, except his conspiracies he foresees are with the ARL and not the Roosters!
Sometimes I think he needs to bring a more mature, level headed, process built approach to the table. Instead of rark up about the inadaquecies - and lets face it, the Puletua instance, the Vainokolo instance of being scrubbed from the Kiwis highlights the audaciousness of the clubs, lets highlight them. Forget trying to get a run in Graeme Lowe's column, or, god bless his poor soul that guy from the NZ Herald Peter Jessup's column, he needs to sit down, and put together stragetic development processes to both the ARL and English version of the ARL. Together the three countries need to join together for the good of the game.
Currently there's a lot of cattiness, pettiness, and downright stupidty thats preventing the game from going forth. In rah-rah, the IRB wouldn't tolerate half the stupid rulings we have in our game. Because its a combined union, that has most importantly, power. Currently international sides have no power over clubs, none whatsoever, and you can't hide from the fact that Australian clubs have two goals, to provide premierships to their fans, and provide players to THEIR rep sides (Kangas, and Origin). Thats a bit selfish, but its true, and given the way the game is set up, unfortunately, who can blame them?
At the end of the day - the inadaquecies are very much out there. But we've brought it all on our selves by weak leadership and the inability to co-operate together towards one common goal.
But overall, I reiterate, we can't really bite the hand that feeds us. The Australians provide the competition for the Kiwis to gain experience at other clubs, and indeed allows a plethora of players to represent their own country with the Warriors. They don't have to do that. That alone has expanded interest in New Zealand, truth be told before the Warriors came along there was not too much live coverage of league in New Zealand, and coming from parochial rugby union powerhouses it didn't rate a mention at the dinner table, regardless of how the Kiwis travelled. Its only since the Warriors have gained exposure through the Australian competion that its opened my eyes, I was very easily turned from the dark side to league very quickly, and I wasn't the only one. That turns into people through the gate pumping money into junior development, it turns into people wanting to sponsor our game pumping money into our junior development, and it makes young kids want to play in the NRL now that they know what its all about.
For all the wrongs - the Puletua debacle, the Logan Swann no try at Aussie Stadium, the Tri-Origin series in what '97 where that touchie completely and utterly cheated (there is no denying he cheated with that last no try against NSW - no debate there), Gus Gould, the biggotry of "thank god the Tasman Sea seperates us", the tripe that was Toni Carroll's perceived loyalty, the idiodicy of Karmichael Hunt's allegiance and the reason behind it - thank christ for the Australian leaguies allowing us in, and thank christ for Australians like Mick Watson and Daniel Anderson who while in retrospect in 2004 have earnt damaging reviews have built staggeringly good development processes in New Zealand league for the future of New Zealand to benefit from.
Lets work together - stop the blame, and move forward. We as the Warriors ran 14th for a reason - not because of the Australians, because we deserved to. We ran last in the Tri Nations for a reason, not because of the Australians, because we deserved to.
