A lot of this is all great, but how would you realistically facilitate it all?

Re: big-name overseas players – do you think the BBL haven’t been trying to get big-name overseas players into the league? Of course they have. The deciding factor is always money. How do we get money? Well, a lot of places, but the big one is broadcasting rights.

Which leads me onto the point re: free-to-air every night – great idea, but Fox has always had massive financial advantages over Seven West, and will always outbid them for everything. Seven pay massive money for Tests, in addition to massive money for AFL and V8s. They can’t afford to have guaranteed nightly BBL on top of that. Ten might have more space but they don’t have as much funds as Seven West do.

Re: make Australian players available – again, great, but good luck trying to schedule international ODIs and T20Is either side of the competition when you’re butting into the NZ and South Africa summers afterwards, and West Indies and the subcontinent beforehand.

None of these ideas are new, and CA aren’t silly enough to think of any of these as completely novel. They know it’ll make the league better. They just don’t know how to do it. That’s the main issue here.

If Root is relinquishing the captaincy due to pressure and mental toll, why would it be logical to then give it to the guy who plausibly has an even bigger workload than Root? Stokes is their second best bat and out of all the bowlers to be guaranteed to play every match, he is the most experienced (Broad and Anderson don’t). Awarding him the responsibility of captaincy would be a bridge too far. He’s under enough pressure already.

Buttler isn’t in England’s best top 6 nor is he England’s best keeper (it’s Foakes) so he shouldn’t even make the XI let alone captain it.

Bairstow has been in their best XI for about two minutes and whilst he’s in great form, let’s not forget he’s been a very mediocre test cricketer for the bulk of his career and the sheer amount of times he’s been dropped for fresh blood. Hard to captain when you can be dropped at the flick of a switch. It’s not like he’s Brearley-esque enough to hold his spot as a captain either (he doesn’t captain at all).

Broad and Anderson are both too old and neither play every match anyway due to workload, and as they are older they are less likely to be able to maintain fitness. They’re off the cards too.

The only two county captains that are remotely close to the England test squad are Sam Billings, James Vince and Rory Burns. Billings is strikes out for the same reasons as Buttler. Vince strikes out for fairly similar reasons to Bairstow.

So that leaves Rory. Mediocre cricketer, clear weaknesses as a batsman. We all know it like the back of our hand. But – is he still in England’s best two openers? Yeah, probably. He has the highest average out of any batsman to debut for England over the past ~5 years. Is he the most experienced county captain in the country? Yeah, he kind of is. Not to mention he was appointed captain ahead of the likes of Hashim Amla, Gareth Batty and even Kumar Sangakkara if I remember correctly.

It’s not ideal, but Burns is the only one to tick the most basic boxes.

Under the way the game is played now, I don’t foresee Taumalolo staying at lock. He’ll more than likely move into the front row and McLean (who’s a bit slow nowadays) will move to the bench. Cotter moves to lock, where he was great last year, and Granville (who was also great last year) takes up the 14 jumper. Burr was very ordinary last year, I don’t see him pplaying at all.

And if Payten picks Lemuelu as bench second rower instead of Nanai I will throw my toys out of the cot

Stokes is a great all-rounder and is their second best bat. Stokes averages 36 with the bat and 32 with the ball which is more than handy. Mitch Marsh averages 28 with the bat and 39 with the ball. Absolutely no comparison.

He made a call to pick Liam Hatcher a few years ago after about 2 first class matches. He wanted to “get him around the group”

I’ll ask you a question. Why do you think the Bears have not been re-introduced?

It’s not some perversion of justice. It’s not an ignorance of some God-given right to get them back in. The NRL look very clearly at each bid as they come in for specific factors: money, growth of the game, TV viewership opportunities.

None of these 3 factors are fulfilled by the Bears in comparison to their opposing bids. They don’t have the funds to compete with the Brisbane clubs (and invariably, the potential bid from Perth that covers an entire state); NRL have too many Sydney clubs as it is, so adding the Bears in would go backwards in their goal to make it a nationwide competition; and an extra Brisbane team means more games at Suncorp, meaning more variety on who can play on a Friday, or conversely, a Perth team provides more opportunities for scheduling around timezones (like Warriors do for their Friday night games). Bears, being in a homogeneous NSW timezone, don’t have either luxury.

The romance of introducing the Bears back is all fine and well and good, but there’s a reason that everytime one of these articles is released, you get backlash after backlash.

Carder wouldn’t even be in my top 10 openers. He only moved to South Australia this year because he wasn’t good enough for his home state. He’s scored 1 first-class hundred. What the hell. Give me Harris, Pucovski, Burns, Khawaja, Hughes, Street, Weatherald and Bancroft over him and it’s not even close.

I can’t believe people are still open to the idea of Mitch Marsh as a test cricketer. It’s dumbfounding. Year after year it happens. He gets picked off no first class form and just “gut feel” and “potential talent” and then he fails once more. He averages less than James Pattinson does with the bat in test cricket. Bison is doing a great job as a limited overs player. Keep him there. Also, why does Kerry think we need an all-rounder with Green already there?

tl;dr Kerry is cooked

Honestly I thought one of the biggest issues was the Australian team composition. They decided to play 8 bowlers with Haynes out which made no sense with Redmayne in the squad and Villani existing. None of the allrounders are in the top 6 best bats in the country, and we clearly don’t need more bowling options, so why play them?

You don’t even play 8 bowling options in a one day match, let alone a test.

Both Redmayne and Villani were bulk WNCL run-getters last year, and while yes, it’s lovely to see some young kids getting a run, Stella Campbell has shown nothing in her domestic career to justify an international callup at all. She’s played 14 List A matches and averaged 38 with the ball, and her BBL career started with an entire season and a half of being picked to bat 11 and getting one token over every game with Silver-Holmes. She’s bowled 50 overs in her 26 match career, which is less than 2 overs a game. She’s just not ready yet.

I think that just encapsulates one of the problems I’m having with Australia’s approach to women’s cricket, a clear
and unwavering prioritising of youth over runs on the board.

I interpreted your comment as addressing solely the Bears bid as it stands in North Sydney. Yep, definitely not the best idea when 9 Sydney clubs already exist and Western Australia is a huge growth region. The biggest thing against the current Bears plan is how it will make an already heavily concentrated league even more concentrated.

Wouldn’t oppose a Perth club branding themselves as the Bears but there would have to be public consensus from focus groups inside both the Perth and North Sydney league communities that would accept this. I know many sandgropers who just want their own franchise (be that Pirates or someone else); and there may well be North Sydney purists who prefer to keep their own club intact.

Bottom line though, no more Sydney teams needed.

Jhye is actually an excellent fielder aside from his arm, and in fact his tendency to throw his weight around more than most other fast bowlers was what got him injured in the first place

Take a historic NSW team up to represent filthy Queenslanders and the Queenslanders are forced to support a historic team from filthy NSW. Bears fans are resentful their beloved club doesn’t represent them anymore and Brisbane rugby league fans that hate the Broncos are forced to support another already existing franchise that they hate.

Literally a lose-lose for everyone.

Paul, don’t think anyone’s denying the Bears’ right to a fair trial, most people just don’t consider the Bears the best option for the growth of the game.

Why mention them then? If you just mention them to supply context, your article essentially boils down to a comparison between Hayne and Turbo. Which is fine, it just doesn’t really reflect what the piece’s premise appears to be.

You’re absolutely right here in that comparing Turbo with the other 3 is unfair, due to a multitude of era-related variables including quality of teams, rule changes, needs of the position, fixture scheduling, the expectations of rep footy during the season, etc. But ultimately, I would say the same by comparing Turbo and Hayne.

Hayne had a different role in the team to Turbo (see your point about kicking games); while Manly had a better spine the Eels had a better forward pack; the game has changed a lot in 12 years (six again, HIAs, etc.); the role of travel and rest in a covid vs non-covid affected world; and that’s only scratching the surface. I guess my point is, no situation is an exact match or accurate comparison. Turbo could be the winner if you look at it through certain glasses, Hayne could be the winner through others. Just too many variables.

Ultimately, it’s subjective. Nobody is saying that Turbo had the best season, because you can’t really measure that. That’s why speculative terms are used: hence, “one of”. And I don’t think that’s a stretch.

I don’t get the comparisons to the Sterling, Lockyer and Cam Smith situations. You’re citing various team achievements to try and prove a point about individual performance. That’s not how it works.

If Turbo had a better team; and a team whose forward pack wasn’t completely poleaxed for the first half of the year, Manly might have been a better title contender. Sterling’s Eels didn’t win the comp off the back of Sterling alone. He had Kenny, Cronin, Price, etc. That was a monumental Parramatta outfit. I’m sure Sterling was fantastic for country and state, but giving us team achievements such as “The Unbeatables” ignores all context. An equal or lesser Australian team led by Turbo may well have been Unbeatable themselves.

Plus, if you wanted to play that game, Turbo with NSW won an origin series of unprecedented dominance, won G1 MOTM and Wally Lewis medal. And ultimately, giving us any arguments about international RL at all is fruitless as Turbo may or may not have achieved the same had he played in the RLWC at the end of the year. Point is, he didn’t get the opportunity to.

Kuhnemann? Not, you know, Agar? Kuhnemann isn’t even the best spinner in his own state.

Cameron Welch is certainly an interesting name

Not sure where you’re getting the idea that Lemuelu has potential as a defender. He’s easily the worst defender at the club and that’s saying something with Drinkwater there as well. The amount of tries he’s let through by running at the wrong man and conceding an overlap would make a team lose on its own.

The only good thing Lemuelu provides is strong metres out of trouble on the first or second tackle. Otherwise he’s a real struggler.

How is honestly any of this relevant?

The Roosters have every right to look further afield for squad depth rather than using a lot of their very raw and very young juniors. What do you expect they do? Players like Keighran and Hutch have a few more years of valuable experience which is huge in an injury-ravaged team.

They’ve debuted 9 players this year, 7 of them being Easts juniors. Out of those 7 I’d say maybe 2 of them (Baker and E.Butcher) look up to NRL level. If they want to buy from elsewhere for coverage, than power to them. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that they have been absolute poleaxed by injuries and shouldn’t even ordinarily need to use that depth anyway.

I hate Easts as much as the next bloke but this is just tripe.

I don’t entirely disagree with your overall point here Tim, but this notion here is horribly flawed:
“While they beat Australia in 2019, that was an invitational side due to an impasse between the Tongan Rugby League and the players. Not exactly the basis for a successful era right there…
So if we want to see competitive international rugby league played, at best we can hold at tri-series between Australia, New Zealand and England.
There is not even vaguely enough cattle to justify running a full blown ‘World Cup’.”
Tim, second tier nations have literally never been stronger. Jarome Luai and Brian To’o, genuine stars of the NSW origin victory this year, have explicitly expressed their desire to represent their family nation of Samoa. Josh Papalii has come out with similar sentiments. The best lock forward in the NRL since Bradley Clyde literally plays for Tonga. He was the one who had paved the way for this revolution. Genuine star players like Staggs, Tino, Molo, Fonua-Blake, Nofoaluma, Hamlin-Uele, Aloiai, Saifiti, TPJ, Fotuaika, Tuponiua and many more are unlikely to make the teams of their birth and will almost certainly have played for Samoa and Tonga. Literally look it up, Tim. These Pacific teams will be insane. Add that to Fiji, who would have had Sivo, Ravalawa, Kikau, RCG, Koroisau and Tariq at their disposal, and PNG, who would have Johnston, Olam and Mead. Coote is killing it in the UK and would have lead Scotland. Moses would’ve played for Lebanon.
I totally don’t buy the “lack of cattle” argument, let alone believe so strongly like you do. It’s not even remotely close to the reality.

Couple of really strange ones here. Dufty? You know you literally have Nofoaluma there right? In no less form and is an actual winger. Dufty has never played wing in his NRL career and it’s not like he’s wondrous enough to play out of position.

McLean has been the ploddiest forward out of anyone from the Cowboys the past few years, coming from a Cowboys supporter. He’s not egregiously bad or anything, but like, Reagan Campbell-Gillard is right there. Easy choice.

The bench is really strange. Rudolf is good, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not even close to being in the question. Mark Nicholls is the funniest one though. Really? Really? He’s not even the next best in his own club. There’s a reason various pundits have been talking about Koloamatangi.

Agree on the whole but Gamble was definitely Kev’s third choice halfback (Croft and Dearden being 1 and 2, at least initially) ahead of Kelly, and when Kelly played he was 6 and Gamble was 7. Kev definitely considers Gamble to be his halfback.

You can’t lead the team as a halfback when you’re getting busted up the middle and your forward pack is being entirely dominated

Papalii will come in for Ofahengaue, and as for Horsburgh, both Wallace and Molo were in better form than him

Been really impressed with Labuschagne’s T20 form of late but I feel his only spot in that t20 lineup is as a no.3. It’s awesome to see how he’s developed his power game, and his bowling is a great boon. But he’s naturally an anchor first and foremost, and we already have one of those in Smith.

I love Marnus a lot, he’s really great, but I just don’t see a spot for him currently, he’s just the wrong type of player.

Robson has been fantastic