I think Ethan Havard (Wigan), Tom Holroyd (Leeds) and George Delaney (St Helens) have the highest ceilings, though they are either too young or injured to make an immediate impact in the NRL next year. There’s no current Sam Burgess or James Graham – Alex Walmsley is now to old probably.

I think there’s a few backline players like Harry Smith, Harry Newman and Jack Welsby that could make a big difference for Souths.

Alfie was just Alfie. I remember him coming to Warrington and he just made things happen. He was having fun but always getting stuck in – the fans loved him. Lee Briers then did the same for a decade.

I think that’s the things with a lot of genuine “Larrikins” or “characters” in sporting teams – they might cut a few corners in preparation – but they take complete responsibility on the pitch during the actual game. No hiding behind excuses or standing in the shadows. This is what gets me with Cody Walker – if he has no space on the left side, he sort of just hides or moans from a distance. Compare him to Cameron Munster in 2020 State of Origin after his hungover team photo. Not sure what they actually did between Monday and Thursday.

In football, Matt le Tissier was the best example at Southampton during the 90s. He didn’t track back, he didn’t run too much. He still took responsibility for scoring the majority of the goals for 10 years and keeping them up every year.

I think you are spot on. I think he’s going for a change and a nice pay day and has lots of future options going forward. Bit jealous really! 😂

Do you enjoy adding the same boring, unfunny cliche multiple times?

He’s probably more consistently grubby than all of them over a longer period yes. He’s bordering on Paul Gallen territory. Even Gallen admitted Ron Massey told him to stop being a “£$% on the pitch. Latrell just needs the same type of conversation. Almost every NRL club has a player who has either been taken out or injured by Latrell playing like an angry bloke playing close to the wind in the last 5 years.

People didn’t like Willie Mason, Billy Slater or Cameron Smith either. Billy Slater was incredibly grubby in the first half of his career. Sledging Corey Patterson and kicking people in the head or trying to kick the ball out of their hands close to the try line. No one liked Justin Hodges either because he played the pantomime villain for 15 years, particularly at Origin time.

Latrell actually seems like a decent guy off the field. Of course there are a sizeable portion of dickheads in the country that won’t like him for reasons expressed. The problem is that sad depressing reality is preventing Souths/himself from improving himself as a professional rugby league player for the better once he walks onto the field.

“Kai Pearce-Paul pierced poor defence”

A lovely bit of poetry there disguised as a Rugby League report! 😁

I don’t think Barnes is the same as Elsom or Palu. He was a junior League player that moved to a Private School and played a few games of rugby to pay for his scholarship.

He was more a Cameron Murray or Kalyn Ponga type, except he ended up playing Rugby Union for a living.

I don’t think it’s solely due to age. Brad Thorn was a lot better in his second rugby stint.

Rogers and Sailor were over 25. I don’t think if they had moved 2 years earlier they would have played any differently.

Personally, there’s enough money for the top players in both codes in 2024 that no players really need to make the switch. Most of the players that moved from Union to League (1895-1995) or League to Union (1997-2017) tended to get a huge payday for switching.

The recent Vunivalu and Suaallii contracts were exceptions to the current norm and have never made any economic sense to Australian Rugby. More an example of poor administration. I’m not sure the reasons for Mark Nawaqanitawase’s switch to the Roosters but again it feels like an anomaly rather than a trend. The vast majority of current Wallabies will still move to Europe or Japan.

A lot of the British Rugby League players used to refer to the challenge of playing Union a couple of decades ago. Since the NRL salary cap has tripled in the last decade, that “challenge” has shifted down under. What a coincidence.

It’s more that Moeroa’s Schoolboy Rugby highlights and performances are comparable to Angus Chrichton’s around the same time. It still didn’t translate to a good career for him at the Waratahs. If you aren’t playing well in you mid twenties, no one cares how good you were at 18.

Angus has definitely had the better NRL career of the 2.

He clearly did watch the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

The game has clearly become more like the NFL. The pauses in play have become very pronounced. That doesn’t make it bad, but the fitness is different. No NRL player will be throwing up on the pitch playing rugby, even if they are totally useless in the actual game.

The irony is if you are over a certain age is that the league players are now a lot shorter and leaner than their rugby equivalent. The 90s image of a Jonathan Davies bulking up and losing his neck looks as out of date as a victorian postcard.

Yep it’s a weird measurement system.

Take Will Warbrick – Everyone in the NRL would say he is a massive success. That he is a product of good scouting, hard work and excellent development and coaching by the Melbourne Storm. They all play to his strengths.

Even if he never plays at Representative Level he’s done amazing. Doesn’t matter if he never breaks into the top 10 NRL wingers or improves much from here. He’s a huge success.

If he had instead gone to the Brumbies, played over 50 Tests for the Wallabies and moved to the Top 14 for a big pay day – there would be a fair few rugby fans in Australia going – “Well he couldn’t kick as well as Matt Burke….”

How do you define “anywhere” – If they play as well as Tim Horan or Dan Carter?

Most the players that were directly signed from the NRL have been successful. Sailor, Rogers, Tquiri, Folau, Tomane, Barnes and probably a few others. Some rugby fans try to make out Tquiri and Folau weren’t good Wallaby players because they didn’t have a “fully rounded game”, as if David Campese did. Or even Hooper and Pocock. That’s just rugby fan confirmation bias.

No one in league says Scott Gourley wasn’t successful in his switch to league because he couldn’t match Bradley Clyde. He definitely made it to anywhere.

In Australia there’s been a few disasters on both sides like Garrick Morgan, Brett Papworth, Timana Tahu & Nathan Blacklock. A lot of that was due to bad scouting and coaching and a little bad luck.

Cutting all of the code war stuff out, the games have evolved so much that moving from one to another is getting harder and only going to be more difficult. There’s not much difference to Tepai Moeroa with Angus Chrichton and he was the most recent flop. There’s a massive difference between showing your skills against kids and doing it against grown men that defend for a living. His skills haven’t declined, he just can’t do them at a higher level against elite players.

I remember as a kid seeing Jamie Carragher dribbling the ball past everyone in the park and doing a hundred keepy ups. He had most of the goal scoring records at local school level. When it came to the Premier League though he preferred to kick it high into the stands because the likes of Roy Keane, Patrick Viera and Paolo Maldini etc could tackle a fair bit better than a bunch of schoolkids.

Is Rugby really communal or global? It’s still a niche sport and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s played in more countries than NRL or AFL but that doesn’t make a sport global. It’s a crutch that some rugby fans cling on as Super Rugby has declined and the NRL has boomed.

World popularity is also not really a reason to like a sport. I love football, don’t mind golf and can’t stand tennis. I don’t really care that they are played all over the world. I love the NRL and still watch it back in UK, more so than the Super League competition down the road. Wasn’t a fan of AFL at all. Formula One bored me after Nigel Mansell retired. Now it’s probably 100 times more lucrative. Don’t care.

Football is scarily communal. Me and my friends once had a 2 hour kick about against a bunch of lads from Naples, in a Dublin park. Their English wasn’t great but better than our Italian. We only knew where they were from because a few were wearing Napoli shirts. It was the same with them seeing our Liverpool and Everton shirts. The rules were implicit. There was even a bit of local pride in the performance. This could happen in almost every country. It’s probably why that sport got so big back in the day with most countries seeing British Sailors kick a ball somewhere. Far easier than trying to work out the LBW rule!

Rugby Union is having a few growing pains is all. Some countries have got better and others have declined. The Rugby World Cup, Six Nations and Top14 seem to keep going up, while the other comps appear to be falling or stagnating. There are some good games and some bad games. The game has become a lot slower and played in 90 second bursts. Some people prefer that to other eras, and other fans prefer the way the game used to be played.

Most sports aren’t really that recognisable from the early 90s. Sometimes we only watch the highlights of old matches as a comparison to today’s versions and forget about all the boring bits that have been cut out.

The irony is the Super League salary cap is about a third of the NRL.

Steve Rogers had died 10 years before Cronulla lost to Wigan in the WCC. Did Flanno secretly carry a Ouija Board after putting the peptides away?

It’s OK for some Aussie sides to lose in the WCC. It’s not always a ref conspiracy or a “well we didn’t try anyway” loss. Shocks do happen in sport. Enjoy them. St Helens did one of those last year. They had no advantages at all over Penrith but played better and deserved it. Won’t happen for another 10 years if it actually does.

The NRL has a much bigger salary cap, much better homegrown players and pretty much everything else going for it. Don’t get triggered by the odd loss as the tide is only moving one way.

Yep private ownership is not always a magic bullet. It’s far from guaranteed.

For every Russell Crowe there is a Nathan Tinkler.

The Melbourne Rebels were set up with a private owner in Harold Mitchell. He lost a lot of money owning the club and then handed it to the VRU. It then went back to private owner in Andrew Cox, who probably lost a lot of money before handing it over to the VRU instead of the ARU, to prevent it potentially being shut down instead of the Western Force.

The problem with potential private ownership in Super Rugby is that the TV deal is so low and the ARU is in debt. With the ARU removing 1.7 million in annual funding to clubs, it makes it almost impossible for them to make a profit. This then scares most private investors away. There are obviously wealthy backers like Andrew Forrest, who are prepared to lose money, but the situation makes it harder to find them.

The irony is that to get private money, you need the clubs to be well funded by the competition or governing body so they have a good chance of making a profit.

It’s almost impossible for a club in the NRL to lose money as their grant is the entire salary cap plus 4/5 million. Wests Group finally took over the Newcastle Knights after staying clear of them for decades once the generous funding grants came in. Making money attracts money.

It’s really not the same thing.

There is a difference between a long goodbye and a short goodbye.

Mitchell Moses. Now, where do I claim my prize? 😁

In seriousness, I don’t think the commitment issue is that prevalent.

The year early signing thing is only really for the better players in the NRL. Recently, most of them are players leaving for weaker clubs (offering more money) so they have a year to try and win a premiership.

I don’t like the system. I don’t think it’s the end of the world, but it’s far from ideal and the only sport where this happens. I’d personally like to see it moved to 1st May or June. I don’t think it will change for a very long time though so I’m going to have to lump it.

The one year advance signing is so unnecessary. I don’t question the commitment a lot of the time because more recently a lot of departing NRL players have one year to win something before leaving for more money to a club near the bottom of the ladder. It’s been like a “last dance” scenario for the last couple of seasons.
I wrote in another article about the 1st November window and the types of headline and reporting that comes from it. Its bad for clubs and singles out players moving in the off season. Its great for Isaac Moses though. The new 10 day cooling off rule brought in this year is more stupid on top.

The circus never leaves the road. After Luai dies down then Dearden will be next into the tent.

Latrell signing with Souths and Suaallii Roosters tit for tat. Isaiah Papalli moving to Tigers to play under Michael Maguire are obvious examples of the current system. However, This system is still far superior to the June 30 backflip one. No matter what happen the player managers will probably still ruin it for the fans.

Look its ok to disagree. I personally think Jack Wighton’s departure was a good template of how things should happen. I think football Bosman transfers have it perfect. Somewhere between the NRL and the US Sports that move you at a days notice. Just my opinion.

Everyone pretends its not happening is definitely the winner 👍

The idea that Penrith dont know what Wests Tigers have offered Luai isnt worth formalising a process. This 2 week rule just adds more unneccessary media innuendo. Its made even worse with it being in the off season. Theres no rugby league played so all the journalists are focussed on Luai.

The alternative is to move it forward 6 months to 1st May. It works well in football with bosman transfers. Fans also understand that if a player hasnt signed a contract by that stage then they are already on the way out, which takes alot of the drama out for the player.

The other positive is that players will see the season out, sort of like Wighton did with Canberra. There’s none of the, “He’s signed for 2025, how about a release for 2024?” That does fans heads in.

Clubs, players and managers will always do things well before the deadline. Thats inevitable and fine. Still, no other sport in the world has a deadline that far ahead.

It’s a silly rule. The problem is still that clubs can sign a player 16 months before they can play a game. This is one of those awful committee decisions and a legacy of the difficult RLPA and NRL talks.

The now former Chairman Lee Hagipantelis has delusions that are bigger than that god awful Brydens logo.

That he attempted to argue the loss of Pascoe as an “experienced CEO” when we’ve got Shane Richardson, shows everything he knows about running a successful Rugby League team.

I don’t think he’s a terrible person, but he was a terrible chair of Wests Tigers. He proved that when in the role and he will prove that now he’s been sacked.