Juan Cornetto wrote:
Incorrect. I did not say Drew Broatch was an International. See my quote below.
"Wales RU of course produced a conveyor belt of talent and Scotland chipped in with a few as well - the great Dave Valentine (Huddersfield), Ronnie Cowan, Drew Broatch & Alan Tait etc"
You mentioned no timescale limitations!
What relevance to that point are timescales?
After your quoted bit above you immediately went on to say:
Juan Cornetto wrote:
In addition to the dual code internationals there have been many local players who came to RL from Union and became top League players Derek Hallas, John Atkinson and Sid Hynes to name a few.
If I misunderstood your point re Broatch then I withdraw that comment.
Juan Cornetto wrote:
Wrong again tvoc: I listed 8 dual code internationals. See my quote below
I did see it the first time and I weren't overly impressed with it then either.
Juan Cornetto wrote:
"Apart from John Bentley there are several notable England RU internationals that converted to RL. - Bev Risman, (Leigh, Leeds) Mike Coulman (Salford), Keith Fielding (Salford). Barrie John Mather (Wigan & England Schools RU) If you go back futher you have Ray French (St Helens), and the great Leeds legend Jim Brough and Thomas Holliday (Oldham)"
Thomas Holliday played for Aspatria, captained Cumberland and was capped 7 times for England. He also went on the British Lions tour of South Africa.
How can Thomas Holliday be described as a 'dual code International' if he never played Internationally at Rugby League? What was his other International code, quidditch?
Re Mather - The discussion is supposed to be about ex England Internationals converting to League (I presume most would expect those to be full Internationals rather than including those with only schoolboy honours at the time of crossing the great divide - which would widen the scope)
Juan Cornetto wrote:
Do keep up at the back tvoc- you really must get some better sources.
Are you disputing the Rothmans Rugby League Yearbook and it's chief statistician Ray Fletcher? When did Thomas Holliday play for the GB Rugby League team? You've described him as 'dual code' (twice now) so when was it?
You may be right, just say when it was.
Juan Cornetto wrote:
Barrie John Mather learnt his rugby playing Union and had proven International talent. He became an International at schoolboy level which I stated. He was in the same International (18 yr old) schoolboy side as Matt Dawson and Richard Hill and the only reason he did not get his full cap before converting to league was that he signed for Wigan the following year as a 19 year old! He later went on to get full caps in both League and Union. So he was a proven International - what is your point?
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My point is he wasn't a full England RU player before he joined professional Rugby League (and that was basically what the discussion was about) so his inclusion was nothing more than a pointless diversion to bolster a low number. The number of ex-English RU Internationals to play League is still low even with his spurious inclusion. What he went on to achieve in RU Internationally after he left League is also fairly irrelevant to this code.
Juan Cornetto wrote:
What are you talking about?
All these were rugby players of note in both codes. The number of caps a player achieves is not the way to judge his talent. In bygone days their were few Internationals compared with today. You asked for "proven International talent" which all this list have.
eg: Fielding jointly holds the record for the most tries scored in an England RL match. He scored 253 tries in 319 games for Salford and 10 tries in 12 RL internationals. Plus he won the 1981 TV Superstars series final and the Challenge of Champions final in 1981 and finished 3rd in the 182 series final.
In 1975 (we'll call it Fielding's golden era) England played 10 games, I'd say that compared pretty favourably to the 4 England played in 2010.
You say 'all the list have' but only Keith Fielding appears above and a lot of that pertains to Superstars rather than RL unless I missed the bit where Les Dyl got in his canoe to score the winning try. Of course Fielding's record equalling haul for England RL in a match V France in '75 cannot be sniffed at. He gained 3 GB caps in total so will have been thankful when England and Wales seperated for the World Cup that year, giving him a look in without the additional competing of Sullivan, Bevan, Mathias or Richards for a place in the side. Not that he was able to hold off Atkinson, Dunn and Wright anyway. I'm not knocking Fielding he's at least a genuine 'dual code' International.
Juan Cornetto wrote:
Like I said you have to go back more than 2 decades to find more than a handful of Welsh Internationals that converted to League.
Define two decades and why specifically two decades anyway as opposed to lets say 25 years? You had four decades (70's, 80's, 90's 00's) to come up with five ex-England Internationals and you struggled (and probably failed?) to do that.
I did the equivalent with the ex-Welsh International lads with basically half the time-frame allowed as that given for England and for each additional five years I could probably add another handful. Give me 25 years (1986 to date) and I'll add Terry Holmes, Rob Ackerman, David Bishop and Gary Pierce to the eleven full Internationals mentioned higher up and I haven't yet added the name of Gareth Thomas.
Ex England Internationals either in terms of quantity or quality cannot by and large compare to the value added by the boyos from the Valleys.
