Harlequins coach Brian McDermott has hit back at claims that the number of overseas players in the Super League is to blame for England's performance at the World Cup.

Earlier this week the Australia coach, Ricky Stuart, suggested that Super League clubs rely upon overseas players, at the expense of nurturing home grown talent able to compete at an international level. Former Great Britain and England rugby league international Jason Robinson also criticised clubs for not allowing players time to develop ‘mental toughness’.

McDermott believes otherwise: "Top class, regular starting overseas players are not the issue with our representative team not performing. With a country infatuated with soccer and celebrity culture it is becoming harder and harder to get young men away from the telly and their mobile phones to take up a sport that requires toughness, discipline and a huge work ethic."

Developing home grown talent is an absolute priority at Harlequins Rugby League, with large community and academy programs in full operation. This week three Harlequins academy players signed full time contracts with the team: Jack Graves, Luke May and Dave Williams. All three are Londoners and, McDermott said, have the work ethic to succeed:

"We in London recoginise the difficulty of attracting players to the sport more than most and should feel proud that in spite of all this we can promote three more juniors from our academy system to full time training. We look forward to working with all three of these men with a knowledge that they all have a realistic chance of representing their club and city at Super League level."

Graves, May and Williams will be hoping to emulate the success of fellow Londoners and Harlequins team mates, Tony Clubb and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, who both graduated from the Academy, and both made their international debuts for England earlier this year.