Hardly, Saints are losing/lost Graham, Eastmond, Cunnigham, Wellens & Pryce thats a substantial spine of the team to replace.

Leeds need to replace Webb, Senior, Lauititti and to a lesser extent Peacock in the next year its hardly the spine of a team.

There will be "like for like" available Andy, as even though the SC is likely to rise in Aus, the number of players in the competition won't (without the new teams that is), hence there will always be a player drain to GB, just that they won't be great players...

That isn't the case bats. When the new increase was announced, it was also stated that clubs would keep 30 man squads now instead of 25 man squads. Now with the increase that extra 5 players from what is it 15 teams? that's 75 players in the squads that were not before.

Of course not every player is happy just been a squad man, so some will certainly still find there way here. But where super league in the majority of cases were originally getting names out of those 75 players, it is more likely now they will be getting them from the next tier down still.

Has the increase been announced? I thought the new TV deal was in negotiation. I must have missed any announcement, could you give me a link to it please?

You are correct. It was a publicity announcement of where the clubs would improve from, rather than a confirmation of the deal.

The deal won't be done till next year (IIRC?). But a number of clubs have flagged increasing their squad sizes and rotating players more frequently to avoid burnout. Even if that's only 2 players per club extra, that's a significant reduction in reasonable overseas players available to SL.

I don't think it will mean that SL clubs won't be able to find overseas players - there will still be big names able to get a bigger last payday from SL, and those who want regular first team action - but there will probably be a reduction in the number of 'solid' NRL players available.

I don't see that as a bad thing at all, as there are far too many of that type in SL who in the end don't really benefit clubs or overall youth development.