I read in this mornings paper that the RFL are so worried by top stars going to RU and abroad they are considering introducing central contracts like cricket

do we think this is a good idea?

One concern is how will this work in a sallary cap sport, I assume they won't count on cap but some team with more people on central contracts would get a unfair advantage. Suppose opposite argument would be to encourage youth player development as if they get a central contract won't count on the cap.

Personally how we stand at the moment can't see it happening or working?

Don't agree with it tbh ,the Cricketers hardly play for their respective clubs so that'd be one part of the idea that would ahve to be binned.
I've said it before and i'll say it again IF a club is producing their own players then a % of their wages should be cap exempt and a higher % if they then go on to play for England.
Of course some of the smaller clubs may not be able to match those wage increases and may lose these players to a bigger RL club or RU but that happens anyway.

No, IMO. Never liked them in other sports.

To me they should adjust the cap for what is required, rather than going down central contracts. Player A playing well at start of year and getting contract could be completely out of form 12 months later and not deserving of it.

To me they need to adjust something with the development of youngsters for the cap.

Yes agree I don't want to see central contracts. I like the above idea regarding % of home grown players not counting against the cap, but I thought that was the case anyway?

There's something similar that starts this year irrc but i would like it to go further in terms of ££££ they earn not counting on the cap.

I'd agree to a point with that, but it has to be balanced with the salary caps aim of spreading the talent across the league as well. Smaller clubs will struggle to pick up bigger clubs "fringe" players if they can pay them significantly more, especially as only a few clubs make a profit as it is.
I believe the new rule for this year is that £50K of 1 homegrown players wage can be exempt from the salary cap. But if this were to be expanded to something like 25% of all homegrown players wages then Leeds for example would have:
Smith
Hall
McGuire
Burrow
JJB
Ablett
Sinfield
Bailey
Burgess
Clarkson
Hood
Jones-Bishop
McShane
Watkins

all with a significant part of their wage exempt. Great news for Leeds as Leeds can afford to pay them more to keep a stronger squad. Great news since players are less likely to go to Union, but not necessarily great news for the league or the national squad. If a player isn't getting much game time and needs to leave to develop as a player with more games at a different club, this would restrict that option and make it more difficult.

As for central contracts, well I think they should be looked at. They appear to have changed the fortunes of both the England Cricket and Rugby Union teams. There wouldn't be a cricket style absence from domestic club games of top players since we play nowhere near as many international games as cricket. However I take the point that players would still have to be available for the vast majority of league games, but I don't think it would harm clubs too much to lose their England players for 2 or 3 league games per year. As has been said there would be issues with the salary cap and some kind of exemption would have to be made. There is an issue over form and one player won't be as good one year from the next but I would say that the central contracts should take a long term view and not discard someone simply because they have a bad year. In the end I think most people could name the majority of an England team anyway regardless of form, I think it'd be safe to have say:
Sam Tomkins
Ryan Hall
Ryan Atkins
Michael Shenton
Tom Briscoe
Danny McGuire
Kyle Eastmond
Adrian Morley
James Roby
Jamie Peacock
Ben Westwood
Sean O'Loughlin
Kevin Sinfield

Luke Robinson
Stuart Fielden
Eorl Crabtree
James Graham
Joel Tomkins
Lee Smith
Richie Myler
Ben Harrison
Kevin Brown
Darrell Griffin
Leon Pryce
Shaun Briscoe

As a 25 man squad on some kind of central contract. There may be arguments over 2 or 3 but then you have the basis of a side that plays and trains together, maybe have a couple of spaces spare for any "bolters" who appear and have a fantastic season?
But I don't think its out of the question, and should at least be looked at in my opinion.

Central contracts - No thanks.

The RFL would probably only give them to Farrell, Robinson, Radlinski, Sculthorpe, Cunningham and Wellens anyway.

To greatly reduce the numbers of our best players going to Union, the answer is simple. Raise the Salary cap allowing clubs to complete with Union for the best players.

If the press are to believed Eastmond at Saints has been offered £200,00 by Bath, if Saints were to match this offer then it would take about 15% of their cap on one player.

Where would the money come from?
The RFL isn't exactly rolling in money.
When this was tried previously during the superleague war IIRC only Saints & Wigan benefited much to the chagrin of the other clubs.
OTOH that could have been due to who was in charge at the time.

If the answer to the question is to bankrupt the clubs then yes I agree it's simple.



If £20K is 15% of St Helens cap I can't see them winning a licence next time round.

And how do clubs afford it? There are only a small handful of clubs who make a profit as it is.

I don't like central contracts. I think International sides should be picked on current form not past form. Also I don't see why a central contract could be stronger than a club contract to keep a player in Superleague. All it would mean is the RFL would get the tranfer fee and not the club.

We should offer our good young prospects better and longer term contracts so that our clubs are repaid for producing the talent with either long term onfield appearances or large transfer fees. We should also limit the number of "foreign" transfers both ways.

Another thing to consider is for clubs to be allowed to contribute to the testimonial of long serving players outside the salary cap as a reward for long service.

I think the fact this keeps getting brought up shows the SC is failing. It pretty much always has. The fact some clubs still cant hit a cap we havent increased in over a decade is ridiculous. How on earth have we seen such huge growth in attendances, decent TV contracts, increase in sponsor spending, corporates etc, kept the wages ridiculously low, yet clubs are still falling over trying to spend a relatively small amount on players? The way i see it the RFL have 4 options. 1)scrap the cap. 2)a points based system as proposed in Australia (which they probably will go to) www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 10l50.html 3)Central contracts 4)Stay as is. Personally i think the points system has legs. I think a hard cap, when we arent the only option in the market place is far to restrictive, it is too broad, a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Central contract seem to not address anything. Its basically raising the cap but the RFL deciding who to give it to instead of the clubs. The SC obviously isnt protecting clubs from going bust, so lets not pretend its a reason for having it. Players should be able to earn what they are worth, so lets not pretend it is a good thing we force them to earn less. It is a necessary evil at best, but where we can lets let players earn as much as they can. I think a points based system would let us find closer to their real market worth, but stop a club hoarding talent. And i think it is where we will go.

I think the fact this keeps getting brought up shows the SC is failing. It pretty much always has. The fact some clubs still cant hit a cap we havent increased in over a decade is ridiculous. How on earth have we seen such huge growth in attendances, decent TV contracts, increase in sponsor spending, corporates etc, kept the wages ridiculously low, yet clubs are still falling over trying to spend a relatively small amount on players? The way i see it the RFL have 4 options. 1)scrap the cap. 2)a points based system as proposed in Australia (which they probably will go to) www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 10l50.html 3)Central contracts 4)Stay as is. Personally i think the points system has legs. I think a hard cap, when we arent the only option in the market place is far to restrictive, it is too broad, a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Central contract seem to not address anything. Its basically raising the cap but the RFL deciding who to give it to instead of the clubs. The SC obviously isnt protecting clubs from going bust, so lets not pretend its a reason for having it. Players should be able to earn what they are worth, so lets not pretend it is a good thing we force them to earn less. It is a necessary evil at best, but where we can lets let players earn as much as they can. I think a points based system would let us find closer to their real market worth, but stop a club hoarding talent. And i think it is where we will go.

The salary cap doesn't "protect" clubs from going bust but it helps since it keeps player wages down.
I don't particularly see the benefits of the points system, scrapping the cap isn't an option in my view it would be disastrous of the sport if we did that. Central contracts aren't really an answer for keeping talent from rugby unions clutches in the form of higher wages but more, in my opinion, a way of improving the national team and hopefully then increasing the media/national exposure of the national team and so increasing the profile of the players.
Best option, in my opinion, is keep the cap as it is whilst stressing the need for financial prudence from clubs, a reduction of the overseas quota and a focus on massively increasing the quality of junior/youth coaching.

I think it would be ok if it was 1 central contract for 1 england player at 1 club as long as player was homegrown, then cas could have kept hold of shenton or westerman as they wouldnt have had to pay them anything, but player was then tied to that club until the club brought another junior through who became an england regular.

Rather than england pay for maguires wage they could pay for halls who would be england regular longer..bulls could have langleys wage paid until bateman/whitehead etc became an england player..keeps wire etc away from the best young players as home clubs wouldnt have to pay for them..salford could have kept myler..london lms..wakey ellis etc.