It's good managing if done right. Besides I suspect it's something GH has already been doing all along but in smaller numbers.

Lets say you have 50k free this year. If pay the right player or a few up front then next year you have that same 50k -50k for those wages for a total 100k extra spend.

bluey once publicly stated he wanted to play Eastwood at Stand Off for New Zealand against Aus

he has also played wing, and played SO more than a couple of times

He's not "on loan" anywhere. He's not contracted to Leeds, we don't have him registered with the RFL so we couldn't loan him.

He's signed for tbe Bulldogs with an option exercisable on his behalf to become a Leeds player on 1 December 2009 subject to obtaining visa clearance. It's quite possible that even if he gets a visa he can still refuse to take up that option and remain in the NRL, with the Bulldogs or anyone else.

Duh....just put a clause in that if the contract is breached, £x has to be paid back. FFS, this isn't difficult.

The Eastwood fiasco does leave us short of a World class player and it is more than possible that this will come back to haunt us as the season unfolds.

Luckily from a domestic point of view (unluckily from an international standpoint) the standards in superleague are likely to continue to dip for a few seasons yet, until the stream of young homegrown talent - from all clubs not just a few - comes full on board, so we may get away with a relatively underpowered squad this year.

Time will tell

this is what i thought when i read the artical.

i still think he would be very good for leeds. i hope he comes.

I'm sure I read something about that when Wigan signed Fielden, but I'm not 100% sure if it was for salary cap purposes, or just to stop clubs getting around the 20/25 rule.

Wigan weren't frontloading contracts though they were offsetting by paying existing players less in the current season to fit new player's wages in. Those reduced contracts being renegotiated into longer deals.

IIRC (and I perhaps don't) Wigan didn't break the salary cap in terms of money spent but they broke the 'spirit' of the cap.

And how enforceable will that be when the player claims he's injured and won't play? Would you really want to keep a player that wanted to be elsewhere?

It's daft. Pay someone what he is worth on a regular basis without any front loading, or retrospective payments (I understand that's what Saints do/did) after the players contract is up, then there is no room for dispute.

Usual rules would apply.



Usual rules would apply.



....and we lose players we might have rather kept, or can't sign players we might have wanted to, and waste cap room.

Where did the idea of retrospective payments come from? Now, that's a daft idea, completely the reverse of what I suggested and would leave a team in trouble in later years.

If the contract is worth £450 over four years and we have shed loads of cap space now it makes perfect sense to front load.

Let's say, for example, burrow has two years left on his current deal. re-negotiate, giving him a 4 year deal with higher wages in the 1st two years than the last two. He earns more, gets longer term security and we have a lower cap hit in years 3 and 4 of the contract.

It's great salary cap management and a great way to retain players you want to keep.

If we assume that Burrow is already receiving his fair settlement under the Leeds pay structure wouldn't they be breaking their own rules to allocate surplus cap money this season and next and if so would that matter?

May not necessarily be good once tax is worked out for the player. An 40k a year player on a 5 year contract of 60k, 60k, 20k, 20k, would maybe pay more tax than a straight 40k per year. Not sure that would be beneficial to them. They could offset it by having a kick ass pension though

Which begs the question, would a company pension count on the salary cap? Its exempt from Tax, so you could argue that it should be exempt from salary cap too

This is starting to turn into porn for accountants so I am out of the discussion.

'Excuse me laides, can I check your figures....................'(cue bass guitar music)