Not many players retire gracefully.

Jon Wells did last night on Sky Sports and good luck to him in this his testimonial season (the first Broncos player to have been awarded one) and for the future beyond that.

He first played against Leeds in 1998 but I have a feeling he may be one of the players that has played in every year of Super League, not sure though. He's also a member of the 10 tries minimum V Leeds club.

If I recall correctly he qualified as either an accountant or a lawyer in his Castleford days so that may cushion the blow of giving the game away to injury and old age at 31.

The quick answer is no! Sorry!

Well the £3m comment clearly shows, as another poster pointed out, he is talking out of his bottom!

Also, in respect of signing anyone 'back' that is clearly bottom talk again, how can RFL/SL restrict any players freedom of trade by contravening contract law? As long as both teams agree terms for player and of course they can make room for him in the cap then he can come back.

1. Correct
2. Qualified in Leeds at the same time as Oliver Marns, once of Halifax I believe.
He's always comes across as a genuine guy whenever I've heard him. Good luck to him in his new career whatever that may be.

I think that a player stays exempt even if he moves clubs, which is why the likes of Solomona, Gene and Tadulala were able to be signed by their respective clubs

Yes, length and terms of residency is the deciding factor.

no you can exclude them from the 25 man first team squad by de-registering, but thats all afaik

Well you can, but don't confuse the first team squad rules with the Salary Cap rules, which are different, even though the Salary Cap rules also use the salaries of the top paid 25 players... hence the confusion!

They can de-register 'them' from the first team squad and that tends to happen automatically if long-term injured but if you carry on paying them, that money counts on the cap, albeit it might reduce slightly because the 'player' will no longer (depending on his contract) be getting playing and win-bonuses. If the reduction in salary is such that it takes a player outside of the top 25 player earners at the club then they might come out of the £1.6m cap value but they would then fall under the £50k second team cap burden.

So, sorry mate, I am correct and you can't get them off the cap as such.

Sorry Hutchie, realised that you were agreeing with what I said. Ignore post above!

Quote: leicester_rhino "I think that a player stays exempt even if he moves clubs, which is why the likes of Solomona, Gene and Tadulala were able to be signed by their respective clubs'" The limit, the exclusions, who does and doesn't count is surely worthy of an investigation by Inflatable_Armadillo. I await his due diligence with eager anticipation. That's the only way us mere supporters will be able to get our heads around how it all works. John Kear, for example, talks of the limit being 5 in 2010 in this article is on the quota, yet he first played against Leeds in 2003 and has played against Leeds in every season since. So he's been contracted over here for 8 continuous seasons. If he's still on quota so would Scott Donald, wouldn't he? All very confusing. www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... field.html

Quote: leicester_rhino "I think that a player stays exempt even if he moves clubs, which is why the likes of Solomona, Gene and Tadulala were able to be signed by their respective clubs'" The limit, the exclusions, who does and doesn't count is surely worthy of an investigation by Inflatable_Armadillo. I await his due diligence with eager anticipation. That's the only way us mere supporters will be able to get our heads around how it all works. John Kear, for example, talks of the limit being 5 in 2010 in this article is on the quota, yet he first played against Leeds in 2003 and has played against Leeds in every season since. So he's been contracted over here for 8 continuous seasons. If he's still on quota so would Scott Donald, wouldn't he? All very confusing. www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... field.html

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has been posted previously but the rules are covered in Part 5 section E1 here.

rlhttp://www.therfl.co.uk/about/page.php?id

It isn't helped by virtue of the fact that the RFLs operational rules on it's own web site appear to be out dated. At C1http://www.superleague.co.uk/page.php?id

G1 - I think you were looking in the wrong section, it is covered in section B, but it could be that section C does not reflect the update in section B. If that is the only change in section C since the last amendment then I can see why the RFL did not bother with an update.

[iSeason 2010

Actually, the OP that asked the question was indeed correct in some ways and I was still working under the old rule in my head. So with Jamie Lyon if they did not have room at Saints, then he could not be re-signed as he went to Aus. I apologise, but of course Scott Donald would be a federation trained player if he left us to go elsewhere in SL, so not taking up a more valuable non-federation spot.

[i
(a) ‘Club Trained Player’

As I read that then, Lee Smith would now be non-federation player and have to come back as one of the six if we indeed have room... tvoc... do we have room?

BUT we do have an RFL get-out clause! Given Lee Smith was a Leeds Academy trained player and has gone to RU but not played first team football, this might wash with the RFL board -

[iB1