They'd of gotten run over the top of, they are (by Wigan fans own admission) too small and would keep the intensity in the middle.

Calm down, don't throw the baby out of the pram. Learnt he lessons and use it to drive us to the GF this season.

It wouldn't.

Brisbane are nearly as far behind Souths as we are. Saints forwards got man handled and ours are smaller.

Over reactions aren't needed by Saints fans tonight. It's tough to take but the issue doesn't sit at Saints door, it sits at the door of the RFL. Our league had been allowed to fall further behind then it's ever been.

Yeah it would have finished Wigan 0 v 60 Souths

Hopefully this will be a wake up call for some at the rfl to bring in some new rules/ up the cap more generally as well.

Fair point mate. Good post.

Very decent posts from you tonight Nicky. Out of interest, what would you do to close the gap and improve Super League? Is it just a simple case of increasing the salary cap? If so, is there not a risk we'd lose several clubs as the crowds and sponsorship just isn't sufficient to make them sustainable.

I don't think the RFL can win in this situation. The only way to stop promising British players from leaving SL and heading to the NRL is by raising the cap to similar levels to which the NRL operates at. Even then, players will still leave because of the attraction of the climate and surroundings.
Clubs like Saints will always have a decent production line of academy prospects, but other clubs are not in the same position and they would undoubtedly use the extra cap space to bring ageing australian players over to SL and consequently prevent British players from getting a spot in the side.
This is before we even consider the clubs who simply cannot afford to spend to a higher cap. Combining a higher cap with the threat of relegation is simply a disaster waiting to happen.

The Aussies are just fitter athletes, it's their national sport over there (in some states), they have a much bigger player pool to produce talent from, and the sport is booming over there.

this rule is currently in place in the championship:



This is the rule that can (and should of been by now) brought in that can at least start e tide. Tomkins and Graham are lost to us imo, what we need is to start the process to protect the next in the production line. That combined with slow, regular and planned cap increases will start to turn the tide, limits the risk to smaller clubs, and rewards clubs for producing talent as opposed to buying in.

Isn't that rule already in place for SL? I thought it was £100k for club trained in SL?
If not, then I agree it should certainly be brought in.

It was lesson in Rugby League. Souths were untouchable.

Nope. It was supposed to be, but clubs refused to vote it in for this year. I'm hoping to God the rfl don't let them dig their feet in too long and it's due to come in next year...

100k is also too high - should be 100k normally, 75k upon an England knight appearance and 60k after a full England cap.

That and a cap increase to £2m in 2016, and an agreement to increase it by ~100k per year for every year after that for 5 years is step 2

Stuff the Aussies and stuff their salary caps.

We beat Wigan in a Grand Final last year with a young side and then the aussie champs came over to play us in our new stadium, we sold out and we made some money out of it.