This ruling needs massive clarification.

For example how many per club?
What % of the wage is over and above the cap?
How will this effect payments for other players?

Ie Tomkins gets £170000 for example. Is all that off the cap so allowing wigan to offer a deal to a player or players they could not afford other wise. Is £100, 000 on the cap £70000 off it, there fore freeing up £70000 for another player.

How do you judge what would have been offered under the cap to after the cap.

Minefield and can of worms spring to mind. Anyone got a link to the actual break down of this.

Also nice for RFL to step in on Wigans behalf, left it just the right length of time for Saints to have to let Graham go and spend a bucket load on a replacement for Eastmond.

Ah well normal service resumes.

I've stated previously 'proper league fans' will be made up Sam's staying in the game.

I'll leave it there.

indeed. As a fullback Sam's 1on1 tackling will always be suspect as he's so small

Quote ="bewareshadows"This ruling needs massive clarification. For example how many per club? What % of the wage is over and above the cap? How will this effect payments for other players? Ie Tomkins gets £170000 for example. Is all that off the cap so allowing wigan to offer a deal to a player or players they could not afford other wise. Is £100, 000 on the cap £70000 off it, there fore freeing up £70000 for another player. How do you judge what would have been offered under the cap to after the cap. Minefield and can of worms spring to mind. Anyone got a link to the actual break down of this. =#FF0000Also nice for RFL to step in on Wigans behalf, left it just the right length of time for Saints to have to let Graham go and spend a bucket load on a replacement for Eastmond. Ah well normal service resumes.'" The ten year £50K dispensation came in when Wigan lost Andy Farell to Rugby Union. Saints have benefited by using this rule for Long, Cunningham and Wellens. I will agree with you that the rule needs clarification and should be seen here in the next few weeks. rfllive.dyndns.org/~rflmedia/doc ... on%20E.pdf

Quote ="bewareshadows"This ruling needs massive clarification. For example how many per club? What % of the wage is over and above the cap? How will this effect payments for other players? Ie Tomkins gets £170000 for example. Is all that off the cap so allowing wigan to offer a deal to a player or players they could not afford other wise. Is £100, 000 on the cap £70000 off it, there fore freeing up £70000 for another player. How do you judge what would have been offered under the cap to after the cap. Minefield and can of worms spring to mind. Anyone got a link to the actual break down of this. =#FF0000Also nice for RFL to step in on Wigans behalf, left it just the right length of time for Saints to have to let Graham go and spend a bucket load on a replacement for Eastmond. Ah well normal service resumes.'" The ten year £50K dispensation came in when Wigan lost Andy Farell to Rugby Union. Saints have benefited by using this rule for Long, Cunningham and Wellens. I will agree with you that the rule needs clarification and should be seen here in the next few weeks. rfllive.dyndns.org/~rflmedia/doc ... on%20E.pdf

I love the way its the wigan fans telling us how the new rule 'should' work.

'oh it has to be a player that's come from the academy'... why? The sp wording, from wigan (and not the RFL) would appear to me to suggest it also applies to a 'marquee' signing... any club should be able to nominate any player from their playing staff.

As Saddened has correctly pointed out......All the ruling is doing is freeing up cap space for other players.

And so did we. Robinson & Ashton and if I want to be really tenuous, Thornley. Why wasnt anything done then? Why is it always us, why, why, why, wah, wah, wah



Seriously, if Salford had have been given special dispensation for Ratchford would you be moaning so much?

Utterly, utterly disgusting and shameful pro-Wigan bias from the RL yet again. Yet another nail very firmly rammed into the sport's coffin and my interest in it. There's no point in having rules if one team is allowed to circumvent them whenever they feel like it and others (e.g. Salford with Ratchford) can just go hang. I feel like saying **** it - just remove the cap from Wigan altogether and let them bankrupt themselves again buying SL for the next 10 years - I'll happily go and watch lower league footie and pretend RL is already dead and buried instead.

I'd love you to show me your post's on how unhappy you were at Kyle leaving Saints for Bath? and how Saints should have had the salary cap changed in there favour?

So Go away

I was very unhappy about Kyle leaving Saints for Bath particularly under the circumstances he did, i.e. His contract just running out rather than a fee but you'll just have to take my word on that. He's a great talent and would/could/should have been playing for England for many years.

I've always thought the salary cap should be amended to look after homegrown talent and I'll let you look through my posts regarding that, search facility at the top, shouldn't take you too long. It's the fact that Wigan have suggested this idea and it seems to be benefitting Wigan initially seems to be sticking in some peoples throats. So rather than just looking at it through ant-Wigan spectacles I think people should look at it through their pro-RL spectacles. It could be useful when RU come knocking for Lomax, Myler, Jones-Bishop etc...

It is good now being able to give high salaries to Marquee players to stop a drain to Union, but now everyone will want those type of wages, which is just not possible in our game! so many clubs are making serious losses and being propped up by Chairmen & Boards, so how do we keep giving more money.

Then you get an ex player this week saying we should have a National Stadium in the North instead of using Wembley! Using Wembley is an occasion and I am sure we signed a long term agreement! but where would we as a sport find the money to build our own stadium like Twickenham? and it would have to be in Yorkshire. I think some current and ex players need to come to the real world that the rest of us live in.

I suggested on C&W that it may be worth each team being allowed one player, who only counts 33% of his salary towards the cap, thus allowing the better off clubs to make sure they can hold on to at least one start each, fending off the clutches of Union. Alternatively, they could use that to make space on the cap for another player, but that's their choice.

Although Roby and Graham would have been the obvious choice for saints, if deterring Union is the main goal, you may find clubs saving this spot for backs like the departed eastmond and now, Johnny Lomax.

As for Rogue's question about Eastmond. He had the skills, rugby brain and physical abilities to be as good as, if not better than Sam. Problem is he has a fraction of the heart (which, lets face it, sam has in spades).
You'll see him on BBC2 next year, ripping it up in England's 7 a side team, as H Paul did. He'll probably make his money, but no er will count him as achieving a fraction of what he was capable of. Meanwhile (hopefully), our other young backs will develop into real stars of Rugby League.

BINGO

sam rumoured to be on £250,000 - £300,000 a year now.

I'm sure there will be some interesting contract negotiations over the next few seasons now for premium players.

To the people who are saying that it will just benefit the big clubs...

What would you rather have: a poorer standard of competition, whereby every team is equal or would you rather try and keep the best players playing here?

There is always going to be a disparity between the 'bigger' clubs and the 'lesser' clubs, that's life I'm afraid. It's up to the RFL to try and do everything in their power to try and improve our sport by keeping our best players.

It's a no-brainer for me. I'm afraid that some fans just can't accept that it is to the advantage of Wigan.

Double post

It also gets certain clubs, who have been flouting the cap off the hook. They can now stop pretending.

It's a shame that the Sam Tomkins announcement has sort of hidden the really big announcement at Wigan this week. viewtopic.php?f=28&t=511931

It's a shame that the Sam Tomkins announcement has sort of hidden the really big announcement at Wigan this week. viewtopic.php?f=28&t=511931

you're right...... it wouldn't have done wigan any favours being caught cheating the cap AGAIN would it.

As a collective group of fans are we really that one eyed and biased to not be able to see this is a great thing for RL. Yeah, Wigan were the first to take this rule to their advantage, so what? The rule applies to each and every club who can take advantage of it if they wish.

Would you have been happier if the RFL did nothing and talents like Tomkins were lost to other competitions or codes, closely followed by our other top players? Yeah we'd certainly have parity then, everyone would be rubbish. Unfortunately this dream of having all 14 clubs equal in talent and ability isn't going to happen, that's life, not everybody is equal.

I think it is a fantastic move by the RFL which will help in preventing a talent drain from SL, I'm sure you all won't be moaning when the rule benefits us to help us keep Roby, Lomax or one of our other stars.

There's a lot of hot air on this thread about a rule change nobody knows anything about but a few sentences from a press release. I don't agree with an increase for homegrown players as I do think it benefits the big clubs before the smaller ones at the moment, however that does at least give the smaller clubs something to aim for.

I'm a bit wary of this 'marquee' terminology though. Who determines a marquee player? That's a subjective decision that is open to too much interpretation.

The thing is though, if the RFL sit back and did nothing it is effectively punishing the big clubs by having their top players cherry picked. We can't blindly just say everything must be equal if it is to the overall detriment of the competition and our product.

Other clubs such as Wakefield and Castleford could be classed as 'smaller clubs' but they have fantastic youth teams with a hotbed of talent to scout from, this rule should benefit them as both of these clubs are now spending near to the cap.

Wakefield are spending to the cap?

Not one player that has gone over for the money would have ever received it in RL due to the cash restraints of the clubs, not the cap. Having an allowance for one or two players is a solution that is on iffy ground for me (that's without seeing the actual rule). The one thing I think should have happened was that the cap should have been raised in line with inflation every couple of years. £1.6m buys a lot less now than it did 10 years ago.

to answer an earlier question.
Eastmond didnt deserve it, Tomkins imo does.

As I understand it, for next season under Andrew Glover, Wakefield have substantially increased there spending on personnel. It may not be to the extent of the cap but certainly a lot more than they was. Of course, I may be wrong though.

I agree with every point you have made to be quite honest but I do think this new ruling, if it is as we suspect, will help in fending off RU or the NRL in terms of the cap not restricting clubs from defending themselves.

Why didn't eastmond deserve it ?

At least Eastmond saw out his contract, unlike some.