Quote Adeybull="Adeybull"Thanks for that. Clear and concise.
To be honest, it looks to me like a more sophisticated variant on the existing overseas quota/home-produced etc rules? You are using the points differentials to influence the types of players a club can sign - although in your example a club is penalised whenever one of its players gets an international call-up - unless the player retained his original points value from when he was signed?
Although I can see what you are trying to achieve, without a salary cap you would find the wealthiest clubs would sign the best players in each category, and the less wealthy ones the Kylies (or worse) of this world. Would you not? Only if you graded the points by player ability (if such were possible, since such categorisation would necessarily be subjective) would you even-out the talent across clubs?
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I would work it so that a player retained his original points value for the length of his contract, when a new one is signed his new value would be attributed to him. So a player like McShane at Leeds would currently cost 20pts on the cap, if he were to be capped by England in the 4nations at the end of the year, then he would retain that 20pt value up until the end of 2013 when his contract runs out, if he re-signs for Leeds his value would move up to 30pts, if he signed for another team it would go up to 40pts
Quote AdeybullThinking quickly aloud, what would your views be on adopting your points system, and allowing a player to retain the points value he had on signing, but then adding to his value the inverse of the position his team finished in the previous season? Eg if his team finished first, add 14 points and if it finished last add one point? And add say 200 points to the total allowed? Even then, I guess all that would achieve is a winning side dropping off its least-good players and signing up everyone else's stars?
I'm trying to think of a way that a points system could help even up the competition without assigning subjective values. Without heading down some version of the "draft" route which I do not like because it penalises clubs that develop the best youngsters.
If you just let money rule, I really do fear you will create a very small elite of clubs and take away any real semblance of competition. Unless that small elite could join some elite international league yet to be created, I'd see that as the end of Sky's interest - and probably that of most of the fans too. Like we have seen happen already between SL and non-SL clubs. What do you think?'"
I dont see it like that, I see the points value, which isnt subjective it is based on a players actual representative honours, would force clubs to balance their squads. I think it would be more balancing than the SC. You have a limit on the quality of player you can bring in, you need to have a mix between players brought in, and players bought through simply to stay under the cap.
As you say, the bigger teams will have the best players in each section. But also that would mean they need fewer in each section. It would leave Leeds in a position to say is Lee Smith worth 30pts? Is JJB worth 30pts? if not, if we could get better value from sticking with Watkins/BJB/Wilson on the wing then Lee Smith can go. He wouldnt be attractive to the likes of Saints, Wigan, Wire, at 40pts, but Wakefield have very few international players and as such points to spare. And Wakefield wont be bidding against Leeds, Saints, Wigan, Wire for his services so his cost isnt going to just rocket because there is no SC.
It would see more players stick with the club that brought them through because they would be more valuable than players they could bring in, and less valuable to other clubs as they would cost more than players in their own academy.
It would see us able to compete for the very best players in world rugby and it would level the playing field. Plus it is flexible, very transparent and impossible to fudge. We could tweak it as and when we needed to as well.
As I say, i dont see clubs signing up all the talent, i think that would be impossible, what i do think is that we can start looking at the SBW's, The GI's, the Haynes joining our league without the possibility buying success ala wigan in the 90's but with the opportunity to earn it.
Now if Leeds were to sign for instance Shillington, they would need to drop either Cross or Kylie, now im not arguing either of those are comparable to Shillington, but they would then be available to other clubs, and at a reduced cost because their options would be limited. So it would make the players available to lesser clubs of a better standard.
As for changing the points based on league position. Im loathed to reward the team finishing last for finishing last. I never like it when it becomes in a teams best interest to finish as low as possible, which if we were to award additional points as the inverse of the league table we would get. As soon as the play-offs became out of reach it rewards a team for finishing 14 rather than 9th. What i would do is look at awarding something like 10/20 extra points to the teams who previously finished out of the play-offs. Wouldnt be a massive advantage but could easily be the difference between being able to sign an also ran and being able to sign an international.
