Long time Bulls/Northern Fan, only seem them twice in the flesh, but been cheering them on from a distance since before Super League. Have to admit I don't follow Rugby League that closely outside of Bradford games so I appologise if my question appears stupid. It's about the salary cap.

As far as I understand it the cap is the amount of money a SL team can spend on their squad. If the Bulls and say for example Wigan or St Helens are all spending the maximum how can it be that the Bulls are generally predicted to be awful again this year ? If teams are spending the same money how can one team be top of the table, play exciting, expansive RL and another is scrapping with Widnes, Salford for the wooden spoon ?

Surely the point of a cap is to get some sort of parity in the league. If so I just don't get why Bradford spend the max but don't have a team to compare to the top sides.

But we ARE going to finish top.

And some cynical people may think it is stating the bleedin obvious that the squads of teams like one beginning with W in some shape or form effectively must receive way more than the sum total of their official salary cap, as otherwise they wouldn't feasibly all be there, but personally I don't buy into this, I believe they have all accepted much lower pay than they could get elsewhere for the sheer joy of living in and playing for a team that begins with a W, and I applaud their altruism and selflessness.

Brown envelopes and the W team aside still doesn't seem to add up that our collection of players earn the same as Wigans or St Helens. Is it down to Bradford not having the pull of old and players will prefer to go to the likes of Leeds, Saints, Wigan for potentially less (or at best same) money ?

We probably talk to the wrong people or pay overrated players too much. Also that W team have triple everyone's salary

I'd suspect that comes into it, along with all the other advantages, which aren't counted under the cap, but are available to teams with outside financial assistance.

If we had a rich owner, with lots of outside interests, he could doubtless organise a "consultancy agreement" for a player with one of his companies. Totally unreplated to his RL, of course. Or maybe the player's missus could be a very well-paid PA in one of his businesses? Or maybe he has a mate who is just DYING to pay the player's offshore personal service company megabucks for the guy's image rights? A mate who, just co-incidentally, would be the recipient of a nice lucrative supply contract from the rich owner's business?

And not a brown envelope in sight. Nor a concerned salary cap auditor.

But we don't.

I don't buy it. Not many players go anywhere "for less money" nor would I if I were one, so as it most certainly doesn't add up, I draw my own conclusions.

Secondly, you say "the likes of", but we ARE still "the likes of", barring our recent poor success rate; players the world over still see Bradford as one of the biggest clubs, as in deed it is. So while Wire or Wigan may be the top cards, it seems obvious to me that we'd by higher up most players' lists than the majority of SL clubs.

Unless they were made an offer they couldn't refuse. And brown envelopes are not necessary, there are many ways to skin a cat.

But I do think that, for a club playing by the salary cap rules, we have on the face of it used our money quite wisely this year, (just a pity about Lynch, which leaves us potentially a bit light and inexperienced in the pack) and we will be by no means fielding a team of mugs. On the QT Potter has assembled quite a tasty squad,

I think quite a lot of players, (probably most) when all other things are equal would choose to go where they perceive they have the best chance of winning silverware. Right now we are not one of those clubs, and why would we be given where we've finished the last few years? I think that fact, alongside all the things that Adey mentions, do impact on our ability to attract the very best, just as it worked to our advantage a few years ago.

It's fine, with fans hat on, to think we're still one of the 'big' boys, but realistically we're not, and until we get our 'mojo' back we'll just have to get used to it. I agree about the squad though and I'm looking forward to seeing if we [ihave[/i recruited as well as I [ithink [/iwe have....roll on Sunday!

But what record do we have of "attracting the very best"? Were we actually mopping up the best players in the world in our pomp? I don't think so.

When we finished top in 1999 we hadn’t signed any superstars. Henry Paul would be the biggest name, the rest were really pretty much all our own work in terms of having brought them on.

By 2001 when we were Champs, who had we bought? We were playing players like Withers, Lowes, Vagana and Gartner, NONE of whom were superstar signings. They became superstars with Bradford.


In 2002 we had Lesley Vainikolo. Far from being a superstar, he was widely derided as a waste of money in his first year. I think we also added Lee Gilmour, if memory serves, again no superstar signing.

By 2004 we had Shontayne Hape, a rookie who we signed as a crock having been out of the game for a year with a cruciate ligament tear. Who else? The journeyman Logan Swann, maybe, Lee Radford. Oh - almost forgot. An over the hill Union returnee by the name of Iestyn Harris.

In 2005 (unless you count Morley for the Final) I can only think of Brad Meyers, and he was a well known player.

But the common thread to me has always been much more about signing crocked, out of favour or unwanted players and making them very good, or even great. Not attracting superstar signings.

Unless I’ve missed some.

Oh almost forgot, our failing and spluttering team did manage to attract the superstar that was Matt Awford.


Heheh yep, the eternal optimist in me would second that!

Hang on there, Wakefield are paying in back handers?

Spot on, in summary its a team game. and as Caisley said, the Bulls are the Paupers Team. Talking of puns, however pathetic, this topic is a bit of a red web to an Adey bull.

Joe Vagana had 25 Kiwi caps and was in his prime. Swann something similar and Lowes was a big money signing out of Leeds

It was not my aim to knock or minimize the prior achievements of players, but to point out that we have not been in the habit of signing superstars. I wasn't saying we always signed apparent mugs or no-hopers on the cheap. So I don't know what point you're trying to make.

Whatever it is, if those are your leading 3 examples of our record of superstar signing, I don't need to do much more, really.

Big Joe was an international. albeit W.Samoa and NZ, and an established player in one of the NRL's whipping-boy sides. It was a bit like signing Wakefield's best forward. Auckland's league position sin the time he spent there were 10/11/7/15/11/13. In the year we signed him, they had narrowly avoided the wooden spoon.

Swann is a not dissimilar case, a versatile player and regular international, but he only played a season for us and we signed him when he was nearly 30.

As for the genius that was Jimmy, are you kidding me? He'd spent most of his years at Hunslet, Leeds had him only for a season and they only sold him because they decided that he wasn't as good as Mick Shaw! It was us that suspected he could be a genius, not Leeds! You're citing a reject from an underachieving northern hemisphere team as us buying an established superstar? Is that all you've got?

While the Warriors were doing badly I think that was more to do with the disarray the the club was in off the field. They still had some very good quality players like Vagana and Stacey Jones They would have been very good recruits for any NRL side.

If he only spent a year at Leeds how did he manage to get picked in the 94 and 95 cup finals ahead of (you guessed it) Mick Shaw? We paid a six figure fee which they accepted as they were in deep financial trouble.

Joe Vagana had 25 New Zealand international caps including the 2000 World Cup and was established as one of the best props in the world.

And whats with the 'Is that all you've got? Laughing emoticon thing.' Makes you look hysterical tbh.