I know one Super League club that was paying a centre £124k in 2008...

I dont buy the argument that it would 'force' clubs to spend more, some would choose to definitely, but the points system still limits the amount of success you can simply buy in. With a total set at a deliberate level it becomes impossible for clubs to bring in an entire squad of international top quality players. You simply wouldnt be able to fit them all under your limit. It would mean a club would be forced develop its own talent if only to stay under the cap, and it would reward them when they did, aswell as making them more valuable to their home club, but also less valuable to other clubs.

What it would mean is that SL clubs could be in the market for the very best overseas players. They would count heavily on the cap meaning compromises would be needed elsewhere + there would still be a quota meaning that you couldnt bring more in, simply better quality. Plus it would get around all the third-party restrictions. If Bradford want to approach one of their sponsors, and can convince them the pay SBW £200k on top of his wages then well done Bradford.

Restrictions on money arent the only way of keeping costs down, and they arent the only way of levelling the playing field.

Smokey, can you explain the "Points System" in basic terms to those who are not that familiar with it please?

Basically players are assigned a points value and clubs an aggregate amount of points they can exceed when their players points values are added together.

A good thing about it is you can set these points values at whatever rate you want.

Personally I would look at something along the lines of

Overseas player 70pts
international British players who came through another SL clubs academy 40pts
international british players who came through your academy/from the lower leagues 30 pts
non international british player who came through another SL clubs academy 25pts
non-international player who came through your academy/from the lower leagues 20pts

With a maximum of 800pts to build your squad. Now as a quick example by my calculation leeds are hitting about 860 points and would need to shed 60pts. It would be up to them how they did it, they could drop an overseas player or two british internationals who came through our academy, or Peacock/Senior (our two british internationals who came through other academies) and a squad player like Kirke.

But whilst putting this squad of 800 points together we could pay the players what they want. So an overseas player like Kylie Lueluai who is pretty average if we are honest, would become less attractive as he would cost as on the points total/cap as if we went out and got David Shillington who we could now compete for in terms of £££

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?

Thinking 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 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
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.

Seems on the face of it a sensible approach re retaining initial value for duration of contract. Anything less would hardly be fair?

A likely implication maybe would be clubs giving very long contracts, doubtless with pay revision clauses, to players they see as having big futures? Would Leeds have given Sinny and Burrow and Maguire 10-year deals to retain their 20-point values?? Would a player sign such? Would a contract that said "this contract is for ten years, but if you have not achieved international honours within 4 years then the club has the option of early termination" be classed as a contract for 4 years or 10?

I see your point about rewarding a team that finished last, and see your compromise solution. Maybe the inverse points only kick in when a player changes clubs or signs a new contract? Just off the top of my head.

I'm not initially convinced by your cost argument, but equally I've not had the chance to get my head round it properly. Let me have a better think about it, and the other points you make, when I have a bit more time - you've clearly given it a fair bit of thought, so it warrants adequate time for consideration. Something is niggling away saying there is potential in this as a concept, even if not necessarily precisely as in your scenario. Hmm.

We could easily put limits on the lengths of contracts. Plus most players expect a contract renegotiation anyway after international caps.

The big issue I see is a player like Diskin being counted the same as a player like Roby, but we can put limits on the length between caps i.e no caps for 4 years and a player becomes non-international, to stop player foregoing international caps to keep their total low, the coach can select them if they refuse they refuse but the points are still added. But I would be interested to hear your thoughts.

I like that idea. Is it been tested in Aus or just talked about?

Thanks for the input Adey & Smokey, extremely interesting. adopting Smokey's suggestion I could definitely see the position where myopic fans of clubs claim therir players have been/haven't been picked for a one-off international against PNG purely to make them less attractive/more attractive assets.

As regards 3rd party image rights. If it does exist I am amazed it is not more out in the open. When I & my more talented mates played everyone seemed to know who was on what at most clubs. I would be surprised that no jealous, aggrieved, desperate player hasn't spilled the beans. Or perhaps I am now too remote from the game.

It's pretty well structured without being over complicated. I'd look to add another category of players from other sports and rate them similar to own academy products as you can then take a chance trying to attract top class athletes, who may or may not adapt to RL, without too high a risk.

I like the idea, but the "successful" clubs would no doubt be against this coming in. We'd have the issue of clubs breaking the points cap as players were under contract prior to this coming in, so it would take time to settle down and become a level playing field.

The major drawback I see however is the earning potential of certain "mid-level" players who have played an international game every other year or so but are not regular international players.

Potentially you could have Lee Smith - who was shown as an example previously who has played international rugby. He is not playing to the heights of previous years so Leeds in this scenario may choose to not offer Lee a new contract.

This makes Lee available to all other clubs, but as stated, he's not at the top of his game and the wealthier clubs already have the current incumbents of the England international jerseys all under contract.

So, Lee becomes available to the mid-level SL teams. However, they all know that Lee would count as a "higher standard" player in the points mechanism, but, he's not worth the value of those so would cost more per point that someone who had not yet played international rugby for England (eg, Michael Platt).

The clubs may therefore be willing to take Lee onto their books, but for a salary much lower than his grade would suggest.

We may find a big drop off of the fringe international players to RU given that they could probably offer more money without making a massive investment along the lines of the Harris or Robinson signings of the past.

This method gives the elite players substantially more power (and money), possibly at the detriment of the middle and lower level players.

You may also see the rich clubs spending an absolute fortune on younger players such as John Bateman, who they can tie up on long term deals just before they become international players, so that they would be classed as non-international on the points system for 5 years before the next contract becomes live, at which point said player may or may not have become an international regular.

In all honesty, I doubt you would see too much change to the current table, which probably tells its own story about the current cap and the ways to "legally" increase it. The RL hot-beds of Saints/Wigan and Leeds will still see young players coming through at those clubs, so would allow them to still compete to a reasonable level.

Clubs without financial clout, such as Bradford, would need to heavily rely on junior development and hope to pick up cast-offs from the top level who turn around their careers and become top level players once again (which rarely happens).

I like the idea and you could announce a 5 year plan to phase it in.

year 1, players would start to accumulate their points band but only in year 5 would it come into affect. that way there would be no arguing over who was worth what points.

Quote: debaser "I like that idea. Is it been tested in Aus or just talked about?'" I think it is being trialled in some of the lower leagues in Aus, im pretty sure around Newcastle. In Aus it goes by the pretty dramatic name of The Irvine Solution www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... -u04i.html

Quote: debaser "I like that idea. Is it been tested in Aus or just talked about?'" I think it is being trialled in some of the lower leagues in Aus, im pretty sure around Newcastle. In Aus it goes by the pretty dramatic name of The Irvine Solution www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... -u04i.html

Its a great benefit for it that you can look at the type of players you want clubs to have, and reward them for doing so. As you say, we can look at bringing in players from union, but also we can encourage clubs to give more opportunity to players from developing nations as well.