crowds are growing in a competition which people enjoy.

crowds wouldnt keep rising in a stagnating competition.

though i guess you might be the kind of fan whose attendance at RL games would stgante if his team wasnt always succesful, hence his selfish defence of the salary cap.

who cares about the good of the game when your own rich club can be up the top all the time

attendances were rising in SL pre salary cap

clubs at the bottom of the league are no closer to winning it than they were at the start of SL,

in fact at the start of SL we had 4 clubs capable of winning the competition,in the first 3 years we had three different teams finishing at the top of the league, and another different one playing in a GF, in the last three years 1 team has finished top, and they have won one gf, and one team have finished second top twice and won the comp twice

there was 8 points between 2nd and 3rd last year, 4 the year before that, and 2 the year before that

the year before that the team in 3rd won the comp,

Leeds have won 3 of the last 5 grand finals and competed in 4 of the last 5, St helens have competed in 3 of the last 5

70% of the last 5 grand finalists have been Leeds or Saints, 80% of the last 5 grand final winners have been Leeds or Saints, 95% of the entire history of Grand Finals have been competed by Leeds, Saints, Wigan and Bradford, 100% of of the entire history of SL have been won by one of those 4 clubs,

but yes, the comp is clearly getting closer and anyone really could win it,



try as you might to paint my argument against the SC is one based on self interest (which manages to make you look even more idiotic than normal) you cant get away from the fact that the SC hasnt, and wont allow lower clubs to build a champion side,

Champion sides are built from scratch, it needs clubs to sacrifice short term pain for long term gain, like leeds did around 2000, like Melbourne did 2001-2005

Getting clubs to invest and KEEP their young players is integral to getting them competitive, if clubs follow the Leeds model, they are MORE likely to challenge Leeds, as Wire found out over the last two years

I personally dont like the salary cap. If anything it inhibits growth and puts an artificial barrier on certain club's potential. I wonder how many potential players have gone to other sports or professions because of the low wages earned by all but the players at the top. I would imagine that even some fringe SL players dont earn a great deal.

The Premier League and other European top flight football leagues are very uncompetitive (in terms of different winners) yet remain the most popular sports in their countries. The Premier League with no salary cap has somehow produced a league whereby 13 clubs are seperated by just 8 points and thats with the 3 point win system. Manchester United are said to have over 330 million fans worldwide, do you think they'd have that many if they weren't as successful? The stagnation issue doesn't stack up when you look at football where no matter what country you look at, the same few teams win the titles and the crowd numbers are still to capacity.

I guess the problem would be what would happen if we got rid of the salary cap and 1 team dominates year after year and there is no challengers ala Wigan pre SL. At least in football you do usually have a battle at the top even if a lot of the teams have no chance of actually winnig the title. I suppose its arguable how much the salary has worked anyway, I mean we've had 3 different winners in 10 years, the supposidly predictable premier league has the same number of champions in the same amount of time. Its not as if you could even talk about lowering the salary cap to give other teams more of a chance, isn't the slary cap in union twice what it is in league already. By limiting the money players can earn will just make the sport even less apealing to potential players especially in areas where football and union is already prominant.

if the salary cap was causing the comp. to stagnate then the crowds wouldve fallen in the past decade or more rather than more than doubling.

youll just have to get used to other clubs taking good players from leeds in the future like happens in the nrl.

clubs are more important than players.

players come and go, but you want clubs to be around forever.

the SC keeps clubs solvent (or it should) and it will help smaller clubs grow by giving them some success as the big clubs are limited on how much they can spend.

because of the salary cap the nrl has lost 80 players to Super League, at least 10, maybe 20 of those are very good players.

weve lost another 10 to rugby union as well and still the competition is very healthy.

its an exciting competition because every team has a chance of making the semis and even maybe winning the competition

with PL, outside the top 4 clubs, the rest have no chance of winning the title and never will.

waste of time for me.

why? what is your reason for thinking this to be true?

quite clearly there are many stagnant competitions in the world, where the same teams compete over and over for the trophies while the rest struggle that are growing off the field

maybe you could give us one example in either SL or the NRL where a smaller club has won something based on a team built from players signed because they were released by bigger clubs because of the SC



they have lost closer to 50 good players, and that means quite obviously that the game is weaker because of the SC


no they dont, Doggies wont make the semis next year, neither will NQC nor Penrith



except clubs have and do frequently challenge, it just takes time for a challenge to be built, Newcastle did it, Leeds did it, Villa are doing it now, look out for them next year, man city can certainly do it, the Big 4 wasnt a big 4 for many years it was a big 2 until chelsea and liverpool joined, and lets just ignore the year won of the smaller clubs actually won the PL

We have only had two seasons where more clubs are spending the full cap. We still aren't at the point where every club is. When that happens, about 3-4 years later we will see a much more even comp. I do agree though that the cap does destroy world class teams and the days of ever seeing a dynasty will soon be over as they are now in the NRL. www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 14,00.html [iSalary cap sees Melbourne Storm forced to let more players go By Dan Koch January 21, 2009 MELBOURNE football manager Frank Ponissi has failed to deny his club has been desperately trying to off-load at least two more members of its senior squad in a bid to ease pressure on its salary cap for the 2009 season. Storm officials have contacted rival clubs over the off-season, including North Queensland, Wests Tigers, Brisbane and St George Illawarra, to sound out their interest in picking up the contracts of fringe prop Scott Anderson and winger Steve Turner. Like so many champion teams before them, Melbourne has become a victim of its own success, with coach Craig Bellamy's starting 17 this year bearing little resemblance to the one which powered to the 2007 premiership. While no one could argue the success of the salary cap as a competition-equalising tool, many within the game have questioned whether penalising a club for excellence flies in the face of the most basic principles of professional sport. Having pieced together and developed his squad into the competition's most dominant force over the past three years, Bellamy has been forced to watch on helplessly as his squad was torn apart. [/i

We have only had two seasons where more clubs are spending the full cap. We still aren't at the point where every club is. When that happens, about 3-4 years later we will see a much more even comp. I do agree though that the cap does destroy world class teams and the days of ever seeing a dynasty will soon be over as they are now in the NRL. www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 14,00.html [iSalary cap sees Melbourne Storm forced to let more players go By Dan Koch January 21, 2009 MELBOURNE football manager Frank Ponissi has failed to deny his club has been desperately trying to off-load at least two more members of its senior squad in a bid to ease pressure on its salary cap for the 2009 season. Storm officials have contacted rival clubs over the off-season, including North Queensland, Wests Tigers, Brisbane and St George Illawarra, to sound out their interest in picking up the contracts of fringe prop Scott Anderson and winger Steve Turner. Like so many champion teams before them, Melbourne has become a victim of its own success, with coach Craig Bellamy's starting 17 this year bearing little resemblance to the one which powered to the 2007 premiership. While no one could argue the success of the salary cap as a competition-equalising tool, many within the game have questioned whether penalising a club for excellence flies in the face of the most basic principles of professional sport. Having pieced together and developed his squad into the competition's most dominant force over the past three years, Bellamy has been forced to watch on helplessly as his squad was torn apart. [/i

how many different teams have won the PL title since 1990.

in RL in australia its been 9 different teams.

your point on signing a whole team to strengthen isnt how it works.

clubs get some from other clubs and some from their own.

the nrl is even enough that usually you need 3 or 4 good players to take a side from the bottom part of the table into the semis.

there are currently 80 ex nrl players (apparently) in SL.

The NRL has made a relative success of it's salary cap.
The RFL's has been an absolute disaster.
Take away the overseas players (NRL) and SL's finest were on display for England in the World Cup. How embarrassing that was for us!
The NRL separates youth player's salaries in their salary cap, for over 10 years the RFL and Super League clubs included youth players salaries in our SC.
In that time the number of British players in SL has gone down from well over 300 to around 160.
Youth players were squeezed out due to their salaries being included in the SC, the 20/20(25) rule which restricted clubs to only 20 players able to earn over £20k, then the threat of relegation.
That is why we've no Intl quality full back to rival Wellens, we are left with the best British wingman as Ade Gardner and not a player anywhere to give Senior or Gleeson competition for their Intl places.
We thought we had a good pack out there but they were seriously found out!
We are now so short of quality British players to compete at the highest level it is very worrying.
There are many restrictions still on the way SL clubs are able to recruit, train and retain players and I don't see any justification after the World Cup shambles for any of those restrictions to remain in place.

Explain ?

I've never understood the obsession that so many rugby League fans have with creating an artificially competitive league.

Surely it's only natural that better run, better supported clubs will win things, and other clubs should strive to improve.

It seems to me that academy developed players should have their very own salary cap, maybe dependent on turnover. Therefore, clubs would be more focused on creating their own talent, leaving their 'other salary cap' to be used on signing expensive, talented foreign imports.