The brown paper bag, or its more sophisticated equivalent - the transfer from an owner/mates overseas bank account to the player's offshore personal service company's overseas bank account - is one of the methods of getting round or stretching the cap.

Most of the others (and I listed a few on here a few days ago) need accountants or at least some element of financial planning and organising.

ahh it was you!
Definately will be financial based, there's no way a SL club would risk the brown paper bag

A club might well not...

There is always the ' promise ' payment method , you know , the one where you get a recently retired GB international to come out of retirement and agree to play for free , he then gets a paid coaching position at your club the following year

I (and a number of others) were at a meeting very recently where someone with impeccable credentials to know about such things made a particularly good point: the salary cap auditor can only audit what is recorded in the club's books.

That's an incredibly optimistic view of the world, ade's already pointed out just a few ways that players might be indirectly be earning more than their salary cap.

Some of which would never appear on the clubs accounts audited or otherwise.

Er...no. If its not in the books, it won't be in the audited accounts.

Edit: sorry, see the guy above just made the point already

that may be the case (and it certainly is in some areas, though not all) but Australia is a much much smaller country than GB, about 5 times smaller, the fact 55% of the kids play is immaterial in real numbers where the difference in player numbers (at youth and amateur level) is surprisingly small,

the main difference is that from youngsters to pros, RL in australia has quality coaching and quality competition, youth grade and reserve grade players in Australia are playing at a massively higher level than their british counterparts, our reserve comp isnt even worth comparing to the Aussie reserve grade comps, which are a higher level than the championship never mind our reserve comps which are barely above amateur level,

this gives them massive strength in depth, but also a clear path from youth, to reserve to first grade which allows players to develop,

here players like Kallum Watkins are stuck in limbo, they are far too good for youth and reserve grade, not yet good enough or developed enough to be playing week in week out super league, something like the Queensland cup or Bundeberg cup would be ideal for him, a mixture of seasoned players and youngsters perparing him for Superleague.

Australia have strong competitions providing huge numbers of talented players, we dont, we challenge and often better the rest at youth level, but we, as a country, arent bringing enough to the next level for us to ever have a competitive comp, we simply dont have the numbers right now

i would agree, the salary cap has nothing to do with it, its the quality of coaching, facilities, and pathways

Can you stop refer to me as an Aussie, I just happen to live here

I do agree with what you are saying, I just think the reason they have these pathways, and vast mount of talented players is a lot to do with the profile of the sport, something unfortunately the game doesn't have in the UK.

In Sydney and Brisbane the majority of young kids playing sport want to be RL players when they grow up (nothing to do with money) in England they want to play Soccer, it's something that RL in England will always battle with.

If it was a pure numbers game then why do the pacific Islands produce players so much better than England?

Largely due to genetics and economics (in that order)

according to Tommy Raudonikis aussie coaches do nothing different from british ones with young players.it's just if one player doesn't make it or drops out then there is another 10 just as good in each position. we don't have that.
his words not mine and he was a damn good judge of players