I don't know where you got the idea about McGuire getting a pay rise at Leeds causing Ratchford to leave Salford. What I was saying that if Leeds are forced to release player A due to points quota and Salford (or any other club with enough points to spare) cannot afford to pay the wage that player A wants (he is unlikely to accept a pay cut to go to a weaker club) then player A is more likely to go to RU to get his current wage level. Nothing like what you seem to think I meant.

To clarify a point I don't think you understand SALFORD CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY FULL CAP SO DO NOT PAY FULL CAP. Changing the system from a squad salary cap to a points quota WILL NOT GIVE THEM THE MONEY THEY DO NOT POSSESS they will still not be able to pay for players they cannot afford now. THEY CANNOT AFFORD THEM BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, NOT BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE THE CAP SPACE. That is the reason they have been trying to move to a new stadium since well before they were warned about it affecting their licence. They hope that it will increase revenue to give them enough income to be able to have the same spending power as Leeds, Wigan et al so that they then will be able to afford the better players. Salford are not alone in this situation.

Implementing a points quota system in place of the Salary Cap with comparative club finances as they are now would have very little, if any effect on the balance of power and the spread of the best players. With a much smaller budget the likes of Salford (apologies to any City Reds fans, I do not mean to single out your club in particular) cannot afford to assemble a squad with the same strength as Leeds, Wigan, Saints. They may have the available points but it doesn't mean that they can use them any more than they can spend the full cap.

Your argument in most parts contradicts itself and in others is completely irrelevant, ill try and address them in bullet points so hopefully you can either follow the logic through or show where your logic deviates

If Salford cannot afford to pay player A then they cannot afford to pay player A. It doesnt matter what cap we use, even if we have a cap that they can afford to spend the full amount, unless they can make an offer acceptable to the player he wont play for them.

We are more likely to lose players to union with a monetary cap because we are limited massively in what we can offer a player. Under a points system a club could choose, if they wished, to offer a contract to a player which would compete or even beat an offer from union. This means we would be less likely to lose a player to union

A points system would spread the talent between the clubs more, as clubs wouldnt be able to have as many players of a certain quality on their books at anyone time, this would mean some players of quality would need to go to lesser clubs as they wouldnt have an opportunity at top clubs. This would keep the wages down as well as clubs are very limited in what clubs they can sign for.

You're argument against the above is that players are simply going to refuse to play for a lower team, this however contradicts your argument of needing a cap all clubs can spend. it also contradicts what we are seeing right now. Clubs are able to pay players now and the same players would still play for the same wages, with the points system meaning more quality players would be available affecting the price each player can demand.

yes we do need to grow game wide revenues but this is completely irrelevant to how we cap clubs hoarding players. Especially as we know players will accept less (meaning lower clubs need to pay more) to play for bigger clubs

It's pretty simple really, I don't understand why you can't see what he's getting at.

If we use someone like Robinson when he was at Wigan, or Calderwood when at Leeds. Neither club thought they were worth retaining for the money they were wanting, so both left the clubs they were at and joined 'lesser' clubs, probably on slightly less money than they were on previously, but because the cap restricted their wage at their original club it wasn't a massive drop.

Without a monetary cap, both players wages could have been much higher at the point their clubs decided they didn't want them. Huddersfield still couldn't have paid much more than they did in the original example, so the drop in wages is now a big one. Do those players still sign for Huddersfield or Hull if the wage drop is massive or do they look elsewhere? Do Huddersfield break the bank attempting to keep up with the wage inflation that [iwould[/i happen (for any doubt whether clubs would pay average players more money if it were available, where did all the SL money go? Certainly not into club development)?

The monetary cap means that wage differences are never that big, even if smaller clubs can't pay as much as bigger clubs, a points system with no monetary cap would destroy that.

this would only be the case if you were naive enough to believe clubs would suddenly start wasting money for no apparent reason.

the reason why clubs spend huge amounts of money previously is that they were in competition with each other for everyone of these player, and they believed paying more would attract a better quality squad. This simply cannot be the case under a points system.

Wages arent going to escalate massively, and where they do, it will only be for the very best, which is no bad thing.

In the case of Calderwood, Leeds did offer him a contract, Wigan offered more, im not sure why you think Leeds not being able to offer Calderwood a contract would mean the clubs in competition for him would need to pay more for him. Neither am i sure why you think a union contract of say £100k becomes more attractive than a league contract of £120k because the player previously had a league contract of £300k.

This system would have no influence on how attractive a player is to union and how much they are willing to offer him. If they are willing to offer him a contract higher than a league club is willing to pay then he will likely go to union, but having a points system doesnt suddenly mean a union club will offer more, unless of course you are thinking that a player will take a pay cut (from league to union) in a strange nose-cutting, face-spitting action because Quins arent able to offer him as much as Leeds. If not, then the clubs are in a position of more strength able to negotiate harder with players

It doesnt matter if the wage disparity is huge, a club cant be more successful simply by paying more money to players

And you call him naive

Yes, because history has told us they never, ever do.



So you think that under a points system clubs aren't in competition with each other for players and paying more than other clubs wouldn't attract a better squad?



If one club increases wages, they all have to. To think otherwise is incredibly naive.



I'm not sure where I posted those figures. Can you point it out to me? Otherwise, you might be better off reading what I have actually written.



This system is a waste of time and would improve nothing.



Is that why Melbourne Storm failed to win so many trophies? And Wigan in their heyday? Oh, they did win more than other clubs by paying players more. More money means attracting better players, to even attempt to deny that isn't naive, it's laughable.

history has told us that when clubs need to spend more than they have to create a competitive squad they will, and when they dont they dont. Under a points system they dont

Less than they are now

no they dont. Warrington can pay Matt King £80m a season if they want, it doesnt mean leeds need to pay Keith Senior any more.
it was an example of your premise, the figures were picked out of the air. Use any figures you like the premise is the same, Use pounds, shillings, drachma, euros, dollars, whatever you please, the premise stays the same

so no worse than the current cap then
Did you miss the whole part where we limit the amount and quality of players a club can sign?

But they do, players demand more when more is available, and unless a club pays it, the players don't sign. You appear to be attempting to portray RL as a closed shop in respect of a points system, but not in an monetary cap system.



Why are you wittering on about currency when that has nothing to do with the point made?



And no better, so what's the point?



The only definitive way of assessing quality is international caps, everything else is opinion. You can't have a cap based on opinion.

SmokeyTA

You are either too stubborn to admit you may be wrong as you were the OP or you are simply unable to understand that other people are able to see and identify reasons why this system would not be any better at levelling the spread of quality through the clubs. Myself and Billinge Lump have given examples and the reasons why removing the cash ceiling in favour of a points quota would not help the smaller clubs to recruit those players the top clubs couldn't keep and you have added your own arbitrary figures to try to dispute them. You also seem to be under a delusion that with no upper limit to restrict their spending that clubs (and rival codes) will start to pay players less than they do now. Your arbitrary figures are put in to follow that fanciful idea.

Leaving aside monetary reasons there is another salient reason why this system would be no better at creating parity. The stated points values give no differentiation between quality of representative honours (so somebody representing Australia in a World Cup Final costs no more points than somebody who represents Serbia in a test match with Netherlands). Under that system Eamonn O' Carroll and Karl Fitzpatrick (academy produced, number of years service, represented Ireland) incur the same points cost for Wigan and Salford as James Graham for Saints and more incredibly the same points as Billy Slater, Greg Inglis and Cameron Smith cost Melbourne. No disrespect to Eamonn or Karl but whilst good for their clubs they are not in the same league as those others. Equal points does not mean equal standard of player. Six players that have represented Serbia or Jamaica within Wakefield's squad (for example) cost the same points as Wigan having the entire World Cup winning pack in their squad.

I am not saying that the SC is a lot better at keeping the competition closer, it isn't, but this system as can be demonstrated in two important ways is no better at doing it either.

Also there is no benchmark for what equates to having "NRL experience" or in our case SL experience. Does Jonny Walker with his one sub appearance for Wigan count as SL experienced, if he does not then how many appearances can Walker make before he takes up two precious quota points. Does Liam Farrell count with 4 appearances? Or Jamie Foster with 3 appearances?

What happens if as at clubs like Quins, Saints and Leeds you suffer a large amount of injuries at once and are forced to play young players. In such a situation a player may have to be used once at aged 17 but never appear again for the club until he is 20 (when he is deemed ready rather than necessity forcing his selection). Does that player count as SL experienced and take up two quota points for the intervening 3 years?

not at all, clubs are limited in their spending by an arbitrary total that bares no relation to their financial position. But they are limited in what they can spend. Under a points system they would only be limited by their financial position and common sense. The prices wouldnt be forced up because they wouldnt need to go out and spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on every player because every player they were allowed to attract simply wouldnt be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and any club stupid enough to do that would deserve to go bust, we wouldnt lose by having clubs which are that poorly run leaving the top tier of the game


you surely cannot be that stupid, i can only assume you are avoiding the point (which is actually two points you are oh so subtly trying to avoid)

because it does allow clubs, where they see fit, to pay some players more, it also allows us to compete with union when a club decides it has the financial clout to do so

well had you actually read the article you would see all criteria was definitive not opinion based.

You can have a cap based on opinion. The best subjective measure of a player's value is how much clubs are willing to pay him. So put a cap on total spending and let the clubs decide which players are higher quality and so worthy of a higher salary. Sorted.
Any objective measure will be far too co to be effective.

what you are failling to understand is that under a monetary ceiling players still need to leave the big clubs, they still then need to go join the smaller clubs, under a points system the smaller clubs cant offer anymore or less they an offer exactly the same so for a player moving from a big club to a small club union is no more attractive. It is completely irrelevant.

you also now seem to be arguing that we need to concentrate all the good players at the big clubs because the smaller clubs cant afford them and if they were to leave the big clubs they would likely go to union. But proposing that lowering the amount of money we offer each player (which is what a monetary cap does) will somehow stop this, Which is blatantly nonsense.

And you are just wrong, there is no other way of describing it. If Leeds, Quins, Salford and Wire are all competing for a player, taking Leeds and Wire out of the equation makes it much easier for quins and Salford to sign them, it also puts quins and salford in a better bargaining position with the player so they can strike a better bargain.

there would of course be a set criteria for international honours, i would agree it would be silly to equate a kangeroo cap in a 4 nations final with playing for malta in the Mediterranean cup
leaving aside your demonstration being full of holes, counter-intuitive and contradictory it would keep the competition closer because clubs would be forced to invest in youth just to fill a squad of 25, this would mean more players, a stronger base, more spread and as such a more even competition


read the article, it tells you the benchmark and sets the criteria, you are aware of it because you mention it below, which is a little strange
there would be a set number of appearances in a season, i would say 10, 3 years after you make 10 appearances in a season you become a fully fledged player

except a cap based on total spending means the decision the club makes isnt on that players quality, but that players quality in relation to the space the have left on the cap ONLY.

A club may very well be of the opinion a player is worth £200k but if they only have £100k left then they cant offer than player a contract subjectively measured against his value

Both sides of this argument have some merit and like most it would seem, initially im not pro this system. Some great points have been made though and it COULD be worth a closer look at some point.
I also get the impression it could work a lot better in Australia.

Further to the union point; to be honest I think their raids on RL have been stopped to a large extent by a) their financial position and b) the failures of most who have gone. When we see people like Tomkins, Eastmond etc go, then we should be worried. Lee Smith? hmm not really

Lastly I'd be much more in favour of artificially raising the cap in time with a bonus system dependant on youth policy and a raise (not financially but a ten percent gain in theory) on overseas players. Teams still spend the same money but it 'costs' more cap to have an overseas player and you can pay a youth player more but the cap cost would be fifteen percent discounted.
Problem. Solved.