Quote McClennan="McClennan"Of course it does. The Scottish rugby union is £16m in debt. Is that a situation you would wish to see rugby league in because we try to compete when there's no 'gold standard' to back us up. We cannot spend what we don't have as a sport.
'"
Why would we become the SRU? where is your evidence or logic to show we would? and I havent advocated us spending money we dont have, i have said plenty of times that if we dont have it we dont spend it. What you are advocating is not spending money we do have.
Quote McClennanI understand that and partly agree but the ability to spend additional money should not be allowed at the expense of the security, balance, integrity and competitiveness of the sport. '"
The salary cap doesnt do these things. We can see from the past ten years of the SC it doesnt do these things, The league isnt more competitive, it isnt more secure, it isnt more balanced and the huge amounts of breaks of the SC we have had, have if anything, only served to undermine the integrity of the sport. If the SC did these things I would be in favour of it, but the evidence shows it doesnt.
Quote McClennanJust because you don't think it needs justifying doesn't mean it does. There's been several threads on these boards justifying the salary cap and pretty much all of them have been successful. By all means go back and read them because I don't see any point in regurgitating them when the argument for something better hasn't been made yet.'"
Thats just ridiculous logic. If the SC works, the SC works, if it doesnt, it doesnt. The alternatives are irrelevant. Having and keeping a salary cap isnt the default position. Just like making all the players wear scrum caps isnt the default position. It would need to be justified.
Quote McClennanOkay because we can't prove it means the argument about clubs going bust cannot be determined. Therefore the only thing you can say is that this part of the argument around the salary cap should not be included. I would suggest through logic and financial awareness than allowing clubs to spend beyond an agreed and regulated figure opens up greater possibilities for clubs to go bust. I would refer to sports like football as examples of where that is the case (and if they haven't gone bust they're millions in debt, which RL could not survive with). '"
It can be determined. It can be determined very very easily. If the SC protects clubs from going bust we should see either none, or a very very low amount of clubs going bust in the SC era compared to the pre SC era. But we dont. Therefore the SC doesnt protect clubs from going bust. It is a very very very very poor argument to rely on the fact that we could imagine other clubs, could maybe in a different universe, have gone bust, but maybe didnt because of the salary cap, but in reality we are just guessing and making it up.
Quote McClennanWhat I would suggest is that it's a combination of everything, however I do think the salary cap has played its part.'"
Why would you think that? what is your logic for thinking so? How is it evidenced or are you just making a wildly speculative claim? Would you not agree that considering the amount of money put in to Wire and Hudds by Davey and Moran that Wire and Hudds would be among the clubs most likely to spend more than the SC, so the SC has actually hampered their ability to win things rather than promoted it?
Quote McClennanAgain that is just one way of measuring competitiveness. What about looking at medians and averages between all teams over a time period rather than just picking the top team? By just assessing against the top team you are effectively suggesting that it is representative and accurately reflects the experience of all fourteen teams in the league. How is that a good measure?'"
No, it does as i stated, reflect the difference between the amount of points the top team conceded and how many they scored, which is a good measure of the competitiveness of the games involving them.
Quote McClennan Even then it is a still only a statistical measure and at times may not reflect what reality is e.g. I've just watched two games; One finished 24-20 and the other 30-20; The first game was 24-0 at half-time and remained so until the final ten minutes when four quick tries were scored; Second game had several changes of lead and was 20-20 until two tries in the final four minutes. The stats suggest one game was more competitive than the other when it wasn't.'"
Thats why we didnt take one example, but nearly 500 hundred. A large sample size would mitigate the effects of situations like this. Especially considering that both types of game would be equally reflected in both groups. Unless of course you are arguing that even though the difference in points scored is larger the SC era games were in fact closer and there has been a big upsurge in games where a team runs away with it in the last few minutes in the past ten years, and a similarly large drop in games where teams post big early scores?
Quote McClennanWhat's wrong with using your own eyes to assess what's going in front of them? I see a game that's getting more competitive as I think a lot of people do. Throwing up stats may support or undermine that argument, however they should never be taken in isolation away from what we actually see ourselves.'"
Because what we see is subjective, it is affected by our own personal bias. If your argument was strong you would be able to evidence it.
