One and its Quins RU. Everyone else plays way out of London.

the salary cap is indeed £4m BUT the players get their international appearance money on top. Ashton might get £200 K from Northants but in the next season i guarantee he will double if not triple that.

I also think that they ," earn" extra from sponsorships , endorsements etc. being given a ferrari to drive is a nice little perk.

so when you talk about wages for a player the extras in RU are enourmous in showing the discrepancy.

Edited for accuracy.....but don't tell dally messenger on the NRL boards...he'll start crying to the mods about Union Trolls

He left a lad with a little something about him and went to Northampton in the second tier of rugby union in this country and was given a contract of £70k a year, that is on a par with an established SL player, and a wage that Wigan were not prepared to match for someone who came into the team and showed good potential.

The union international game fills the stadiums and the corporate boxes. We can decry all we like about old boys clubs and the middle classes watching the game and loving it whether it is dull by comparison in terms of pace, skill and entertainment to the 13 a-side game.

Companies are attracted to the full stadiums and seeming mass appeal of a global game, something that hopefully the Australians will invest a little in when their new billion dollar TV deal kicks in.

Union pays more and will conceivably continue to pay considerably more when you see an international game that promotes itself and then reaps the rewards with companies interested in getting involved.

League seems local by comparison, and we will continue along with a better product but one that people will only stumble upon by accident.

youve made some excellent posts on this thread

Yes ok it 'survived' for 100+ years and that was all it did, but 15 years ago we made a move into a full time professional world, something that only a few sports had managed to do successfully in the past and we were at least five steps ahead of Union which was the bigger sport and always has been. Our move forward has forced other sports to grow just as rapidly which shows we are not a dying breed we are an innovative sport living on limited resources.

You say we either try and expand but you fail to say how, you fail to have any innitiatives on what the sport could do to move forward even more than they have in those 15yrs.

Just look at how far the game has come in that short time, we've increased the playing numbers in the capital beyond anyones wildest dreams back then, we've brought two teams into the English leagues from France, we have made a big push to get into both Wales and Scotland with the Magic weekend and setting up a Welsh franchise and all this while still having the same limited resources to work with, not to mention the economic crisis the whole country has had to deal with.

My idea for expansion would be to take baby steps, don't go too far too soon, Places like Sheffield that have two football clubs that have failed pretty much recently could have been given more help and possibly had a thriving team back in the SL. The people of Doncaster have never really taken to RL but what about Rotherham or Barnsley? Then from there keep moving down both the East and West coasts while also trying to figure out a way of making the Cumbria expansion a success. Gateshead is another that doesn't seem to be taking off so what about moving up just a little bit? Would the Newcastle Falcons fans take to RL or would it be the same outcome as the Harlequins support base?

The RFL do have some great ideas and often follow through on them, it is the execution and over ambitious nature that has effected the game the way it has IMO. What is for sure though is that if we do not have a strong club game the international game will die even further, if we do not grow the club game international support will not grow to anywhere near the numbers Union get.

Like it or not, SL is dependent on Sky money. Without it we'd already be a semi-pro sport as we were in the 70s and early-mid 80s. And that Sky money is - in part - driven by how attractive the sport is to the broadcaster - not fans at the gate, but to advertisers and potential viewing audience. If you take Quins and Crusaders out of the mix, RL would be a less attractive sport to Sky. Sheffield/Rotherham are just a couple more northern towns. In the end the drive to keep Quins and add Crusaders was probably a financial necessity for SL as a whole.

Just on the cap, one of the reasons it hasn't been increased is because so few clubs actually spend anywhere near it. At one stage some SL clubs were spending only around 30% of the total value of the cap (David Gallop said that a few years ago and I haven't seen any evidence that the position has changed much since then). So when we compare to Union's cap its actually even worse than it looks based on the cap level (assuming most RU clubs are at/near the cap). And that's before earnings from internationals, advertising etc top up star RU players' wages.

In the case of the likes of Eastmond, in RL probably only 3/4 clubs could afford to even think of signing him - in the NRL theoretically any club could sign afford any individual 'star' player. You can further add the fact that clubs like Leeds and Wigan are probably at or near the cap and are tring to tie their star youngsters in for the long-term. If Eastmond wanted more money and Sts wouldn't/couldn't pay it, there was probably no alternative in SL. Pre-cap, the likes of Wigan and Leeds would have been sniffing around Eastmond and quite possibly he would have moved clubs rather than leave the game entirely.

Given that we don't want even our rich clubs to bankrupt themselves (as both Leeds and Wigan basically did in the 'good' old days), we have to accept that SL/RL in England simply doesn't currently generate enough money to compete financially with RU for players they are determined to get. That doesn't - or to me at least shouldn't - mean that we accept this will be the case forever. I agree with those who say we have to move on if we want RL in England to be a long-term viable sport and not just a feeder of star players to RU/NRL.

To me the only options we have in the domestic game are to strengthen the franchise clubs financially - replacing weaker ones with stronger ones and in the future quite likely reducing the number of clubs altogether. Even doing that will only help stabilise RL financially, not grow it (unless we suddenly get an influx of Russian billionaires looking for a hobby).

That really only leaves the international scene. How do we make England competitive? How do we turn RL internationals into big 'events' that even non-fans would like to attend? Like it or not that's the basis for RU's success on the international scene - competitive games that are also big events. Success breeds success in the latter - casual fans watching a competitive RU international at a packed Twickenham are far more likely to be interested in going themselves than those watching England smash France at a half-full RL ground.

I don't have the answers to that, but TBH those wanting a return to the good old days or for us to just live within our means are really asking for RL to wither and die in the long term.

You are right that Rotherham/Sheffield are seen as just another northern city playing a northern sport however the highest attendances are those that are derby games or teams from within a close proximity. The smaller the steps the more derbies we are going to see, this will bring rivalries out that should in theory increase supporter numbers. As we get further south the RL word grows and crosses each counties border, yes a slow way of doing it but what might be a more successful way of doing it.

Taking Quins and Crusaders out of the mix is something I would never do I think they have their place in the world of RL and as you say they are a needs must to keep Sky onside. What you have to ask though is, would viewing figures decrease if those clubs were not in the league? Would advertisers lose money if their company was not advertised whilst a London based club was on the TV? It would be interesting to get the figures from Sky as to how many households have the RL on each weekend down in the capital.

I don't think anyone has said about returning to the 'good' old days and most are pro-expansion but nobody seems to have the right way to go about expanding. The people already at the RFL have jumped head first into expanding to areas that have no or little RL interest and seem to think because they like a game played with a similar shaped ball they will like watching RL too. The day they realise this isn't the case is maybe the day the try and expand in areas not already top heavy with other sports in the area.

Yep...lets kick out the french, london and the taffs......SKY will trip over themselves pump money into M62 Derbies.......just like they did in 1994......oh, hang on a minute?

Back on thread....offiah was a great player......but should be kept away from younger players, TV , twitter and a keyboard....he's only interested in himself.

Did I ever mention kicking them out? I asked if they were not there would the viewing figures alter, would the sponsorship amounts change...etc but pretty sure I said I would never kick them out due to them being a needs must!

it would have an adverse affect on advertising revenues.....simple.

Cannot be proven though. Do advertisers really consider the fact there are teams from places like London and Catalans? Or do they just see that the sport is open to the whole country on television?

I would also say that enough has been done to secure these sponsors with our without those clubs, however I personally do not mind any of them and have no issue with them not being in the league, I just think smaller steps would create a better expansion rather than jumping a few hundred miles here and there.

Preaching to those that know a little has got to be easier than converting the non-believers.

i dont have links, someone else can bother with those but I read mid way through last season that Sky have had a 30% viewer increase in wales since the Crusaders came in and 2 or 3 years ago there was an article that there were more SL viewers from inside the M25 than the rest put together. Whether Quins affect this I dont know, in fact I doubt it but I found it interesting nontheless. If theres interest in this area and theres a pro club for this interest/talent to reach then its only going to increase the player pool

I know it is totally off topic and not fair on the regular season pass fans of Harlequins but could there be an option for one season only to take the Quins home games to different locations in and around London? I know it is a bit far fetched but something like this or even just say 5 games of the season taken to 5 different locations could increase the supporter base they currently lack??

RE. Dico - those figures are fantastic and it certainly shows there is an appeal inside the M25, just a shame they won't go and watch the live games even international games between NZ and Aus!

Everything in union is geared toward the international game and this is where the union spin machine really excels itself. The publicity is awesome and in a quantity/quality RL could only dream of. After winning the world cup the spin machine made the England players nationally recognised celebrities, with regular appearances on a variety of entertainment shows on the BBC and even in adverts on ITV.

Until the RFL and Superleague address the issues that prevent our national team from competing we will remain a "Northern" game and be treated as such by the media.

I don't think some of our stars leaving for RU is a bad thing (as long as it isn't excessive), on the contrary we should make the most of it as highlighting why our game is so good. I can't recall ex RL players dissing our game, in fact Edwards, Robinson and Farrell were ambassadors.