This really is not intended as a Dig at Warrington, but when will the Rugby League grow a set and start to ensure their cap is being followed at all the clubs?

The Hicks Monaghan story has elements of Radders come back for Wigan a few years ago, playing for free?

Looking at some of the squads Warrington included there are either some very undervalued players out their, or some well paid family members!

Your Saints club has thgis year signed Shenton and will be paying him not far off double what Warrington will pay Joel Monaghan next year. If you have a problem with that criticse Saints not Warrington.

I see Saints still employ Paul Sculthorpe does his salary count on the cap after-all he "conveniently" retired when injury was keeping him out year after year. If Warrington decide to pay a non-playing registered Chris Hicks next season that's their look-out. I seem to remember Wigan not regeistering Karl Pryce during his first season with them so his salary didn't count enabling them to sign Tim Smith (or was it Cameron Phelps) mid-season. Where was your hand-wringing moaning then?

Whilst most clubs fans seem to have taken the signing as an opportunity to re-cycle the same canine related jokes over the internet's message-board it seems to me that Saints' fans are truly bitter about this.

When Wells and Robinson retired at the beginning of last season at Quins they were both paid off and the money paid went onto our salary cap

Don't see why your all that bothered.
Your clubs could have had him, that proof of that because it says in the BBC sport atricle "He had been courted by Castleford Tigers and Catalans Dragons before opting for Warrington"
Yes there will be some 'dog' chants, but i'm not sure he cares, or anyone at Warrington are either. When he delivers the goods, you'll all be silenced. Just you wait.

I know it was a stupid thing to do and waste of everybody's time but I actually went and read the salary cap rules to see what they say about this scenario. If anybody else wants to do that (and I know its better to just read what Saints fans believe the rules to be if you want the truth) here's the link

HTH

Cheers Stinky that makes sense. That looks like exactly what has happened.

Usually when there's some case of unfairness you get an article in League Express or something with a club chairman "so and so blasts salary cap rules" or so on. There's been no comment from other clubs about unfair play regarding Monaghan signing for Warrington and Hicks leaving, the only whinging has been from no marks on internet messageboards. Which implies to me that other clubs chairmen know what the rules are and that Warrington have just followed existing rules.

Seems fair enough to me. Warrington are a club I've always respected and I'm sure they wouldn't even consider cheating, lets not confuse them with Wigan.

Backtrack-tastic

I believe a thread on the Wire board needs a retraction from you now...

Its conveniently forgotten that injuries have been catching up with Chris Hicks. For the last two seasons he has been unable to kick after being first choice kicker previously due to leg injuries. there have also been periods where he has been out or only on light training to get him between games. A couple of months before the season end he stated he would retire because his body had had it...then he had a good injury free spell and reconsidered.

Warrington are having a very tough pre season...rumoured to be much tougher than previously. Joel Monaghan is going well in it

What would you do if you were Warrington/Chris Hicks /Joel Monaghan if
a) Chris Hicks had recurring injury problems
b) Chris Hicks (and his family) had other possibilities in Aus
c) Joel Monaghan was doing well, training unpaid
d) Joel Monaghan was happy living with his brother

Looking at Hicks record, Warrington would not easily let him go. Thats why they gave him the benefit of the doubt about retirement (as they also have with David Solomona - Tony Smith likes to have 3 or 4 senior pros who influence the young guys and have a positive playing ethos) He has been a model pro and has a great strike record.

Even letting him go and signing Monaghan, if Hicks was fit, would be a risk.

So headline should be "injured 34 year old retires - replaced by the brother of existing player"

What would solve all this sniping and uncertainty, is for all clubs salaries to be published. They don't need to give players names, just a list of how their 1.7 million is allocated amongst their squad, i. e. 1x100 000, 2x 75000 etc...etc...

It wouldn't. Hull KR and Wigan would find a loophole for certain players to be exempted from the regulations and they would release a list of 16 figures and everyone would cry 'But they've got 17 Australians, why are they not listed?'

There is no way to solve the uncertainty, Melbourne proved that. Even with a 'live cap' in force, when it's enforced by the fools at the RFL it'll never be anything like water tight. I'd love to know how far they go in the auditing of the salary cap. Do they, for example, require bank statements for all accounts held by players and their families and the same for Directors and associated companies? I suspect none of that is done and it's all handled on a mysterious trust system. I'd go further and say the 'live cap' is merely a spreadsheet on a server at the RFL. It's probably got cell format errors, totals that only go half way down the list and a few plus and minuses the wrong way round here and there.

This is what people campaigning for banking reforms have been asking for in the City, and it doesn't look like its going to happen. I would have thought the odds of it being brought in in rugby league because of arguments on an internet forum are pretty slim!

With the cap though I reckon if we are going to have a cap, rather than an overall total, it would be better to have a variation of the old 20/20 rule, where you just said to clubs, OK what is a reasonable number of first team senior players, say its 16. Then you say what's a reasonable salary for a senior player, say its £30k (I am just making these figures up). Then you just say there's no overall cap, but each club can only have 16 players on over £30k. That way you stop players leaving the game because rich clubs can pay whatever they want, for top players, but it does two things, one it forces clubs to include a high number of young upcomers (on lower than the £30k) in their squads every year, and two it spreads around the talent, eg if a bright young talent comes through at a top club who already has its 16/30 filled up, and then a lower club has a space freed up next season, then they can outbid them for them. It is as close to a 'draft' system as we could get.

Some people would say this system penalises clubs who produce a lot of young talent, but it doesn't really, what it means is, if the young talent is good, then they are forced in to using them rather than keeping them as fringe players, so they need to promote them rather than signing ready made imports. If they make the choice of a senior player over a promising youngster who has proved himself worthy of a place on the 16/30, then that player will probably join a lower club. So overall in the long term you would get a transfer of young British talent from top clubs, to the lower ranked clubs once they have had a couple of years experience, and the only way for the top clubs to prevent this talent transfer, would be to sacrifice on imports. It wouldn't be a perfect system but no system is, and I think this system has some good positives.

It states in one of the rugby papers this morning, that any pay off Chris Hicks has received will not count on the salary cap due to the timing of the pay off. Cute Simon, cute

might i suggest you read the excerpt from the rules on the previous page, then stop pouting Sylvia.