Jesus christ, how negative are you?

Cant you appreciate the positivity that a marquee exemption would bring to the sport. Your inital point (whereby you stated only one man would gain from this) was quickly proved to be noncense, with the likes of Warrington and Leeds supporting the idea. Granted only Salford, Warrington, Leeds and Huddersfield have owners with the personal wealth to fund such a player, but what is stopping the likes of St Helens, London, Castleford, Wakefield etc getting off their ar*es and sourcing additional revenue through sponsorships etc to cover the cost of a marquee superstar? Or is that too much trouble and it's just easier if we keep things as they are. If we were able to bring the likes of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, SBW, Greg Inglis etc over to Super League it would only benefit clubs through extra merchandise sales, attendances would increase and so would the quality of Super League in general.

Instead you choose to use an example of an awfully run club in Bradford for again scourning the idea.

Saints, or rather McManus, is much more eager for the "sustainable growth" model - and wants clubs to receive more from central funding then they spend on the cap.

Also, we basically got our "marquee exemption" with the home grown rule coming in. We're unlikely to sign better than Roby, and he will only count for 100k for the next 5 years freeing up a lot of space on our cap (with lomax potentially as well) - if you believe player contract value rumours of course.

Quote: John Gilbert Reds "If we were able to bring the likes of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, SBW, Greg Inglis etc over to Super League it would only benefit clubs through extra merchandise sales, attendances would increase and so would the quality of Super League in general. '" Your missing my point. We wouldn't sign them. Even during the height of the strong pound era we couldn't get Tallis, or fittler or johns (minus 3 games when it suited him) In fact read this - www.theage.com.au/news/League/St ... 92413.html There's more than just throwing money to this.

Quote: John Gilbert Reds "If we were able to bring the likes of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, SBW, Greg Inglis etc over to Super League it would only benefit clubs through extra merchandise sales, attendances would increase and so would the quality of Super League in general. '" Your missing my point. We wouldn't sign them. Even during the height of the strong pound era we couldn't get Tallis, or fittler or johns (minus 3 games when it suited him) In fact read this - www.theage.com.au/news/League/St ... 92413.html There's more than just throwing money to this.

Off hand I can think of two sports that have a marquee player rule rugby union and that sport seems to be growing at our expense and Major League Soccer/football, they call it the Beckham rule and look at the progress they are making.
The only other sport I can think of that had a system of attracting higher quality players was Ice Hockey they scrapped it because some clubs couldn't fund it and now the League in this country has become a shop window for the better players moving to Europe. So as a sport we now have to ask do we compete or do we become a minority sport that will become a feeder sport and very soon be totally ignored by main stream media.

Think RHP represented us. Disappointed this didn't go through. We need to do something to stop the player drain. The continuing growth line is about tiresome as te "salary cap should remain the same to even the competition" line.
Was nice to see LEAGUE been linked with a top union player this morning (Manu tuilagi) wonder if we wil see the light when Tomkins joins Eastmknd, Butgess and Ashton in the England RUnsquad

So because St Helens couldnt convince a 19-year-old to come over nearly 10 years ago, no other Super League club would be successful? I dont buy that theory.

After the success of the RLWC and the big name players which appeared to enjoy it, now would be the perfect time to tempt the likes of Cameron Smith and Billy Slater who both have contracts coming to end over to Super League.

I notice Koukash has said only 5 clubs voted in favour, I have no doubts he'll secure the required 3 more in no time.

will the 2 of those who voted against/abstained even be relevent next year. with the cut to 12 he actually only needs to convince two more to join.

Good point, I didnt even think of that. Apparantly Salford, Widnes, Wigan, Warrington and Leeds were the clubs who voted in favour which I am a little shocked about. I expected at least one Hull club and Huddersfield to have been interested.

Name one in form, not disgraced, career peak (or still ahead of him), genuine Aussie superstar (not the second tier superstar, but the genuine, certain for country type) that super league has ever signed? - and do you believe the number of players on that list if from lack of trying?

The rlwc was great, no doubt - but signing an over the hill Aussie is the exact opposite to the point of that isn't it? I would rather see Sam tomkins back than billy slater! How many "superstar" Aussies have we seen come over at the end of their career for a holiday? Josh perry was the last one and was dire! It doesn't raise the profile any.

Cameron smith, would be a great deal if someone in super league got him but a) Leeds got buderus, whilst with a salary cap, and b) he will end up at either broncos or storm, no amount of money in the world will change that - literally a £1m a year wouldn't change that, because as many take joy in pointing out, we don't have the profile to do that.

We first need to keep hold of our own, then we need to get back the ones we lost, then we can chase the luxuries of smith and sbw of this world. As I've said - marquee signing that's eligible for England, I'm more than fine with. Home grown rule will help keep our future superstars. Start from there, and then build outwards.

Also a $900,000 deal would still make him the highest paid player in the sport - you have to ask why he rejected it all those years ago.

Edit: it will come in some form eventually I imagine, but what the specific terms of it are, is still yet to be known.

The examples of Cameron Smith and Billy Slater were used purely because they're IMO the most available Australian NRL superstars at the moment due to their contracts. However you've also got James Graham who I believe comes to the end of his current deal at the end of the year, at the moment which clubs could realistically bring him back? Probably non, because of the restrictions on the cap. Do we risk losing him for another 2/3 years to the NRL or even worse RU? We'll be in the same position when Sam Tomkins contract is close to running down, or Sam Burgess' unless we make the required changes now.

I agree with the homegrown rule, but that is a seperate issue entirely from the marquee allowance. Plus more money for either Burgess, Tomkins or Graham wouldnt have prevented them from leaving the Super League for the NRL. Whilst a pay increase must have been attractive, the prospect of playing in the NRL is far greater due to the standard of the competition, the publicty it receives and so on. We need to raise the profile of the game over here, raise the standards and take it to the next level because we've been stagnating for far too long now.

seems an odd argument in favour of not having a marquee allowance that whilst we havent had a marquee allowance we havent signed any of the very top players, but have signed some of the 2nd tier players.

I think £1m a year would change most players minds, Sonny Bill moved to France to take up a different sport for not a huge amount more.

Saints could match any offer for Graham with the home grown rule, but can we afford it? Probably, but i doubt our chairman would go for it as he probably doesnt think any player is worth over £400k a year

And the race to the bottom continues, I can't believe so many call the RFL and Big Nige when their own clubs are run by clowns.

Irony not your strong point is it.

So Wire possibly the best run club in SL and a Keighley fan has the temerity to question it as irony, do you even know what that means are you just being simple?