This weekend saw three teams working to a circa £1.8m-£2m salary cap play three teams working to a circa £3.1m salary cap.

Whilst the first two were very close, is it any wonder we got beat in all three (despite the travel & our teams having two league games under their belts)?

When you put it in persepective, these three games are a much minor issue than the major issue of a player drain to the NRL. I'm not just talking about English players going over to the NRL, but also the quality of imports coming chosing to stay there.

On the first point; In recent seasons we've struggled to keep the Burgesses (and Joe), Ellis, Graham, Tomkins, Cooper, Hodgson, Crooks. Mossop & Flanagan had a go, Hock very nearly left too. That's almost a whole teams worth of players who at one point have been in and around the England squad.

On the second point, we used to have more quality a few seasons ago. We still have a few good ones now, but the overall quality is quite poor.

So, what do we do (if anything)?

Carry on losing players - expecting the media, fans and sponsors to keep/start caring as more and more of our stars look to the NRL?

Raise the cap in some way and atleast do something to try & stop it?

Are we happy to let it happen as long as the national team gets better?

Personally, I think the way to go is to raise the squad cap by roughly £300k a year, but also have the a marquee allowance whereby two players are exempt. The NRL have a marquee allowance, the MLS have a marquee exemption - so should we.

Before anyone mentions, 'well what about the clubs who struggle to meet the cap as it is now?'. Tough. Why should the clubs capable of spending more be held back by those that can't, whilst seeing their best homegrown players leave? Our obsession with having an even 12 team league is to the detriment of our game.

scrap it completely. If we are demanding that clubs rise and fall on their own merit, they do it without the SC keeping them competitive. If you can't compete without an SC, you are at a level higher than you should be.

This SC doesn't work and is massively damaging, clubs have resisted any demands placed on them investing in facilities and youth development so they don't deserve rules to help them avoid paying a player his worth.

Within a closed system there are better options, but within one set up with the intention for clubs to rise through the ranks, those clubs ambition should not be limited by what their competitors can afford.

An SC in a P+R system entrenches the status quo in our leagues, and sees us left behind by other sports.

To be honest, it's all about numbers and numbers of talent. Not salary caps.

There is no difference in techniques, coaching, S&C and training. It's about the talent.

We don't have the talent pool, a low cap just means we can't supplement the team with high grade antips.

Step 1: losing our homegrown stars: bring in the rules that were proposed September 2013 limiting the value of a home grown players. Why the SL clubs are dragging their feet on this I have no idea. The rules have been brought in for the championship, so they're still on the agenda. This won't protect our youngsters like Joe Burgess, but the few established stars we do have are at least financially viable for the clubs to compete to keep them.

Step 2: increasing the cap: I think 10 of 12 teams this year are, or can, spend up to the cap this year. So it is reasonable to now start raising it. I think 300k pa is too much, but an agreed 5 year plan, increase it to £2m and increasing by 50-100k a year isn't infeasible for all clubs to keep up - raising revenues by that much with turnover in the millions shouldn't be too difficult imo.

Step 3: when the cap hits £2.5m allow 3rd party payments, this is the thing that has inflated Aussie wages through the roof. I would be very strict on the definition of 3rd party, and the business' involved must have no connection to any board member, and the company would be required to pay the full value of their contributions up front and placed in a bond.

Step 4: building on step 1: clubs should still be rewarded for contributing players to the international cause, so their cap should be limited to 100k normally, 75k after an England knight performance, and 60k for an England capped player.

Step 5: Marquee exemption: only after the first 3 have been introduced would I bring in the marquee exemption in - to give those struggling with business connections.

Step 6: our youngsters: bring in a minimum wage for top 25 players. Rumour has it Joe Burgess earnt 8k for his performances last year - it's no surprise he's then looking for the door. Most teams will have money off the cap at this point, and should leave room for a minimum value of say 40-50k a player, which is still a fantastic wage and stop our kids being targeted.

All imo.

I've always been an advocate of increasing the salary cap but in all honesty I don't think scrapping it would be the worst thing, I mean, it was brought in to make all teams more competitive and we just see the same small group of teams winning the league all the time so has it really worked?

I think the best idea would be to introduce a marquee quota of say 3 players that are exempt from the salary cap. This might encourage some of the Aussie talent to come over for a year or two just to say they've done it if nothing else.

There is a finite number of quality players available to Rugby League and increasing the size of the talent pool would be far more beneficial than simply paying existing players more to stay. It's all well and good saying let Salford spend what they want, but who'll be there to pick up the pieces once the Dr gets bored?


As for stopping players leaving the code? I would think given the hype, time, effort and cash spent on getting Burgess to Bath, only for the press to now reckon he's "over it" will put off any other potential raids from Union. The French union seem happy to pilfer the All Black camp and there isn't any cash in ARU to pay for anyone else after Izzy, so let's concentrate on increasing the player pool, not making it more exclusive.

Nobody mentioned the ARU, french rugby union, Burgess' move to Bath or anything to do with other codes.

This is the wrong discussion to be having.

Thanks for that. Care to enlighten us?

Paying SL players more money doesn't solve anything.

Would having the ability to pay James Graham enough to keep him at Saints not have improved Saints?

Increasing the salary cap would be the death of rugby league in the Uk. It nearly killed Wigan off in the 90s. There would only be half a dozen competitive games a season including the play offs. How on earth would that get us closer to the Aussies when teams would coast through most of their games we need more games competitive not less.

We would need 12 billionaires owning the clubs and be able to play at least 10 non Europeans to compete with down under. Why cant people get real and realize we don't have the strength in depth of home talent and skill.

Exactly. Widening the gap even more between the top 4/5 clubs and the rest will only result in less and less competitive intense games which wouldn't help those teams or players when they play the Aussies and would in reality damage our league......yes we might keep a James Graham at Saints or a Sam Tomkins at Wigan but who wants to see them and their respective teams stroll past half the league even more comfortably than what we often still see now. You want to see those players pushed to their best.....not going through the motions of another 40/50 point battering of some lower placed team.