Not really interested in the non-British players that are brought into SL and then turned into England players in kick and clap. Eastmond as a 21 year old leaving to find bigger bucks is a lot more worrying. The RFL need to help the clubs find the money to keep young British players in RL, otherwise Kyle may be the first of many. Can see the English or Welsh RU making noises about Rhys Evans in the near future unless we tie him to a long and lucrative contract. A friend of mine who (sadly for him) supports Sale reckons that Ryan Hall and Sam Tomkins will be the next targets.

I agree with Tony Smith but it needs to be thought through properly. If they just stick a few hundred thousand on the cap it won't have a significant difference in retaining the few top players who could be a risk for leaving, it will just get eaten up by inflated wage demands from everybody.

The agents will soon wise up to it and every player who has half a good season will "explore the options in the other code" and get their salary inflated, and in some cases it will push lower clubs into more financial trouble. The rise in wages will lead to a rise in prices so if there isn't an increase in Sky money then the costs will be passed onto fans with higher ticket prices and merchandising etc. You might have rugby league fans now who think its a good idea to campaign for this stop the likes of Eastmond joining RU but they won't realise it would lead to them basically watching the same players and the same product as now, but having to pay more for the privilege, and being annoyed when their team is in a losing run and they see their players swanning round town with flashy cars and clothes because they are earning more.

IMO the route to go down is to scrap the upper limit of a cap but then have a rule based on the old 20/20, where you set benchmark figures and say you can only have 20 players earning over X amount, and only say 6 players earning over Y amount. That stops the richer clubs from being able to hoard all the top players but it does mean clubs who have money behind them are not restricted in what they pay their very top players, so they can outcompete union or the NRL for the real talent.

We'll we're in the RL heartland, tino, and from what I remember of my schooldays (admittedly, over 25 years ago) we didn't play RL that often, maybe once per month. Those were the days where youth RL in Warrington was confined to a few clubs (Rylands, Crosfields, Latchford Albion etc), as most of the schools played football for the majority of the time. Go to Wigan, and their school system RL was everywhere, coupled with loads of clubs.

Maybe it's changed now...I don't know

I was told 6 years ago, that the then current coach of our club (Cullen's) son, attended a school (Broomfields), where they played the 3 point code . AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH. Now we really are p1s5i1ng in the wind if that happened. No wonder there are so few Warrington born players playing Super League, compared with other heartland towns.

Getting kids into our game at an early age is VITAL

Lefty, it is true, they play union and not league at Bridgewater high school. However, Mike Cooper went there and played it and he turned out alright.

Raising the cap is a decision for the clubs. I think they discuss it each year at the AGM and may even have a vote on it I think. The clubs need to set the cap at a level they feel the game can afford. If their income increases, they will increase the cap to suit.

In other words, increase income first.

Thank god for that, I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person on RLFans who understands you have to have more money in order to spend more money.

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Actually it was Cunningham (hardly good value) and Radlinski (always but his hand up for GB but not outstanding). "

Actually it was Cunningham (hardly good value) and Radlinski (always but his hand up for GB but not outstanding).

There was talk of a segment of Briers' salary being covered by Club GB at one point as well but I can't remember if anything ever came of it.

Clubs get an extra £50,000 if they have a player with over 10 years service, and another £50,000 if they have a regular England international.

Farrell was covered by it too (I'm 90% sure he was, anyway), I'm sure there were a few more on it, too (Sculthorpe, etc)

Was this payment brought in, as a reaction to Robinson crossing over to the 3 point code?

Are you sure Faz was covered by it? I seem to recall he'd signed a deal worth £1million with Wigan before the salary cap came in to existence.

I could be wrong, but I thought the RFL went through all the British "cream", the game had at the time (which would have obviously included Farrell) and made payment to secure their service, to prevent them swapping over.

After all, if (insert the name of a 3 point club here) came with a daft amount of money, I'm damn sure Wigan would have ripped their hands off, for the transfer money, which they wouldn't have been able to do, if the RFL had a controlling say in his future.......but like I say Paul, I could be wrong.

I found old article earlier relating to when Harris was up for transfer for £1.2million (hehe, just the thought of that transfer asking fee still makes me giggle a bit)... and there's a quote from someone at the club saying that the RFL came in and told the club that they weren't allowed to sell Harris to a RU club, when they'd already had the "deal of the century" lined up. I wish I'd made note of the URL, as I reckon I'll be hard pushed to find it again.

Raise the cap, cut the number of clubs in SL to 8-10, and add another cup. Merge clubs if necessary.

I personally could take RL losing some of its top talent if it meant our game not dying on its booty.

If we raise the cap and a couple more clubs end up like Wakey but don't have the luxury of someone taking them over, our game would slowly die.

It hurts losing talent but it hurts a thousand times more if we lose the game.