I think we need more overseas stars in SL personally.

The reserves would be 90% local academy lads though right? make them part time on a lower wage. As they start to impress they can be invited to train full time on a trail period with a bonus thrown in to cover missed work? Obviously there will be implications with that but its better than a duel reg system where 19 year old lads are expected to play for Rochdale and force their way into the team from there all whilst keeping a Rochdale lad out the team just because he hasn't got a match day squad place as of yet.

As you say duel registration could easily stop any need or desire for the lower club to take on its own young players. More players,not less, need to be encouraged to play the game at all levels.

I agree with you and MO and think that it should be a condition of SL status and taking the SKY $ that you run a reserve set up it will be a meaningful competition and may help increasing/retaining players in the game which can't be a bad thing can it?

I've not read the article, but presume it's been dropped because of a lack of opponents rather than we can't afford it or decided to throw our money at antipodeans over priced or not?

No coincidence that the recent decline in numbers of overseas stars coming over (due to exchange rate, increased salary cap in NRL etc) has been accompanied by a noticeable decline in the quality of SL.

For years people used to say cut the overseas players out and there would be tons of new top British talent coming through because they are all being blocked by the Aussies etc, but the top talent gets through anyway. All that has happened is the second tier of mediocrity gets to become regular SL players whereas in the past they would have dropped down to the lower leagues.

There have been guys who have come out of our academy in recent years who have played 40 plus SL first team games and who are rank average. Same happens at other clubs. We persist with them and claim the theory "Sam Burgess/whoever didn't set the world on fire when he first came through you need to give them more games..." but you just watch them week after week, season after season, being at best steady eddies and at worst players that just hang around filling up spots. Surely these are the players who are holding back young British talent? If there is a lot of young talent out there why not start giving it a go rather than keeping around the 'home grown' spot-blockers.

I'd like to see a quota on second rate players.

The problem is though, if we allow unlimited numbers of NRL players into Super League, we aren’t getting the likes of Jamie Lyon, Andrew Johns, Steve Renouf etc. We will be getting (mostly) second rate NRL players who struggle to commmand the huge salaries that the NRL can offer. The handful of top-quality NRL players in their prime will be at clubs who can afford it. That’s maybe 2-3 clubs. If we abandoned our salary cap you’d still only see 2-3 clubs who could afford their salary so we’d be back in the 90s with a big four full of stars hammering every other small-town club every week and causing a decline in attendances. That is of course, assuming Super League hasn’t by some miracle achieved the addition of multi-millionaire franchises like Toronto, New York and London. Unlikely we will see that anytime soon unfortunately.

I don’t think we can necessarily make things much better by abolishing the cap and abandoning youth structures, at this point in time. If we improved grass roots from the bottom up and the whole sport worked together we may see more talent but that will take a long long time.

The salary cap was supposed to even the playing field, ensure that every club can challenge for the league and to protect clubs from going bust. None of this has happened. Just 3 current SL clubs have won the 21 SL Titles available. In the meantime we have lost world class talent from our game.

Very true

The salary cap isn't there to even out the competition.
It never has been.

In a round about way it was. It was perceived that the likes of Wigan had too much financial clout, that, left unchecked, would unbalance the game.

... Not just Wigan of course!

....that still had nothing to do with the salary cap....or BMM.

What is it for then?

It's purpose was to stop clubs from spending money the couldn't afford.
Trying to address clubs running at a loss.
Which it hasn't for almost all teams still, Leeds eventually made a profit, but didn't stop teams from spending more, cheating to win SL and in cases going bust, over and over, and in other cases, cheating the cap to avoid relegation....all penalised with a deferred fine and deferred points deducted, that they then appealed and got lifted...so much there's the mockery of punishment to prove it's there to make an even competition.

The rfl may be dressing it up and even able to state it primarily that it is there to make a more even competition, but if this was truly the objective, why is it not then compulsory for each club to pay full cap?....this is the only way to have a market where balance could theoretically be achieved... Perhaps this conflicts with British/European law, I don't know, but it is the only way.

So however the rfl want to dress it up, without that rule it's just bollox....which it is now completely bollox since the marquee ruling, because now there is no ceiling at all, just a tiered cap.

The woods are behind the trees.