And there we go. I presume we were all waiting for that particular response.

In fairness to RD, there is a workaround regarding lump sums.

Signing-on fees / bonuses can be spread over the length of the contract for the purposes of the cap, but paid upfront to the player.

Lets say hypothetical player Pitta Haiku wants 20k to play the last 2 months of the season (10k per month).

It would cost us 20k of real money, but 120k of cap space under normal circumstances - so it's not going to happen.

But - we could sign the player on modest terms - say 2k per month - that's only 24k of cap space. We'd obviously put a healthy pay rise in next season when we can juggle things around and afford the cap space.

Then give the player a 2.5 year contract, and a 16k signing-on fee. This signing on fee only counts as 5.3k on this season's cap, as it's spread over the contract length, regardless of when the payment is actually made to the player.

The player would therefore pocket his 20K for his 2 months work.

The total cap cost for the player that season is now only 29.3K - far better than the 120k it would be to pay him him "legitimately".

Pitta Haiku then screws us over, citing homesickness. We terminate his contract without any resistance, and wish him well, and his remaining cap cost vanishes for next season.

The above is purely hypothetical.

Hypothetically then, it would have been a fantastic deal to only pay 2k a month for a NZ international centre who in no small part helped us secure or status in Super League. What a hypothetically great bit of business after all. Hypothetically.

I’m glad the hypothetical Pitta Haiku got to return home to pursue his love of Greek food and Japanese poetry.

I'm not sure the salary cap committee would allow a drastically different salary in year two, as they would quite rightly assume you were spreading 2018 salary into subsequent years. In that instance they would likely spread the cost of his entire contract over the 2.5 year period surely?

Autumn grass shimmers
Homeward unleavened manna beckons
Contracts end

Haha

That’s very good. Can you put yourself forward for a Pulitzer?

We also offered another Tomkins more money than Wigan did for this season.

Seriously? That’s madness. He’s got raw talent but has one good game in about five. The English game isn’t short of decent second rowers.

That’s assuming we aren’t talking about Logan?

No not Logan.I may be exaggerating a bit, I don't know how much was offered etc but yeah I couldn't believe it either!

This is going from Bard to Verse.