Quote: rubber duckie "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.'" Yes that is one reason but it had many others also. media.therfl.co.uk/docs/Super%20 ... %20PDF.pdf

Quote: rubber duckie "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.'" Yes that is one reason but it had many others also. media.therfl.co.uk/docs/Super%20 ... %20PDF.pdf

Cheers...
I'll let others read that, there is a lot more bollox to take in.
I'll just straighten out the misconception that it's just there to make the competition equal.

I think it was necessary at the time - some clubs with low attendances were living beyond their means and I’m almost certain some of them would have collapsed. The cap sort of forced them into a moderation mindset and now some of those clubs have new boards and better facilities with much better crowds.

It has evened up the playing field in a certain respect as we don’t have a big four trouncing the little clubs every week. However, we are still yet to see one of the smaller clubs win a trophy in the super league era. I wouldn’t back against Castleford, Wakefield or Huddersfield to win the challenge cup soon. It’s been building for a while.

That said, we haven’t seen the game expand really in that time, and we have seen a decline in grass rooots and talent coming through.

When it came in all clubs were spending more than they brought in.

Even the pre SL mighty Wigan of the 80s were spent up to the hilt and relied on a visit to Wembley to help balance the wage bill and massive transfer fees...loans.

Salford shock defeat masterminded by Andy Gregory virtual bankrupt the club.

The Wigan philosophy lately seems to be to plead injuries for most of the season & blood all the young fringe players then wheel out the big guns for games that matter.

The VERY first two clauses in the document introduction cite that it is there to make the competition equal.

[i1.1.1. to protect the integrity of the Super League competition by ensuring that the determinative factor in the sporting outcome is on-field sporting merit and not off- field financial considerations;

1.1.2 to ensure that the Super League competition remains competitive and therefore attractive to spectators and commercial partners by preventing Clubs with greater financial resources dominating the competition and by ensuring a balanced spread of Players among the participating Clubs;[/i

The Third clause is about preventing clubs from trading beyond their means.

[i
1.1.3 to protect and nurture a broad competitive playing structure by preventing Clubs trading beyond their means and/or entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements; [/i

Sums it up nicely!

As I've pointed out. Dress it up as they may but unless every club is the same it is words on paper.
It cannot be a level field unless it is mandatory that every team pays the full cap and nothing more or there is a handicap structure.

It all a bit idealistic ..... essentially we are bow governed by the lowest common denominator preventing the more successful outfits from growing further. Yes we do not want to go back to situation as in the 80's with Wigan winning everything but all the clubs have now had 20 years or so of being heavily subsidised by Sky and if we cannot see by now that if we are to be a top ranking sport some dead wood will have to go we will always be also rans

I completely agree. We now have 3 teams very close to each other and another 3 (Cas, Hull, Wire) close behind.

The salary cap is stifling the investment in the game. If the poorer clubs need to play in a different league / go bust so be it. The game desperately needs the investment.

This levelling down has to stop or the game won't be worth watching.

Never said it works just what the aim was in reference to your point in which you seem to question the aim.

The salary cap doesn't stop you spending money on junior development and investing in producing more talent.

If we did increase the salary cap we would probably see two effects:

1) An inflationary effect on salaries for existing players - when it came to contract renewal of regular first teamers, their agents would push for increased deals. A lot of the extra budget would be absorbed by this.

2) An increase in the number of highly paid NRL imports in the category of players who are not in the current Origin or international teams. This would help return the standard to where it was in the mid 2000s, although it will still be harder to offer really attractive deals as back then you were looking at around $2.70 or $2.80 to the pound whereas now it's $1.75. So we might be getting a lesser quality of import than back then especially as the Aussie salary cap is bigger now too.

Some of the less well off clubs will look to chase the signings as well so potentially would scale back investment in youth development to try and keep up with the need to bring over these imports. The rest of us will lecture them saying they should be investing more in their own youth development rather than just looking to sign imports - well why don't we do that now? We can do that even with the current salary cap restrictions.

I'm open to salary cap reform but we have to be realistic about the difference it will make to us.

Also I think this argument of "we need to stop British players going off to the NRL" is wrong, if we want to compete with the Aussies we need more of our players getting experience in their competition, in their conditions. The Premier League in football is great at keeping most of the England team in England but it doesn't do much for our international team, whereas there are countries like France, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil who lose most of their players to foreign domestic leagues but have international players who are experienced in different leagues, different styles of play all around the world.

Well SC the cap has increased and the top tier is infinite twice over. As pointed out, only six of those infinite positions from all those available areas across SL and the championship have been alloted. Yet 4 of the 6 are all English¡

Your account doesn't seem to stand up Sally C.

That's more an issue about increasing the overseas quota.

If there are NRL players who are outside/on the fringes of Origin or Kangaroo selection and are open to come to the UK, who are as good or better than the top British players, but willing to accept lower wages, then we should be able to sign them already under the existing tight salary cap. The tightness of the cap should be incentivising clubs to search for that type of value for money. If the reason they can't, is because of the overseas quota then that's what you'd need to increase to have the positive supply effect, but it won't be popular with some people.

The restriction on overseas players creates the scarcity effect that drives up wages of the British players. But this also helps keep British players in SL rather than the NRL because if they are being overpaid relative to their worth here, they are less likely to be tempted away by the NRL.

There will be even more restriction on overseas players after Brexit if the UK is no longer bound by the Kolpak ruling as the NRL players with family backgrounds in the EU or countries with agreements with the EU will no longer come in off quota.

The other way to reduce the scarcity effect would be to increase the flow of genuinely talented young British players (rather than Championship standard players who get a long run out in SL due to lack of alternatives) but it's easier said than done and everyone has wanted to do that for years anyway...