only club not to have spent to the cap?



you think wakefield have?! huddersfield havent either..sure there will be a few more too, castleford..london..

Leeds haven't done for years, saints have space for a player, Wigan aren't I believe either

This isn't true.

The provisions in the salary cap regulations allow the RFL to apply signing bonuses across the period of the contract if they deem it appropriate or where its obvious that payments are being manipulated to circumnavigate the intent of the regulations by off-setting payments from one year to another (yes that's you we're looking at Mr Lindsay (after being caught cheating in a Melbourne Storm fashion)). There is nothing stopping stepped increases in salary through the period of a contract when it is done in a reasonable fashion eg Ben Currie signing a five year contract would obviously expect to be paid more as a 22 year old established first team player than a 17 year old breaking into the team.

It's amazing how much rubbish around the salary cap you read peddled out as fact.

Read:



Link:www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/interactive_operational_rules?section=E1

Edit: so any payments made outside of anyone's contract would count during the time when they were contracted and registered to the club.

As for backending, as you say, the key word is reasonable but for all intents and purposes, the point of backending contracts is outlawed. As I said.
Isn't it just.

Actually you might read the relevant bit:



As I said the RFL will apply across the period of the contract when the contract is obviously structured in an artificial manner eg players defer such an amount as to leave them such that "the Player's welfare would be prejudiced by the arrangements" ie couldn't afford to feed and clothes themselves.

Big signing bonuses are likely to be spread across the contract but as I said there is nothing stopping stepped increases in salary across the length of a contract if they are reasonable. Every club in the league does it.

Lost me but it all sounds intriguing.

I beg to differ, it's as intriguing as a Michael Buble gig.

Thank God for that!

I thought you said a Michael Bolton gig for a minute!

We will never know what the size of the salary gap is, but more concerning is the lack of genuine talent that we could buy ATM. Presumably, that has to be down to the size of the player pool in the UK and hence youth training ?

Perhaps the lower tier of the SL 12 month after the 1st split may prove to become stronger?

Could there be up to 100 ex SL players or more playing in that level?

It may be wise for the lower tier clubs to remain fully professional with parachute payments from the SL pot.
Perhaps they do...I don't know too much about it yet.

Clubs have never really been in the habit of going out making big British signings in pre-season, usually the majority of new signings would be overseas players. Due to the exchange rate and Salary Cap in Oz, it is making it harder to come across available players, meaning that clubs are holding onto more of their British lads as they don't have the quick fix of an NRL player or two to bolster their squad.

Things are tough in the transfer market, I've no issue with Warrington going down the route of continuing to focus on developing our own squad this year in the absence of World Class players - where we have had an issue is that we have been relatively unlucky with some injuries, plus some of the younger lads have failed to step up and kick on - look at Wigan and the opposite is true and their signings policy in recent years has been similar to ours this year - release plenty and fill the squad from below. It has worked for Wigan, and I am still hopeful that it will work for us, I think some of us just need to have a bit of patience.

In the last few years we have seen Wigan and Leeds have really bad spells and come in for a lot of criticism but then turn it round and take home silverware - we need to focus on getting up to speed for the right games.

Despite a below average start, we are still in an ok league standing, still in the cup and hopefully getting a few players back over the next few weeks.

We'll be reet.