Does anyone know what the average salary is of a 'first team regular' rugby league international against the equivalent in Union?

You will never know what they get paid. They will get all sorts of extras in the other code. That doesn't come out of the clubs salary cap. How big are union clubs squads these days?

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Everyday is a school day, Thanks.

I was just thinking outloud really. Before any cap raise I'd like to see more marketing done by clubs and the RFL to get more bums on seats (or feet on concrete) so they could sustain any increase in outlay

According to rlthisrl, the club was barely in the black in our first trophy winning season in 35 years.

Unless the clubs can increase their revenue streams either individually and/or from centrally sourced/negotiated funds, then no, I do not agree. It is not a sustainable business model for clubs to lose money every year and rely on board members to keep pumping in the cash.

Raising the cap has more bad consequences that good ones. An even competition (providing the overall standard rises, and does not fall to 'lowest common denominator') is best for the sport as a whole. No doubt Pies, Rhinos ourselves and one or two others would thrive on a bigger cap ( at least in the short term ) but I don't think that's good for the game or the clubs concerned over a longer period.

obviously money is important but isn't the draw as much about becoming a england ru star and suddenly from being back page of the st helens star a player is going to become back page news for the national press playing on a stage that far exceeds anything on offer in rl except for maybe SOO which isn't an option for english players

i reckon instead of worrying about bankrupting the game from the top they should plough more money into getting rugby league played in state schools outside of the rl heartlands, so many fans with no interest in cub rugby come out of the woodwork for ru during the 6 nations because they played it at school and it drives the viewing figures up and makes international ru the key draw that union has over league, which, for me, is surely why we lose players and coaches to them

i don't know why i ranted about that, they're probably even already doing it for all i know, i'll get my coat

Tino, can you please fix your punctuation, I gave up reading your post half way through the first line.

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Just take a deeper breath.

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).