How did this happen?

Leighton Samuel...........

I don't necessarily disagree with some of your points, but the fact is that they are based on a fantasy RL world that doesn't exist.

RL clubs are not rich enough to directly compete with their union counterparts. If we raise the cap, they can raise theirs by more or ignore it. It's a red herring.

The cap as it stands allows the best players to earn very good money and forces clubs to run smaller squads packed with young, English players. This means that, rather than who has the richest benefactor, the single biggest source of competitive advantage for any SL team is their youth development. That is how we want it to be, because every club's success depends directly upon developing their own talent.

Who runs at a consistent profit anyway to warrant this cap increase? Leeds? Hull? Not many others, if any. Most clubs are losing money at the current cap level anyway, including Wigan I believe.

I'm not against incremental rises in the cap, what I do object to is this misplaced notion than abolishing the cap will suddenly improve the game.

I'd be interested to see clubs financial results and average attendances pre SC and post SC.

Interesting attempt at diversion, but as much of a failure as the CC.

Everyone knows that when the CC was brought in the sole expressed objective was financial stability. It was a very unsophisticated way of ensuring financial stability but at least the declared aim of it was a good one.

Then the flat earthers got hold of the CC and it became about dumbing down, reducing ambition to the lowest common denominator and reducing players' wages in real terms (a very significant reduction over 10 years and the fact that clubs have had no incentive to even increase income to keep pace with inflation is a disgrace) to the extent that the % cap has now gone... no one can now defend this joke of a system.

We aren't talking about a fantasy world but the grim reality and even more depressing future of the game under the CC.

Taking some of the other points here:

1. "We can't compete with union so we might as well pay our players peanuts" - no one is suggesting that if at the end of his contract with Wigan Leicester came in for Sam Tomkins Wigan would be able to compete financially. Of course we wouldn't and this is just not relevant to the CC debate. What is relevant is whether RL clubs can pay enough to young players to make the decision to leave the sport a bit harder....

2. "The clubs are virtually bust already and simply can't afford to pay any more". This is one of my favourite pro-CC red herrings. The obvious flaws in this argument are hilarious.

In itself it is an admission that the current system has failed utterly.

It betrays the lack of ambition of the pro CC flat earthers - we could have a better system of financial controls which properly protected clubs from overspending but encouraged growth.

Most disgracefully it ignores the fact that the CC has actually fallen in real terms very significantly. Wage inflation has been running at c3% a year on average over the last 10 years. Each £100 of wages in 2000 would be worth less than £74 in real terms today but the cap hasn't been raised.

Seems they're closer to resolving it now

What misplaced notion that abolition of the cap wouldn't improve the standard of the game.
We most certainly had a far better International Squad prior to the SC than we have now.
Prior to the SL & the cap we couldn't win a series but won one in three.
This last loss to the Aussies means we've won one of the last 15.
That's a dramtic decline.
We should be pushing the Aussies all the way with fourteen full time clubs but we are further away than ever.
Clubs that can afford to pay more in salaries should be allowed to do so.
If that means they can prevent our younger players going to Union then great.
Should it give the opportunity to bring over quality Union players to League, even better.
We have to do something to improve and get out of the going nowhere mess we are in.
If we want bettter quality players then we have to be prepared to pay them
the quality salaries they will require.
We can only do this by abolshing the cap.