He is now on 250k a year at Wigan.

On the contrary..... this deal DOES work in wigans favour..... i dont think anyone is suggesting otherwise... you get to keep your best player AND free up his cap space...... I just saw the supposed salary of Sam Tomkins and was taken aback at how much bigger it will be than anyone else in rugby league.

Then i suggest you complain to the owner of Wire about the lack of great youth players that has come through your system over the last 5-6 years. Why should the best player in SL have to leave Wigan and go to play RU if they can sort out a system that rewards youth policy and gives him a massive deal.

I do think that it sucks donkey balls to Saints as they are losing Graham and thats slightly unfair on them. But i do think they can see this will work for them as it will for Leeds (Jones Bishop especially) as both clubs have a fantastic youth set up which sees players coming through year on year. Only clubs that should not like this is a high cap spending club that does not develop its own youth talent adequately. eg Wire.

Its about time that the clubs who have thsese kids at 16 and turn them into world class players have every right to kive them a deal which not only keeps them at their respective clubs but frees cap space to bring in other players or even give btter contracts to exsisitng players. Why should clubs have to let very good players leave just to keep the cap as it is to benefit inefficient youth policies and RU.

This will put great pressure on clubs to develop its own players now which benefits RL as a whole. This is very good for Rugby League and will put a stop on an exodus to union or NRL. If you can not see this works for SL then its obvious its not to the advantage of Wire but is to most of the other clubs.

the Graham move is not about the dosh, he wants a crack at NRL, although may be thinking "what have I done?" following last weekend.

this may help Stains hang onto Lomax or Roby though

warrington does have a good youth set up now..... and we should see the results over the next few seasons...But that's not the point here is it?

Anyway.... the details of the salary cap change hasn't even been made public yet.. I am expecting it to be a player that has been at a club for x amount of years can count... which would mean we could do what you have done... remove one of our top earners from the cap and use the cap space for someone else.

if you think Warrington wont also benefit from this new rule you're mistaken.... its the clubs at the lower end that will suffer.... The clubs that cant already meet the cap.

But like you said.....It's great news for rugby league, as it means we have a greater chance of keeping our better players.... sometimes players will want to move though.. like Graham wanting to go and prove himself in the best league in the world... that move wasn't motivated by money like Joel Tomkins move was.

Reply to Morleydeck chair.

The problem is some teams do not spend to the cap so sorry but sod them now. If they can not spend to the max of the cap then they should not be dictating what others can. Its so annoying but its obvious after Saturday England is closing the gap on the OZ team wether Engalnd have improved or the OZ team is not as good as made out. But if you lose 1 or 2 top players to union only to keep the structure of the cap then England will get left behind for a generation again.

The top 5-6 or SL will be the same for the next decade so i can not see the benefit of not allowing the change that has been mentioned. If a team can afford it and keep quality in the game its better than the status quo of player drain and poorer quality in SL.

I agree with you... the salary cap was 'supposed' to create parity... It has just restricted the top 4/5 teams (apart from warrington as we dont keep to the cap)... Teams should be left to run themselves as they see fit.

The point i was trying to make is that premium SL players will now look at sams salary and think 'i fancy some of that'.

Maybe this new ruling will see the beginning of the end for the salary cap.

Whilst some will talk about the salary cap being there to even the compettion, I think this is a minor function. For me, its main purpose is to stop clubs getting carried away and ending up with a salary blow out, trying desperately to buy success on the field.
There need to be a forced ceiling on clubs spending. We're not a big enough sport to allow clubs to crucify themselves.
If SL clubs are allowed 1 marqee player to have dispensation, then I reckon 10 clubs would be able to manage that. That's 10 british players that could be secured in our competetion.

its a pity that all this bollox has gone on after our Sky negotiation. Surely Sky don't want to see their product quality decline with our best payers being tempted away?

Didn't Iestyn Harris go to Union for £1.5Mil?

Which is exactly what I have been trying to explain to ertain posters for the last 2 days but some people cant seem to get there head around this.

My cousin played at school with a former England captain. They stay in touch.
He reckons that said player was very open and said once he made the England train-on squad, it was an extra 100k a year in the bank, and that was before winning a cap.