Quote: BrisbaneRhino "IL and Hetherington have similar views precisely because there are only 4/5 clubs that can afford the current cap - meaning that all they'd do is fight amongst themselves for the same players. '"
They do already. An increased cap would allow them to compete for them with offers from the NRL.
Quote: BrisbaneRhino "I suspect they're also conscious of the fact that if the cap was raised, a lot of it would go to bog standard players. The idea that the entirety of any cap increase would go to lure/keep star players is a nonsense. Historically its always led to generic wage rises, including for those that TBH don't actually 'deserve' it on the basis of what they bring to the game.'"
What is your point? In the NRL they have a minimum wage for players in the squad number 1-17 of $60,000 AUD (£40K) and $55,000 (£36.7K) for numbers 18-25 and I think this is about to rise again. This is to prevent clubs skewing the cap towards their star players (something clubs have to manage for themselves here which IL did and Leeds have done for a while) but the obvious side effect is the NRL's "bog standard players" are also going to be on good money. Of course an increased cap would raise wages across the board. That isn't a problem as it isn't just the star players that are underpaid in the UK.