Not making excuses as the better team won, but generally people are saying that everything favoured Wigan - location, preparation, etc, but the most important factor - Salary Cap clearly favours the Aussie team. The current cap in Aus is around £2.8m against £1.7m in England, the StGeorge 3/4 line alone would take up most of the English cap, so the Aussies can rightfully stack their team with better quality athletes.

Just think of the team we could put out with 2.8m - assuming we would still have the current crop of up and coming youngsters mixed in with better quality English players, imports and select signings from RU.

The game somehow needs to generate more cash so that clubs can increase the cap limit to compete with Aussies and other sports.

If we followed your thought/excuse through to it's logical conclusion, then no salary capped English club would have ever won the WCC.....

I can see your point. To be effective though any increase in cap would have to attract more people into the sport, be they through the youth ranks or from other sports such as Union. It wouldn't be much good if an increase simply made the existing player pool richer, not that they would mind I dare say.

BillyRhino makes my point i think i agree with him

Best excuse I've heard for a defeat in a long time

Just think how quickly clubs would go out of business trying to compete with the bigger clubs on a 2.8million cap.

The bigger clubs would go bust at that level, let alone the ones trying to keep up.

Do we seriously think Wigan can afford an extra £1.1m p.a. on salaries?!

Yes they would currently go bust at that level but I believe that the game is selling itself short at the current cap level and will continue to stagnate unless a way can be found to generate more income.

Put it this way - Wayne Bennett with 2.8m will always beat Micheal Maguire or Tony Smith with 1.7m.

The more income needs to come before a raise in the SC. If clubs can survive adequatley at the current level, then it may be agreed to increase, they can't so it won't

Which is why we have the expansion teams.

Now they are taking it fairly seriously we may have a long wait for the next one.

I can't understand why people don't want the cap raised you honestly want our players playing for peanuts it hasn't changed in years so I think it needs to either be raised or academy trained players only half there wage counts on the cap

Use some of the increase to pay the current players more which would encourage a better standard of athlete into the game, and they also deserve to be paid as elite athletes. Some to get "bums on seats" players from Union or the top quality stars from Aus.

Or we can just continue as we are.

It's not a bad point really. Can't complain though, the game was at home, they have to travel for miles. Probably what makes it such a competative game to be honest. I don't think any current english side could go over there and win.

so the english football team should win everything and they win feck all