This was the last post........Carry on...

Wasn't the main problem with the Storm breaching the SC that they were making illegal payments to big name players ie. Slater, Smith, Inglis etc?

Surely if they stop the illegal payments the basic salary issues will be solved and it should hopefully take them back under the cap.

RE Cruncher:

Obviously players like Inglis, Smith, Blair and Slater are all out of the question, but players like Finch and Lima aren't out the question and neither are players who are in their prime.

Saints signed Soliola who is 23 and Leeds Greg Eastwood who is also 23. Both are unfortunately injured at the moment, but both players were New Zealand internationals when they came over and have yet to reach their full potential IMO. Both are excellent signings and prove that players in their prime can be lured to Super League.

The discussion on this mornings Melbourne v NZ Warriors game ed around the players NOT knowing what the Storm had declared to the NRL as their salaries.

i.e. a player would sign a contract for $200K but the club only declared that they were being paid $150K to the ARL.

So...their choices might be to cut all the players wages back to the "official" figure, or get rid of some players and keep paying the rest what they actually got?

Cheers Rogues

Depending on who knows who was being paid what and what was declared surely the best solution would be to scale down all wages by 10% to start with and hope that the players will agree to that - given how many ex-players were at the game and how most of Australia seems to be behind them from what I've been told by friends over there it would take a hard-nosed so and so to say "no - i want my 300k"

I find that very hard to believe though to be honest.

I doubt that everyone within the club was in on it. I think it was a board room thing tbh.

they may have not been in on it but players talk especially at contract time, i am not saying they were in on the dealings, but i would be very surprised if this situation was news to them.

Yes but as Rogues says, Player A believes he is on $200k and Player B believes $150k. The NRL think they're both on $100k. Unless they went home and counted it up how do they know?

I personally think given all the players in an NRL squad have to on a minimum of $55k and adding the standard of player they have in real terms it stands out like a sore thumb.

I am unsure how this has all come out, but would not be surprised if it came from either an ex player or disgruntled sponsor.

The auditors found another set of contracts in a separate room to the contracts they were auditing.

As far as i knew these were found in a safe at a directors house, far from being able to be randomly stumbled across.

Not according to David Gallop in a press conference I saw last night.

The Director that left the Storm to join the Melbourne Rebels (the new Super 15 team) resigned on Friday morning.

The NRL were tipped off by an ex-employee according to the Guardian.