And we will continue to be unable to do so as long as Chairmen like IL voting to keep the CC at it's ridiculously low levels....

I noticed you did this earlier - attempting to cast aspersions on IL with regard to the declining health of the game overall.

Nice try, if a tad desperate.

But of course NZ warriors play in which league ?

It is the intent of the word 'Australian' by the person or persons who drew up the contract that is the issue.

I think we all know that it is the RU and the 'Australian game' that are the people with the 'big bucks' who would/did entice Sam to wander off.

I think that is why 'Australian and RU' were worded into Sams contract.

It appears contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on.

And now the rumours are starting that Josh Charnley is also being targetted. Oh dear.

Didn't he vote to keep the CC at it's current level?

he did yes, and hes the only one who has a vote......

Mr Lenegan bragged about it by saying "Why should I pay more ?"....than the salary cap, in the Manchester Evening News.

What does all this bellyaching actually produce beyond a little more wear & tear on a few keyboards?
I really hope IL isn't paying attention to any of this, 'cause if I were him I say "sod the lot of you".
If anyone here thinks they can do better then get your wallet open & flash the cash.

WTF does it really matter who spoke to who first, when they did or any other bits of nonsense in the dozen or so pages of this thread?!

Good luck to Sam. If I were 30 years younger I'd probably be wanting to move to NZ too (I hear the sheep are very friendly). The club's in rude health, there's a bit of extra cash to spread about & we've a chairman who's got his head screwed on the right way round.
If he comes back & we get first dibs (and he accepts) then we'll have a FB who's learned a little bit more in the toughest arena of the sport.

We should be congratulating him & wishing him well, not finding some barmpot excuse to winge & whine. Or will there be more than just the North stand booing him on Friday ?

Whilst at the recent Catalans game on my way back from the ground to the hotel I happened to walk past the USAP ground and witnessed first hand the phenominal interest in Union. The crowd noise could be heard from blocks away. In my ignorance I didn't know that Perpignan had a Top 14 team. I got hold of a copy of L'Equipe (a paper devoted to Sport) on the Monday after both games and guess what - pages devoted to Union not one single paragraph devoted to our game. I mention this because unless you get out there beyond Lancs/Yorks you really don't understand that Super League is tiny in comparison with Union and also the NRL.

Players have a career to think about. They want to achieve as much as possible and earn as much as possible in a game that is one bad tackle away from retirement.

None of this is the fault of IL. The salary caps in French Union and the NRL dwarf that of Super League, even if IL agreed to putting it up by 50% or even doubling it. We still couldn't compete. The world has changed and since Union went professional it has been a long slow decline for League in this country. The only thing that keeps us afloat is that put simply, it's a better game to watch, otherwise the game would have died years ago. It is obvious that Josh will be next to go, and why would you stop him? Once you've won everything in Super League, why not further your career?

Because removing the salary cap would save the game, wouldn't it?

It's nothing to do with poor marketing, poor TV deals, under-performing clubs, stay-away fans, the comparative strength of the pound, our low national profile thanks to Sky TV, the missing international dimension, etc.

FWIW, I don't like the salary cap either, but it isn't the only problem we've got, or the worst one - and you know that perfectly well.

It directly impacts on the ability of clubs to retain the best players.

I would say that is a pretty significant effect of it.

Definitely. If it wasn't for the SC we may still have Joel Tomkins as one example. We may of been able to pay Sam Tomkins enough to keep him in SL. Even players such as Ryan Hoffman etc. Its amazing what a wage increase can do. But of course, like Mr Lenegan said, why would I want to pay my players more money?

And last time we retained all the best players, we had to sell our ground.

Sam is reportedly on £400k pa over there, the game in this country can't sustain wage levels like that. If we offered Sam the same wage, we'd have to offer pro-rata comparable sums to the rest of the squad.

It's not the SC that's the problem, it's the income for the clubs and the game as a whole that simply isn't there.

And likewise, we may not.

How many 'mays' and 'ifs' are you guys going to offer as evidence?

Much as I've lobbied for the cap to be moderated in order to reward clubs who promote youth, abolishing it won't save the British game overall - because it's already bloody skint.

Geoff, go and find a wall, and bang your head against it... Some on here just have there heads up their own ar$e$, like the sound of their our keyboards, and cannot see the wood for the trees....