Quote Father Ted="Father Ted"Spending half your turnover is still a salary cap, as it was set at 50%.
There are all sorts of remedies for improving British Rugby League and most are around improving the cap.
Some want it at 50%
Others believe that an inflation figure put in each year would keep the purchasing power the same where without it there is a decrease in the real money you can spend.
Quite a few people think that any player under 21 should be excluded from the salary cap. This is done in the Championship.
Then there are those who are like me and think it is a complete waste of time always has been and always will be.
It was set up in 1996 to stop clubs going broke, failed in 1997 and every year since when clubs have got into financial difficulties.
Then we were told it was to create a level playing field. That's absolute rubbish, five teams don't even spend £1.6m so how can it be a level playing field?
Since SL started the standard has dropped dramatically.
Someone mentioned the World Cup.
We got smashed by Australia in Melbourne.
We played there 1992 when our best wingman was Martin Offiah.
Our best wingman last year was Ade Gardner. What a drop that is"!
1992 our loose forwards were Ellery Hanley & Phil Clarke.
2008 the 13s were Sinfield and Purdham, Hanley to Purham isn't a drop in standards, its falling off a cliff.
1992 the halves were Edwards, Gregory & Schofield. Last year Pryce, McGuire and Burrow. Another massive fall in player quality.
We all know this but its the Super League Club Chairmen who makes the rules and Ian Lenagan like the rest think the salary cap is truly wonderful.
None of them ever talk about the drop in quality just rubbish about an even competition and level playing fields. Whatever those two things are!
The need to improve the quality of the players, quality of Rugby, improve the competitions and improve our International Squad.
Since Super League started and the salary cap imposed standards have dropped.
The decline needs reversing but we don't have people making the rules who even begin to think that we are in decline.
Unless the SLCC reverse their policy of decline then we are in real trouble.'"
On the head mate! Not just the SC but the way the game is played means that real talented players do not get enough time to play and develop their creative skills. The games just become an impact game based on hard running and collision. Therefore we have just a massive amount of players who can run hard and have little skill. Even someone like Pryce who everybody raves about is a one trick pony IMO with his show and go move which surprisingly only works in the talentless SL....as soon as he goes to the WC hes shown up as an average player with no real talent. Look at someone like barrett last year and the year before.....there's 100s of barrets playin in the NRL comp, yet he was SL best player by some distance, and even during his time didnt impact as well as he should because of the talent around him wasnt good enough.
We need to look at the way the game is played and change the rules if necessary to ensure fast flowing passing rugby is not lost due to the impact tactics of the game, going back to 5 metres if necessary!
The problem as I see it in the next few years is that it will only get worse as well. Young lads even in the north now see union as the only viable way to play rugby and get paid a decent wage for it. We're holding ourself back with the SC to wakefield/ london /Salford and cetlics level.....to make the whole sport a bunch of paupors who cant spend any significant amount of money. That will mean that even if we can unearth any real talent they will go to union. If players of hanley, edwards, gregorys calibre were playing now theyd all be in union.
What will happen to us in the next 10 years if we persist with the stupid SC will be a general decline in RL.....we are slowly shooting ourselves in the foot and killing the sport from within. Diluting the sport at the top level means that everyone will only have the spending power of salford/ london etc. and will mean that we fall further behind union, better players will go away from the sport, and crowds at even top teams like wigan/ leeds etc. will start to fall as the product worsens and the league becomes a second rate league...after all wheres the incentive for the clubs to spend?
IMO we'll end up where we were in the 70s playing in tired grounds in front of average crowds of 4-5k while union will go up.
Wat we need to be doing is encouraging wigan and leeds to spend what they can. Then teams like salford, quins, celtic, will HAVE to increase crowds and revenue or otherwise will find their natural level in the sport in NL1 or NL2, and be replaced by stonger clubs who should be in and have potential to grow the sport. Salford quins wakey etc will never get crowds of more than 5k.....they need to realise if they arent having crowds of 10 k they shouldnt be in SL in the first place.
What we are doing with the salary cap would be akin to throwing Macclesfield, Chester, Darlington etc. in the premier league and then saying to all the top teams like united and chelsea that you can only spend £1 million on players a year to make it fair and competive with what chester and darlington can spend. What would happen? The Premier league would go from being the top soccer league in the world to a back water poor league because it was being held back....all the best players would leave for other leagues where they could get their market value, and the league would disintegrate though it would [i'be competative and how good would it be to see darlington beat man u at old trafford'[/i where have we heard that before?!?! hmmmm. 10 years down the line old trafford would have 10k turning up to watch a poor standard of soccer.
lets be honest teams like Salford, Quins, Celtic, Wakefield should not be in the super league in the first place....IMO we should revert to the original position....Start with Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Hull, Hull KR, Dire, Catalan and Possibly Bradford, go back to 12 teams (there is not enough serious talent playing RL at the min to justify 14 teams) and then have 5 franchise spots for teams who can guarentee the original criteria and are big enough to be in the league.
Im all for a competative league, but I want all teams to be NRL level or to the level that saints and bradford were 5 years ago, not competative but not much above national league level which is where we are slowly heading!
Huddersfield would still need to improve and would need to guarentee 10k crowds within 2 years to get in, and the rest would be out for me. Saints, Bradford, Wire and Catalans, KR would all be told they were on threshold level and needed to have 10k crowds as a bare minumum and super league standard stadia to continue in the league.
and Howard Wilkinson 
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