If this is true then it is yet another awful day for RL.

If the reports are correct one of our top players has been lured away for £200k p.a. plus presumably the benefits that may come to him (if he is successful) from a higher media profile.

Its's very worrying that RL cannot pay the sort of money that would make the move to RU too risky for a young player like Eastmond - it's not as if RU have offered him £50k a week...

£200k is the equivalent in real terms of around £120k back in the late 90s. If we'd known at the outset of SL and the SC that we wouldn't be able to pay a top star of the game the equivalent of £120k after a decade and a half of SL then people would have thought the SL and SC experiment to be an utter failure.

Which it is. Our game is in crisis, people need to wake up!

The story first broke last night by Royce Simmons on the BBC Mersesyide Rugby League Review show.
Eastmond goes at the end of the season.

Can't blame him.

It's always sad to see but mostly you find the players who are offered will go at the beginning or end of their career to get the extra cash...............Would you not??????

Didn't we know this yesterday?

didn't we know this a month ago!!

BBC reporting it now. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_u ... 410205.stm

BBC reporting it now. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_u ... 410205.stm

Funny tweet from Snellins "@Saints1890: Kyle to join Bath at the end of the Rugby League season - and is fully committed to the Saints until then. COYS."

The commitment has been clear for all to see

Kyle can say that he'll be committed to the St Helens cause in 2011, but the truth is - even if he doesn't realise it yet - he'll be as committed as his new paymasters allow him to be.

Expect many more mysterious injuries before this season is done (though I admit, in that respect it would be pretty difficult to see much difference between this season and all Kyle's other seasons).

I wonder if he'll do what Ashton did and pose in a Bath shirt while he's still playing for Saints?

He's not worth £200k. As I've pointed out before, if you pay him that kind of money, you realistically have to increase the other players' salaries to reflect their relative value. Do the exercise, and you very quickly reach a total salary outlay of over £4million - and the sport certainly can't afford that level of payment.

Then the question is, can it afford to be professional?

I said way back in Usenet days on rec.sport.rugby.league if the sport went full time it had to be able to pay players a wage that pro sportmen could command because it was asking most of them to give up jobs and careers to stop being semi-pro. It seems to me the sports ability to pay a pro sportmans wage is getting worse not better.

The s/c has not gone up for several years (when the flat rater cap came in it was supposed to each year by inflation but I don't think it ever has). We would not be at £4m if it had increased in line with inflation, it would be about £1.8m. As it is, it's actually worth about £1.3m these days compared to 2004.

£1.8m is an average of £72K a player in a squad of 25 and I reckon given there will be a wide range of wages from the least experienced/worst players to the best so paying out £200K would be do-able on a cap of £1.8m without upsetting the balance. I don't think you need £4m.

Even then it may not deter RU but at least they would have to offer more money with reduces their spending power.

I think he's making a mistake, although I don't blame him going for the money. He seems to be prone to injuries, but even when he is fit just doesn't seem to be the player many thought he would. I think it was just over a year ago (maybe slightly longer), I thought Eastmond was a better player than Sam Tomkins. I know he has had his injuries but I just don't think he has progressed at all whilst we have seen first hand the player Sam has become. Because of this, if Eastmond had waited a bit longer (maybe even till the end of the season) before accepting a deal to go to union, would they still have wanted him? He seems scared to take on the line, with his speed and step this should be his forte. If he spends the full season playing like he did against Wire last week, would Saints even want to keep him? Never mind Bath paying him 200k. I know it was only one game, and he may well come good throughout the rest of the season, but with his new employers looking over his shoulder I wouldn't be surprised to see him play like that every week. I think the best thing for Saints would be if he did a Chris Ashton and left now/part way through the season. It's a loss to our sport of course, but not the loss it could have been had he become the player many thought he would.

I do think he'll struggle in union, it'll only take one big hit or four players jumping on top of him and we'll see him limp off again. Maybe he'll come back in a couple of years with his tail between his legs, maybe a new setting and team will change him and he'll excel. We'll see...

I've said it before that losing Eastmond won't be a disaster to RL, I'll accept it is a bit of a blow BUT IMHO there will be another player at St Helens ready to explode in his place. Players are replaceable, Sam Tomkins is replaceable.

RL will move on and Eastmond will too in RU, good luck to him. This argument of RL v RU (player switching wise) will never go away as the transfer accross will never stop, and that is both ways. Maybe Eastmond will realise "Oh bugger I've not made the right move" and come back, maybe not. Either way there will be another player ready to explode onto the scene and IMO 'Kyle Eastmond' will be forgotten by this time next year.

Yeah, but what about when that next player goes as well?