I agree with you there, our salary cap needs to at least be on a par with the NRL then we may start to attract the best players instead of the majority of them being on the decline when they come over.

Unrealistic unfortunately. We don't have the cash in the sport to match the Aussies and our own chairman is leading the campaign to limit players' earnings as far as I can see.

I thought the impetus for this move was the club, not Tomkins, the RFL and sky to a certain extent have done as much as possible to keep Sam in the game, but if we are talking about trebling a salary we cant get near that, there just isnt the cash in the game. But at the end of the day, he has the much vaunted clause that he cant talk to teams till next year, so unless the club are pushing it through............

how does it follow that splashing the cash will have sponsors and fans flocking to the game, we cant get a title sponsor now, there is way more to fix with the game first before we start thinking about scrapping the salary cap and letting clubs spend as much as they want, we have been there before, it didnt work!

where is the cash going to come from?

Perhaps if chairman were allowed to inject the money they want to (koukash, Pearson, Moran etc) then good players come across and crowds/revenue picks up? I know it's a potential risk but as they say you have to speculate to accumulate

If the rumours about Salford are true, KouKash is borrowing the money to prop up salford, he isnt using his own, how sure are we that Moran Pearson actually want to spend thier own money on rudby club, we cant rely on sugar daddies.

most sports outside the pemiershiop have, or are looking at some kind of bugetry control, the money just isnt there anymore unless you are man u

I've heard/read some rather interesting things about Koukash and how he's funding Salford, the rugby league Roman Abramovich image he has created seems to me like a facade.

Wigan did this in the 90s, and by all accounts, nearly bankrupted the club.

Whilst it will be bad for SL when Tomkins signs for NZW as was almost pointed out to all watching Boots N All last night.
There is nothing we can do to prevent it happening.
We simply do not have the money or the sponsorship to compete in Australia.
It was sad to see Sam Burgess and his brothers go.
But we then saw the likes of Hill, Walmsley, Farrell and others come through the ranks into our game.
You guys have your fair share of young talent so we must move on and develop our own home grown players and forget about competing with the money being offered by clubs in Australia.
I`m sure there will be one or two fringe players in Australia wanting to come here to prove themselves especially when they lose their place to the English players going over there.
SL will always breed some great players into our game.

Couldn't agree more , fabulous player that he is , he has along way to go to be compared to the Pearl .

What do fan's want?

On one hand they moan about there being too many overseas players in our game and on the other hand moan about our International team not being good enough as a result of the key position's at many club's being filled by overseas players.

Overseas players and when I say overseas players, I mean those born outside the UK, should be limited to a maximum of four players per club.

I agree they have gone some way to help keep him here, but as you say he could make even more elsewhere. What would you do and how much does our game need him and his like? I understand it’s a lot of money, but there comes a point when they must decide on the way to go with our sport. Do we try to keep players like him, and the greater profile they give to the sport, or do we let them go to Oz or the dark side and let them reap the benefit. We soon will go from the back pages, to the bog pages if they don’t do something.

In an ideal world that would be the case, however until we start getting more kids interested and playing the game, we just don't have the talent pool in this country. Ok, for Wigan, we'd be fine as our youth system is one of, if not the best in the country, but for some teams their survival is based on imported players.

There's real merit in the youth player idea. Places like London will struggle but they'e a different animal altogether. However clubs need to know best how to nurture these kids and get them ready for SL. We're finally trying to get things sorted in Hull and it makes a fine change. I don't know about over in wigan but we have had great amateur teams that have a good tradition of bringing young kids through their ranks but we haven't managed to do that in past years. Wigan always have a good crop of local talent and the RFL need to look at the clubs who are good at it and roll it out amongst other clubs. However this may be too sensible for the RFL to try!

Wigan don't have anywhere near the numbers of young talented players that the city of Hull have.
Trouble is for Hull they had a hopeless management who mustn't have seen the potential all these young lads provide. To bring the best out of them they need good coaches at junior level.
Now they have new managment and if they give that aspect of their business the attention it needs and deserves then they might bring through quality young players in vast numbers. With Lineham and Crooks they appear to have made a very good start.
Wigan's problem is at the opposite end. We have vast numbers of young players but are struggling to keep our experienced men.