The thing with owners in RL is it is different from being an owner in football....you don't need to have £200 million to make an impact, £10 million will turn a rugby club around, so its open to far more potential investors, there will be wealthy British businessmen that like sport that could come in and do it we don't need to just go begging Russian oligarchs and Saudi oil sheikhs.

thats a good point actually. there must be plenty of millionaire businessmen out there who have an ambition to own a top level sports club, but cant get into football anymore.

how do we attract them to RL though?

It doesn't matter about the rights and wrongs of increasing the Cap.
More clubs vote to keep it as it is than increase it.
We need to improve that problem.

I can see the point in the cap in terms of:

1) Stopping clubs from spending more than they can sustain on their income
2) Preventing 1 club with a rich owner hoovering up all the talent just to stop them plaing for anyone else

However, I believe what's (potentially) happening now with RU sniffing round RL players is a situation where the cap should be irrelevant.

If we could afford to keep JT (and likewise Saints with Lomax, Wire with anyone in their team), where is the advantage to those teams in allowing them to exceed the cap in relation to those players who they have brought through their own youth system? Joel & Sam play for Wigan already, it's not like exceeding the cap to sign Lomax.

The counter argument is, effectively, that despite clubs being able to pay players their market rate, it's better for the whole of the game if they are lost to RL, in order that 'equality' is maintained. And that makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Maybe with the richer clubs to stop them 'hoovering up' the talent you are allowed so many players on say an A pay rate, then so many on a B pay rate and so many on a C pay rate, i'll be honest i haven't thought this post through.

I dont think if you double the Salary Cap we would not stop players from RL going to Union .The International stage is a bigger draw to the players . Union players can make more money away from the game with TV /Magazine ads etc .IMHO this should be scrapped in RL aginst the SC so a player could make money away from the game as long as the club is not paying for it and does not intefere with playing and training for his club.This would take a huge pressure off players financially and earnings away from is a restriction of their rights thought up by a big wig in RL HQ and IMO if taken to court would be overturned.In the meantime we will just have to keep bringing the young players through sign them on long term contracts and let them sign for Union paying the clubs compensation.

An idea maybe is for a marquee signning not to count on the cap. You can pay 1 player in your team whatever you can afford . That does not count on the cap. That would gurantee that you keep Sam at Wigan for a few years and allows more money to go to the rest of the sqaud. So you could pay others tempted to go to union a bit more in the hope you persuade them to stay.

Also it will not become a free for all and leave anyside disadvantaged on the cap.

I'd say it should be for a player(s) who have come through the youth system rather than a "marquee" player. Look at the Storm in Oz where they had players like Cronk, Slater, Smith, Inglis and Folau all come through their youth system and then they broke the salary cap when they tried to pay them what they were worth. Then the sport as a whole ended up losing Folau to ARL.

In my opinion if your youth system has managed to produce so many players that become stars at the top level then you should be allowed to keep them. Developing players from the age of 13/14 in to international players costs alot of time and money, and at the minute the clubs just have to sit back and watch as other clubs/sports come in and poach these players because their hands are tied when it comes to paying them.

If nothing is done then this will soon happen again with Charnley, Sam, Farrell, Mossop, Lomax, Gaskell, Briscoe, Hall etc etc, especially now that England RU will be looking for quick fixes after the recent world cup.

Well it is a bit loose to say they came through Melbourne's youth system. Melbourne was their first professional club but those guys are all Queenslanders that came through the Queensland Cup competition and were signed as professionals by Melbourne. But there is a valid point on the Melbourne Storm situation - those were all outstanding players and how come clubs like Brisbane, N Q Cowboys etc did not pick them up as juniors? The Storm's scouting network must have gone looking in Queensland for undiscovered talent and given it a shot in the NRL and they should be rewarded for it. Matt King was also on the outer as well working as a binman because he wasn't on the books of a professional club, and they found him....so the Storm were superb at unearthing talent...

What about exemption from the cap for young players considered to be International or future international (England Knights) standard. Could be a solution to keep RU away from the best young talent. They don't throw money at developing or good/average (but useful) players, they come in for the young lads destined for glory.

So make a statement by saying, if you can be good enough to get into the international set-up then you can get that nice big wage packet you are contemplating elsewhere?

EDIT: I see this is already kind of been suggested, I should have read past page two...

Amen to that!

This fella has hit the nail on the head completely.

Too many teams in Super League. Not enough money. Not enough talent. Result? Mediocre competition (the same four teams have won the SL) and clubs going bust (Crusaders). Where is talent going to come from if our elite players are being poached from the NRL/Union? And how are we going to produce enough talent to fill those voids left not only by players cherry picked by other rival competitions, but also for the NRL players we can no longer afford? A market Ian Lenagan has described as 'largely dead'. It's not sustainable.

Cut the Super League by two teams. We'd have more money to spread across the clubs and more talent. 14 teams is FAR too many for RL, at the moment. Rugby Union only has 12 teams. We have an increased TV deal and record profits made at the RFL that could be better spread across fewer teams. Say to clubs for the next round of franchises that we're selecting the elite 12 teams in RL from either competition - the rest play in the Championship. Re-introduce promotion/relegation and let's build from there.

Restructure, currently top three leagues have a combined number of 35 team

SL- 10 teams

Off this years standings
1.Wire
2.Wigan
3.Saints
4.Hudds
5.Leeds
6.Catalans
7.Hull FC
8.Hull KR
9.Castleford
10.Bradford

Next we have championship 12 sides

1.Salford
2.Quins
3.Wakefield
4.Crusaders(for this discussion forgetting their situation)
6. Featherstone
7. Leigh
8. Batley
9. Sheffield
10. Widnes
11. Halifax
12. Hunslet

But we have a kind of P&R

Next division down has 14 teams.

SL has a top 5 playoff for the GF
6th place stays in the league

7th, 8th, 9th and 10th go in to a relegation playoff 7v10 8v9 winners stay up both losers go in to a game loser goes in to a P&R one off game

Championship have a top 6 playoff winner of that system go in to a P&R game.

If the team isn't good enough to beat the loser of SL then they are not ready but at least they have a chance of going up.

10 team SL means the talent is condensed hopefully creating a better game and creating more interest, then bring in a system in which you have a salary cap as such but it's based on what you earn, so Wigan having the most fans would be able to spend X amount of pounds but are capped on % on income, so if you want to spend more you have to come up with ways of earning more ie marketing, improving facilities, hiring stadium out etc.

You are still capped to some extent but teams like Wigan and Leeds would be able to spend more than Hudds and if Hudds want to spend more then try to make more.

I don't have a problem with the top clubs being able to spend within their means - i.e. a solvency-based salary cap. I also don't have a problem with excluding 3rd party payments to players from the cap. Why shouldn't Sam Tomkins be able to earn a lot extra from advertisers if it helps keep him?

The reality is we're a 4/5 team competition anyway. Keep the rest solvent by all means, but most don't spend anywhere near the cap anyway so it hardly matters what the actual cap level is (some spend 30-40% at best).

That would improve the domestic product imo. The playoff systems you mentioned would need a little working out but im sure it can be done. P&L needs to return in some form for me, the teams at the bottom are just hanging around doing jack so other teams should be allowed to have a crack.