Where is all this money for "central contracts" or the like going to come from?

I was reading last week about the Italian rugby union teams now playing in the Magners League and that their playing budgets are about £6,000,000 per season. Rugby League in its current state cannot financially complete with rugby union and to try to do so would be suicide for the game.

To start with central events such as Madness weekends, semi-finals and internationals all need to be supported across the board by fans of all clubs to generate revenue and funds for the RFL to allow us to even consider competing financially.

As an aside isn't their some irony in RL fans moaning about rugby union poaching players?

Dark room required and a comfy bed.

I agree with everything you have just said.

Only if you don't recognise the difference between the following:

An RU club back in the 1960s/70s being fortunate enough to have a gifted player wanting to represent them, paying him nothing and doing nothing at all to advance his development - and then losing his services when someone else offers him a job.

and

An RL club now, spotting young talent and spending a lot of money and expertise bringing it to its maximum potential, and then, just as it's about to blossom, losing it to another professional code which didn't spot its potential in the first place and certainly didn't pay a penny towards developing it.

There is no similarity between the two. But even if there was, who gives a crap? I care about RL - not past injustices suffered by RU (real or imagined), and I want to see us implement something whereby we can keep the young kids we now seem to be producing again from another code which appears to have more money than sense.

I'll tell you what the real irony is. A Saints fan now appears to have joined Wigan in his concern about RU poaching players - because suddenly it looks as if Eastmond, a Saints player, will be going next. But a Warrington fan still thinks it's a non-issue. Could that be because the game's self-professed 'glamour club' still hasn't developed anyone of its own that RU might be interested in?

Rugby league cannot complete financially with rugby union - get your head around it because it isn't going to change. There are rugby union clubs in Italy that have a budget 50% bigger than Wigan's budget. Perhaps when Wigan have a turnover equivalent to the likes of Leicester Tigers or Northampton Saints then you will be able to retain players under competition from those clubs until then forget. Although lets be honest its hardly a talent drain at the moment is it - rumours from Saints' fans about a player who signed a new contract last year are hardly the most reliable of sources. Beyond an average u20 centre from Wigan who else has been lost to rugby union in the last 24 months?

I'd bet there have been more move the other way.

No one's talking about RL directly competing with RU clubs for star players, this is a red herring. I think everyone accepts that established RL stars are always going to be targets for RU and there's not much we can do about that.

We could make it more difficult for them to lure our younger players away though.

What I want to see is a situation where RL clubs are rich enough to be able to say to a player like Ashton, don't go to union at this stage in your career, it's a big risk, we'll look after you, here's a 4 year contract for 50k per year minimum, rising to 100k if you become a first team regular.
Instead Wigan could only offer him peanuts.

(I'd like to see RL being able to say to players like Ashton - you could gamble with your career and go to RU or you could stay here and be on 100k minimum, rising to 200k if you are a regular in the 1st team. That would really make it a harder decision for him to go at that point. But clubs are a long way away from being able to afford that at the moment).

To make these kind of offers on a regular basis without risking financial insecurity clubs are going to need to increase their revenue substantially. Whilst we are never going to be able match the financial muscle of RU, the current CC, by not encouraging clubs to grow their revenue, means that the gap is much wider than it needs to be. RL clubs are capable of significantly increasing their revenue but are being held back by a lack of ambition fostered by this ridiculous and unfair system.

At the very least the RL should announce its intention raise the CC by 20% at the beginning of the next license period, whilst retaining strict financial monitoring to ensure clubs don't go bust. All this would do is reverse the inflationary erosion of player pay in the last 5 or so years, but it would be a start.

I've heard this sort of stuff numerous times from clubs whose players just don't seem attractive to Rugby Union. Saints used to say the same thing, but the threat to Eastmond is suddenly concentrating certain of their minds.

To start with, we can't compete with Union when it exercises its full financial muscle. Everyone knows that, but we can - as Deano says more eloquently than I do - make it more difficult for agents like Frank Endacott to try and convince their young players that RL is skint and that RU is all cakes and ale.

Not all of these lads want to go to RU. It may just be a matter of tipping the scales a little in our favour. Even if we can't make them overnight millionaires, being able to offer them good, lucrative contracts might be enough to keep them.

But don't be telling us that we haven't lost quality youngsters. Ashton was a very exciting prospect and he'll never now come back. During all the success we've had this year, most have already forgotten Wigan's loss of Ian Thornley. Personally, I don't think he'll be as big a miss as Ashton, but now we'll never know. And he won't be the last.

It's all very well for someone at Warrington to say that we're bleating about nothing, but RU scouts - particularly from Sale, who seem to have latched onto the idea that signing Wigan's kids is the only thing that will save them from oblivion - are circling us all the time. And I mean ALL the time. They're even trying to poach our fans - that's how desperate they are, but they've still got more money to splash around than us, because we're not allowed to spend all the money we've got.

I don't see how anyone who claims to be an RL fan can seriously keep on pretending that RU's endless harassment of young RL players, whose self-interested agents will never see beyond the end of the next big payday, is harmless to our game.

I did state that the RFL and the clubs should do something to protect these players. I am not happy about the time and effort we put into these players for them to sod off. However the money isn't there to compete with the RFU its not and other than tieing these kids down and making them play rugby league theres nothing you can do if they want the money and leave.

I'm not suggesting that there will be another player as talanted as Sam Tomkins, but you can't live in the fear that if these players leave its the end of British Rugby League, because its not, its a bumb but not the end. No player is bigger than the sport, and if a player ever did become bigger than the sport, i would want them out anyway.

I didn't protend it didn't happen either, I quite clearly stated that it does and we should try and stop it.

I'm not living in cloud cookoo land I'm living in the times of modern sport, were loyalty by players and most definately agents are 0 and were players have the power.
I am a Blackburn rovers fan as well as a massive wigan rugby league fan and if I had a pound for everytime a promising players leaves for a bigger club i'd be driving a austin martin. To the players its a job and they want to make money as much as they can, yes we need to make league look more attractive to make them stay but Union has the money and money does talk, loudly.

Let me ask you if you did all your training and started your working life at superdrug and 3 years later boots came along and offered you more money for the same job (if not easier) would you stay loyal to superdrug? if so your a better man than most, because i'd say at least 90% of people would leave for boots.

At the end of the day, the RFL can still and should do more than they currently are doing. To just sit back and say "we can't do anything to stop it" is spineless defeatism.

Warrington players have been approached by rugby union clubs, Ben Harrison for one dismissed them as he is looked after at Warrington. It is just as certain that the Evans brothers who originate from South Wales will also have attracted interest however again Warrington have addressed that threat and have tied them to long contracts.

I see you didn't bother to list all the players Super Leagie has lost to RU in the last 24 months. Here's a bit of news for you - they aren't that interested, they have their own academies.



I think you will find that the vast majority of Super League clubs, including Wigan, are already spend MORE than they've got.

When the Aussie Schools rugby union team played in the north west earlier this year how many SL clubs went to watch to try and spot any talent?

If you want to compete then you need to do so. You like to call Warrington yet they are a club with a number of young players signed from a rugby union background including players recruited as schoolboys from South Wales. Whinging will get nobody anywhere and considering the history of poaching players for over 100 years from rugby union it is rather pathetic. It is up to clubs to be proactive, the RFL is going to be under severe financial pressure in the upcoming years with the withdrawal of all central government funding, they will not have a penny to give to players in competition to rugby union contracts.

You're too kind!

It hardly matters. As you've seen, all kinds of excuses are still being given as to why the RFL should not do anything to keep our young talent in the game.

Thats why sam is on a deal until the end of 2014, he proved himself in 2009 and got a contract

What gets my goat is players in the youth side saying i want this, i want that when they have not proved themselves and are not even next in line for the first team

Other superleague clubs may have to compete with th dark side for some of wigans youth production line but thats not our problem, you cant keep everyone

At the end of the day we can't keep all our young talent and sometimes it may be better for us (as Wigan not RL) to let them go to Union (see Huddersfields win at the DW) However, it is certainly detrimental to the sport as a whole and the RFL should do something to help stop it.