That's why we should be looking at the young talent in London and Wales who are now becoming league players first and foremost and paying them a decent wage and offering good career prospects.

Or we could just give up.

If you are saying the cap should increase or have no cap i agree but you will have teams on their asses that will be against this saying stuff like 'oh they will chuck big bucks at our best players' but the truth is it happens now with the cap not the cash side but if your playing at Cas and Wigan,Leeds or Saints offer you the same ££ to play for them your not going to turn this down are you?

Will Bryn earn more cash doing what he plans? Maybe but i tell you what he will earn it working 7 days a week none stop players these days train 5 days a week for 5 hours a day on average they get days off and they get a good 3 months break in the off season it's a very good lifestyle which i would put my house on he will miss 12 months down the line

Not all teams can afford it though if you get a scout from one of the big clubs go looking there might be decent players but they compare them to the talent up here when a smaller club would sign them and they could turn into a good player with the right coaching

I wouldn't give up i just think the rfl do a **** poor job of running our sport and i'm taking lol bad

The people at fault here are the RL marketing team.

The on field product is first class. The RFL marketing department fifth class.

Sadly the view of RL as an "inferior" product runs deep.

On London radio last month the commentator compared the Paralympics to the RL World Cup whilst the standard Olympics was the RU World Cup. In fairness to him he was actually using the analagy to promote the Paralympics, but in truth it goes to show the perception of RL in this country.

His talent compared to the likes of say a Lima or a Morely has got nothing to do with it. He is not retiring because he isn't good enough fior SL - he is. The fact it isn't a regular occurrance is not relevant either.

The fact it has happened at all is cause for concern. I dare say the RFL will consider it a one off and brush any concerns under the carpet but don't you think it at least a bit strange that a sport that gets BBC prime time coverage for the CC and is a major part of Sky Sports loses a player to a plastering job?

If another star player had gone to RU on mega-bucks we would all be saying how can we compete with that. What this says is the sport isn't able to offer a level of wages to its regular professional players that can compete with pretty ordinary careers outside of sport. I think that is a very different scenario and more concerning than being outbid by RU or NRL clubs for the likes of Sam T or whoever.

The fact is that sportsmen and women in lots of sports don't earn life changing sums of money , although some do . Someone mentioned boxing , one of the toughest sports in the world and unless your at world level the money offered is pretty poor . In all sports your going to get the top earners and the lower earners . Had Bryn not gone through the Bradford shambles I recon he would still be playing . At 26 he had probable a maximum of six years left . That time would soon fly past then he could take up a career doing something else . The fact he has chosen to retire is probably more a reflection on what he has gone through with Bradford than rugby league as a whole . Sadly he will probable miss the game far more than the game will miss him . Good luck to him whatever he chooses to do .

As DeanoG has pointed out on numerous occasions, the failure to increase the overall level of the CC has led to a very significant decrease in "real terms" income for players over the last 5 years.

Proponents of the CC, (when they weren't spending their time accusing us of adopting a "Pro Wigan, let's return to the 1990's" attitude), argued that the loss of players to RU was not a problem, and that there would always be a "production line" of players to fall back on.

They failed to grasp the real issue that is sadly beginning to materialise now.......

- The level of RL salaries is not only detering people from bothering to take up the game as a profession in the first place, but it seems are even low enough to result in current professionals quiting the game half way through their careers.

In the case of BH, if this was for a job in the city where he could be earning millions then it would be understandable, but, and with all due respect to plasterers, it isn't............


Forget RU "poaching" players, I believe this situation highlights the real cancer that is the CC.

Bryn is living in fantasy land, because of what went on at the bulls he's decided to jack it all in? He could easy earn £50,000 a year at Salford, Wakefield or Widnes yet he leaving to get a plasterers job?

Good move, with all due respect if your a plasterer on the tools especially in this recession your really going to struggle. Moving to the construction industry he's going to have to deal with the same that went on at Bradford a good few more times on a hell of a lot less money working 8 till 430 mon to fri all year round.

He's moving abroad and I really can's see him moving abroad to be a plasterer.

Hope for his sake he hasn't burnt his bridges with RL if things don't work out for him abroad. The grass ain't always greener!

so walls outside of the UK don't need plastering?

If a player defects to RU, we just shrug and assume there's nowt we can do about it .... How about if I tell you that a 14 yr old lad, who is well regarded at scholarship levels and is the son of a very high profile ex international RL player, has quit his junior RL team, despite them being top of their league, to concentrate on a career in athletics!!! .... One of the main reasons being that even his father admits he could earn more money from athletics than he would if he were to join a SL team .......

Now, if that doesn't get the RFL worried then I have to assume they don't care anymore ...!